What to Read in The Hindu Editorial( Topic and Syllabus wise)

Editorial 1: Spectacle, privacy and sharing in the digital age

Context

The Coldplay episode should serve as a catalyst for critical reflection on media ethics, platform accountability, and the evolving nature of spectatorship in the digital age

Introduction

On a warm evening in Boston, a Coldplay concert unexpectedly became the backdrop for a moment that echoed far beyond the music. During a seemingly playful “kiss-cam” segment, the camera zoomed in on two individuals — the CEO of Astronomer and the company’s HR director. Their visibly surprised reactions, recorded by an audience member on a smartphone, quickly sparked a digital uproar. Within hours, the clip went viral, fuelling rampant speculation about a suspected extramarital affair. Both parties were married, and the online storm ultimately led to the CEO’s resignation. The situation worsened as fake apologies and manipulated posts circulated, turning a brief moment of awkwardness into a global debate on morality and digital conduct.

The deeper issues

• Tabloid vs. Truth: While the Coldplay concert momentmay appear to be gossip fodder, it reveals deeper tensions around privacy, morality, and digital spectacle in an increasingly connected world.
• Media Ethics: It forces us to interrogate media practices, especially when private discomfortis converted into viral entertainment and moral commentary.
• Lateral Surveillance(Mark Andrejevic): This reflects the rise of peer-to-peer monitoring, where ordinary individuals use digital tools to record, share, and judge one another — a feature of participatory culture, distinct from top-down surveillance.
• Surveillance Capitalism(Shoshana Zuboff): Social media platforms like Instagram and X are designed to amplify content that is emotionally charged and morally ambiguous, prioritising engagement over ethical restraint.
• Algorithmic Amplification: The video’s virality wasn’t rooted in truth, but in its ability to evoke curiosity and moral outrage— a pattern routinely exploited by platform algorithms.
• Indian Parallels: Similar incidents in India, like the 2023 Delhi Metro video, often involve trolling, moral policing, and public shaming, especially targeting women and marginalised individuals.
• Consent vs. Visibility: Just because someone is visible in publicdoes not mean they have consented to be made part of a global digital narrative. Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory explains that privacy is about context, not just secrecy.
• Digital Vigilantism(Daniel Trottier): The public’s online reaction morphs into a form of informal justice, where users act as moral enforcers, often based on speculation, and with lasting consequences.

The issue of verification

• Legacy Media’s Role: The Coldplay incidenthighlights a troubling trend — news outlets, driven by social media momentum, often amplify viral stories without rigorous verification. In this case, coverage of the CEO’s resignation echoed online speculation with little independent inquiry.
• Verification Crisis: The reversal of journalism’s core principle — where publication precedes verification— poses serious ethical challenges. It raises a crucial question: should private citizens face public scrutiny based solely on unverified digital content?
• Platform Algorithms: Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Xare designed to boost emotionally provocative content, prioritising virality over accuracy. This algorithmic design magnifies misinformation and moral outrage.
• Mediated Interaction(Nancy Baym): Media theorist Nancy Baym notes that platforms influence not only what we consume but also how we behave — encouraging performance and reaction, rather than reflection and nuance.
• Structural Vulnerabilities in India: In the Indian context, where digital literacyvaries widely and social hierarchies based on caste, gender, and religion remain entrenched, digital exposure often leads to targeted abuse. Viral clips of Dalit or tribal creators frequently trigger casteist trolling, turning visibility into vulnerability.
• Reputational Harm vs. Facts: As seen in the Coldplay case, reputational damagecan move faster than the truth, with real-life consequences emerging long before facts are established.
• Inadequate Legal Safeguards: While laws around privacyand defamation exist, they are ill-equipped to handle the borderless and algorithmic nature of online harm. Enforcement gaps, especially in cross-jurisdictional contexts, leave victims with little recourse.

Reflect on digital behaviour

• Digital Ethics Awareness: First, we need to cultivate public understandingof the ethical implications of sharing content online. What feels harmless or entertaining to one person may cause real harm to another. Empathy and digital responsibility should be integral to everyday choices.
• Education for Empathy: Schools and communitiesmust embed digital ethics education, encouraging self-restraint, critical thinking, and sensitivity from an early age. Awareness must extend beyond laws to include moral literacy.
• Platform Accountability: Tech companies must take stronger responsibilityfor moderating morally ambiguous content. There’s a pressing need for design solutions — such as flagging systems, contextual prompts, or slowing virality — that address the harm potential of sensitive media.
• Journalistic Integrity: News organisationsmust return to their gatekeeping role, ensuring that verification, proportionality, and ethical judgment outweigh the temptation of virality. Journalism must inform, not amplify speculation.
• User Self-Reflection: Most critically, each of us must reflect on our personal rolein digital culture. The difference between witnessing and exposing is often subtle, but the consequences are not. Our decisions to record, share, or comment ripple far beyond the screen.

Conclusion

The Coldplay kiss-cam incident is not an isolated event but rather a symptom of a larger cultural transformation, where spectacle often takes precedence over empathy. As both India and the global community navigate the challenges of the digital age, we are compelled to ask: do we envision a society that turns every experience into content, or one that upholds compassion and accountability? Our online actions mirror our ethical values. In an era where any individual in a crowd can become instantly viral, the morality of sharing demands serious introspection. It is only through conscious and responsible participation that we can cultivate a digital environment rooted in respect and human dignity.

 

Editorial 2: ​​Boost the capacity of legal aid systems

Context

Without these resources, the system falls short of providing the quality of justice enshrined in the Constitution

Introduction

Legal services institutions, established under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, are entrusted with the responsibility of delivering free legal aid to nearly 80% of India’s population. However, their actual impact remains limited. Between April 2023 and March 2024, only 15.50 lakh individuals accessed legal aid — a figure still far from the intended scale, despite a 28% increase from the 12.14 lakh served the previous year.

• These institutions typically operate from front offices attached to local courts, prisons, and juvenile justice boards, providing free legal counselthrough panels of empanelled lawyers to economically disadvantaged individuals, persons in custody, and other vulnerable groups.
• In rural and remote regions, legal aid clinicscater to clusters of villages. According to the India Justice Report 2025, there is one legal service clinic for every 163 villages across the country.
• The reach and effectiveness of these services, however, are closely tied to the availability of financial and human resources.

Budget for legal aid

• Low Budget Share: Legal aid accounts for less than 1%of the total justice system budget (which includes police, prisons, judiciary, and legal aid combined).
• Funding Structure: Legal aid is funded by both State governmentsand the Central government through the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), which allocates funds to State Legal Services Authorities (SLSAs).
• Budget Growth: Between 2017–18 and 2022–23, total legal aid funding across 25 Statesnearly doubled — from ₹601 crore to ₹1,086 crore.
• State Contributions: This increase was mainly due to State-led budget expansion, which rose from ₹394 crore to ₹866 crore. Thirteen Statesmore than doubled their allocations, notably Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh.
• Decline in NALSA Support: In contrast, NALSA’s central fundingfell from ₹207 crore to ₹169 crore over the same period.
• Reduced Fund Utilisation: The utilisation rateof NALSA funds also dropped — from 75% in 2017–18 to 59% in 2022–23.
• Expenditure Restrictions (NALSA Manual 2023): The NALSA Manual for District Legal Services Authorities (2023)restricts State Legal Services Authorities (SLSAs) from using central funds on certain items without prior approval. Prohibited expenses include:
  • Hiring project or front office staff
  • Vehicle and equipmentpurchase or rental
  • Hiring outsourced personnel
  • Costs related to victim compensation
  • Food distributionor tree plantation activities
• Mandated Fund Allocation: The manual mandates a categorical spending ceiling:
  • 50%for legal aid and legal advice
  • 25%for legal awareness and outreach
  • 25%for Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) and mediation
• Per Capita Legal Aid Spending:
  • Since 2019, national per capita spendingon legal aid has more than doubled, from around ₹3 to ₹7.
  • In 2022–23, the highest per capita spendwas in Haryana (₹16).
  • Below-average spendersincluded:
    • Jharkhandand Assam (₹5)
    • Uttar Pradesh(₹4)
    • Bihar(₹3)
    • West Bengal(₹2)
  • The national averagestood at approximately ₹6 per capita.

A shrinking frontline

• Frontline Impact of Budget Gaps: Low fiscal prioritisation, coupled with underutilisation of legal aid funds, directly affects frontline workers— especially para-legal volunteers (PLVs) who play a critical role in community legal awareness, dispute resolution, and connecting citizens with services.
• Sharp Decline in PLVs: Between 2019 and 2024, the number of para-legal volunteersdropped by nearly 38%. The national average fell from 7 to 3.1 per lakh population by 2023. States like West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh had just 1 PLV per lakh population.
• Training vs. Deployment Gap: In 2023–24, out of 53,000 trained PLVs, only 14,000 were deployed. In comparison, 2019–20saw 63,000 trained and 22,000 deployed, indicating a significant drop in utilisation over time.
• Honorariums Below Minimum Wages: Most States continue to pay below-minimum wagedaily rates to PLVs. As of March 31, 2023:
  • Kerala: ₹750 per day (highest)
  • 22 States: ₹500 per day
  • 3 States: ₹400 per day
  • Gujarat, Meghalaya, Mizoram: ₹250 per day — insufficient for basic daily expenses
• LADC Scheme Rollout: Since 2022, NALSA launched the Legal Aid Defence Counsel (LADC)scheme, focusing on accused persons only (unlike the earlier model that included victims). It is inspired by the public defender model.
• LADC Coverage & Funding:
  • Currently active in 610 out of 670 districts
  • In 2023–24, ₹200 crore was fully utilisedfor LADCs
  • In 2024–25, the allocation fellto ₹147.9 crore
• Potential of the LADC Model: The scheme is expected to:
  • Provide dedicated, quality legal representation
  • Reduce burdenon general legal aid lawyers
  • Help streamlinelegal aid delivery
    However, it remains a work in progress, and it’s too early to determine its long-term success.

Conclusion

While States are gradually increasing their allocations for legal aid, persistent challenges — including uneven service quality, weak accountability, and low public trust — continue to hamper its overall effectiveness. Many of these issues can be addressed through greater investment in funding and human resources. Strengthening the capacity and infrastructure of the legal aid system is crucial to ensuring it functions as a truly effective instrument of justice. Without such support, the system remains ill-equipped to deliver the constitutional promise of equal access to justice.