Privacy Law and the play of words
The President had to travel to attend a meeting with the soldiers serving the nation at the border for an occasion. However, he did not end up attending the meeting due to intrusion threats in that region from the country with a common border (considered as an enemy country). The enemy country has had a long unresolved border dispute and often intrude or enable terrorist organizations to intrude into EMUSIA. His trip was shortened and he returned back to the capital SAMPI. Among others, the incident was considered a failure of security protocols of the President and failure of defence intelligence regarding the advancement of the enemy forces. After his return, the Defence ministry had initiated an inquiry into this incident.
In this context, the president called Tenali asking him to provide advice on key issues that need to be examined besides only looking at it as security protocol failure or intelligence failure. Tenali agreed to come back with a report on the subject after consulting with Defence and Intelligence chiefs. However, he did not respond on the subject for a few weeks. The President was keen to have Tenali's perspective, while he was receiving a lot of reports from the Defence Ministry. The President's mobile calls to Tenali went unanswered. The President ordered his team to ensure that a meeting with Tenali was set up that evening. The team also organized the meeting. Tenali arrived at the meeting venue.
The President asked Tenali, "Tenali, What is the status of the report I had required you to work on? Are there any challenges? You have not been responding to this for weeks now?
Tenali replied "Sir, I have been working hard to ensure that adequate details are collected to provide you with the report. However, I have not been able to collect all the information required."
The President asked, "The Defence and Intelligence Chiefs are saying that you have not been in contact with them. You are saying you could not gather information. What is the issue with Tenali?"
Tenali replied "Sir, you are right. I could not connect with the defence and intelligence chief, as I was thinking of perfect words to put together to ask them the right question to them"
The President was aghast with the reply and expressed "what? You are putting together the right question to ask for 3 weeks?"
Tenali responded "Yes sir". The President said "It seems like an absolute waste of time Tenali and you seem to be inconsiderate about the life impact for our citizen due to such an intrusion. It’s a threat to the safety and wellbeing of the citizens of the country. I am surprised with your approach to this problem"
Tenali further added "I have created over 5000 pages of questions leveraging a large team of specialists to analyse the intrusion incident sir. However, I could not arrive at a conclusion on which choice of words were important to precisely request Defence and Intelligence Chiefs about the incident"
The President was angry now and raised his voice and shouted "Tenali, there is a limit to excuses. These lame excuses are unproductive and essentially detrimental to the welfare of people. All you had to do was to examine the issue in question, identify the spots where immediate action needs to be taken and provide advice on areas where long term solutions are required along with the indicative plan of actions for the same."
Tenali responded "Sorry sir. I got inspired by the law ministry who are working on the Privacy regulation". The President replied with annoyed tone "What inspiration you got from them?". Tenali replied "Sir, they are working on privacy regulation for over 6 yrs since the time the initial bill was released. They have been consulting with special committees and parliamentarians in appropriate word choices in the law." The President asked "so? what about it?". Tenali added "I thought the work I was doing and the work they were doing were both to ensure the safety and security of the citizens. One from Corporate exploitation of personal data, and another from intrusion by enemy country. Hence followed Law ministry's approach to the work I was doing too"
The President calmed down and knew what Tenali was hinting. The President called the law minister and required him to ensure the Privacy regulation was presented in the upcoming parliamentary session.