“Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.” This quote by US President Ronald Reagan summarises the significance attributed to facts, figures and data and the need to make them freely available across servers and bandwidths. In this age of internet and mobile networks, the amount of information available to us is far more than...

Bangalore-based lawyer Sajan Poovayya is an outside counsel to Google Inc. and other internet companies who have been sued in India for content on their Web sites that users or authorities deem objectionable. Having been through many such cases, he’s in a good position to assess how a new set of controversial Indian internet regulations affect the landscape. His verdict: the rules are sloppy, vague, perhaps unconstitutional, and wind up exposing...

The Centre for internet & Societies (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO, recently filed an RTI query with the Department of Information Technology (DIT), asking for a list of websites blocked by the Indian government under the IT Act. The department handed them a list of 11 websites. It was just one department’s list, but this was the first time such a list was being made public. “The information given was not...

Washington-based Freedom Institute has expressed concern over the decreasing freedom of expression on the internet in India. The Institute, which put India in the company of states like China, Egypt and Iran which saw a deterioration of freedom of expression on the internet since the 2009 report, highlighted the tightening of surveillance and prosecution of online posts. India’s freedom index declined from 34 in 2009 to 36 in 2011, reflecting the...

-Headlines Today Bureau   Google Inc has reportedly told Indian regulators in a confidential memo that the country's proposed restrictions on internet content could seriously hamper its international trade. Google has so far failed to convince the government on these web content restrictions. According to the Wall Street Journal, the new Indian rules ban websites from publishing certain types of content. Also, there are specifications for the removal of such content within 36...