-The Telegraph  It is still not clear why the rules are suddenly taken down New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government has again fumbled with a hot potato in another attempt to regulate social media content. On Wednesday, the ministry of electronics & information technology (MeitY) published draft rules that proposed the formation of an appeals panel that could veto content takedown on social media platforms — which would possibly make India the first...

-TheWire.in The queries pertain to the safeguards in place to check state surveillance, the extent to which state surveillance is justified and seek suggestions on how to strengthen cyber security and balance individual rights with national security interests. New Delhi: The expert committee appointed by the Supreme Court to probe the alleged use of Pegasus spyware against journalists, opposition politicians, judges and others, has sought comments from the public on 11 queries...

-The Hindu Does the JPC adopted bill fail to protect individuals against Government agencies? The story so far: The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) constituted to examine India’s proposed data protection law, the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, released its report on Monday. It contains a number of suggestions that could strengthen the final law, among others, a recognition that promotion of the digital economy cannot take precedence over the protection of citizen...

-TheWire.in The 'Freedom of the Net', an annual report that analyses the state of human rights in the digital sphere, found plenty to object to in the Indian context. New Delhi: “Where democratic checks and balances are lacking, government officials will exploit regulation to punish any company that moderates politicians’ speech, or pushes back against arbitrary orders to remove content or hand over data.” These lines come from Freedom House’s latest edition of...

-KafilaOnline Blog On June 18 (Sunday evening in India), freedom-loving people across the world were shocked by the revelations of how a highly sophisticated and expensive digital technology, named Pegasus, a spyware sold by Israeli company NSO Group, has been systematically abused for years to spy on journalists, human rights defenders, academics, businesspeople, lawyers, doctors, union leaders, diplomats, politicians and even several heads of states. Regimes in several countries continue to...