-The Statesman Assembly elections in the States of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and the Union Territory of Puducherry to be held between 27 March and 29 April come at a time the prestigious US-based Freedom House report has lowered India’s rank from a “free” to a “partially free” country and Sweden’s V-Dem Institute which once described India as the world’s largest democracy as an “electoral autocracy.” The government can either...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Parliament proceedings: Government welcomes dissent on social media, says Ravi Shankar Prasad
-The Hindu ‘Issue is not of use of social media, it is of abuse and misuse of social media’. Union Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Thursday that climate activist Disha Ravi’s arrest was based on law and order and it is under judicial process. He added that the House should consider “should some people abuse social media internationally to defame India to promote secessionism.” Replying to a question...
More »The New IT Rules Are a Hodgepodge of Hamfisted Regulations -Jawhar Sircar
-TheWire.in This new government oversight for streaming service content and online digital news is, put simply, an overkill. Recent media reports note that the Supreme Court has observed that the new OTT (over the top technology) rules have no teeth, going on to add that some platforms even show pornography in the absence of effective oversight. It has, therefore, directed the government to present rules that are more effective. One expected that the Indian...
More »New IT rules -- Kerala High Court restrains Centre
-The Hindu Online legal news portal Live Law challenges regulations. The Kerala High Court on March 10 restrained the Centre from taking coercive action against Live Law Media Private Ltd., which owns a legal news portal, for any non-compliance with Part III of the new IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The court issued notice to the Centre on a petition filed by the firm challenging the rules regulating...
More »Provision for blocking content under new IT rules not new: Centre
-The Hindu It has been exercised for the past 11 years, clarifies I&B Ministry The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Saturday clarified that no “new provision” had been added to the existing law, after uproar over a provision of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, under which the Secretary of the Ministry can block public access to any information in case of emergency. “Certain misgivings...
More »