Indian politicians appear too sensitive on how they're portrayed online. Why else would government agencies inundate Google - with an estimated 100 million users in India - with requests to remove content, especially those showing political leaders in bad light. Kapil Sibal's suggestion for pre-screening online content may have sparked controversy today, but when it comes to post-screening law enforcement agencies in India have been active. They regularly approach Internet service...
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Govt faceoff brewing with Facebook, others
-The Times of India Tension is brewing once again between the government and internet and social media companies over the telecom and IT ministry's demands to screen user content and remove offensive material before it is uploaded. Sources said over the last three months the government has been in talks with these firms to put in place a monitoring mechanism. On Monday, telecom & IT minister Kapil Sibal met executives from the...
More »Defamation and Its Real Dangers
-The Economic and Political Weekly Media freedom is not restricted by one law but by collusion between economic and political power and big media. The Defamation case filed in a Pune court by former Press Council chairman justice P B Sawant has drawn attention to the criminal law of Defamation and whether it restricts the freedom of the press. Justice Sawant was awarded Rs 100 crore in exemplary damages in the case...
More »Media and key issues raised by Markandey Katju by S Viswanathan
Markandey Katju's forthright comments on the state of the Indian news media and the intellectual competence of many journalists have certainly raised many hackles. One does not have to agree with everything the chairman of the Press Council of India diagnoses or prescribes to see that his observations have hit home. Nor are his concerns confined to how and in what respects journalism and many journalists go astray and let...
More »H for Hitler
-The Indian Express Hitler Didi, Zee TV’s new show about a serious-minded young woman, is entirely innocent of world history — but that did not deter the Anti-Defamation League, a US-based organisation that fights anti-Semitism everywhere. “The name Hitler doesn’t belong in a soap opera, and we think the producers of this programme have made a terrible error in judgement that can only be remedied with a title change,” said an...
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