The IT (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, drafted to protect intermediaries, now appear to be a tool that can be used to harass them. EIGHT years ago, the chief executive officer of an auction portal was put behind bars because a user put an obscene MMS clip up for sale on the site. This sparked a demand from intermediaries, the entities that provide services enabling the delivery of online content to end-users,...

-The Economist UNDER a thatched roof, lit by a full, yellow moon, Shiv Kumari explains how she and her five children survive. She is a widow, 30 years old, living in a home made of packed mud. She works the nearby fields, draws a small pension, some food rations and gets a few days of paid labour each month from a rural make-work scheme. Semra village, made up of 70 households, most...

-The Telegraph   Bengal’s criminal investigation department (CID) has written to Facebook in its efforts to track down those responsible for uploading four Internet pictures lampooning chief minister Mamata Banerjee. If the CID persists with the drive, it will mean that the government is keen to take its crackdown beyond the circulation of unpalatable digital content and to its very source of origin. The CID’s cyber crime cell had earlier written to Facebook and...

The housing and houselisting census data do not paint a rosy picture of India in terms of basic amenities for its households. The data on household amenities and assets, released recently by the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, are a stark reminder of the immense disparities that exist in India in terms of basic entitlements such as electricity, sanitation facilities, proper drainage, and clean drinking and...

-The Business Standard E-waste disposal cannot ignore the informal sector The deadline for the enforcement of new electronic waste (e-waste) management norms is just a month or so away. And yet, most of the sector’s stakeholders seem quite unprepared. The E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011, notified almost a year ago as coming into effect from May 1 this year, require producers of electronic and white goods to take back their products...