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...
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New cyber regulations smell of Big Brother by N Madhavan
India's Internet community is upset over a recent set of rules under the country's Information Technology Act of 2008 that aims to regulate content on the Web. Used as to much freedom as they are, cyber activists – who include bloggers, tweeters and free-thinking Net freaks – are understandably upset. The rules say that anything libelous, grossly harmful, hateful, racist or ethnically objectionable or disparaging will be covered by the rules....
More »Stupid to abolish PDS, says Plan panel’s Abhijit Sen
-The Indian Express A day after the World Bank suggested that India should shrink its public distribution system (PDS) in favour of more cash transfers, Planning Commission Member (Agriculture) Abhijit Sen told select Mediapersons it would be “stupid to abolish PDS”. A World Bank review of India’s social sector programmes titled “Social protection for a changing India”, commissioned by the Planning Commission, said though the PDS costs just 1 per cent...
More »Draconian rulebook irks netizens
-The Deccan Chronicle India’s department of information technology that functions under the articulate and vociferous minister Kapil Sibal, has quietly pushed through an Act to censor online content. The recently drafted rules that give private arbiters a right to take down objectionable content, free speech advocates say will seriously hamper virtual communications, debate and discussions. In the past in a country, that is the largest democracy, the lawmakers have suggested bans on books,...
More »Outsider in own home, Maharashtra village wrests control of forest produce sale by Jaideep Hardikar
If the problems are macro, think micro. That seems to have been the guiding principle for Lekha-Mendha, the Maharashtra village that last month became the first in India to win the right to grow, harvest and sell bamboo. Such rights are the key goal of a five-year-old central law which aims to give tribal communities control over some resources of the jungles they live in. “There is no point in looking out...
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