The Digital India Mission, launched by the NDA government, aims to connect 2.5 lakh village panchayats with high speed broadband internet by December, 2016 so that citizens can access online services. However, available facts reveal that this is a difficult task to be accomplished. In rural areas, among the youth aged 14-29 about 82 percent do not know how to operate a computer. In urban areas, nearly 51 percent of youth...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: There is widespread support for net neutrality on the government's citizen engagement platform mygov.in where a majority of people have voiced their concerns against zero-rated plans. There are nearly 70,000 comments on the website with just a day to go before the end of the participative process and most of these seek unfettered and non-discriminatory access to the internet. "Telecom should not define policy. Net neutrality...

-The Hindu Legal researcher Usha Ramanathan speaks about the the modified draft Bill which continues to raise several critical concerns relating to privacy, ethical usage of DNA samples and DNA database. This week, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) uploaded a slightly modified draft of the Human DNA Profiling Bill on its website, opening up the controversial Bill, now tabled in Parliament, for public scrutiny. Legal researcher Usha Ramanathan, a member of the Committee...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre is in the process of drafting a legislation that will guarantee protection to individuals against breach of their privacy through unlawful means, minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh informed Rajya Sabha on Thursday. The ministry of personnel has been working on a right to privacy law for some years now, with the first draft released in 2011. The law seeks to protect individuals...

-IBNLive.com The Report 'Democracy in India: A Citizen's Perspective' tries to assess people's understanding and perception towards democracy. It is a part of a comparative study (State of Democracy in South Asia) of five South Asian countries that include, besides India - Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The first round of the SDSA was conducted in 2005 and a report based on it was published by Oxford University Press in...