-PTI TRAI had earlier invited public comments to firm up its views over services that lead to differential pricing of data. January 14 was the last day for countercomments. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) only received 21 comments from individuals and organisations countering 24 lakh submissions over its paper on differential pricing of data, a key aspect of net neutrality. Telecom operators, including Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications, through...

-Business Standard Deflation in manufacturing continues, food inflation picks up Wholesale price index (WPI)-based deflation persisted for a 14th straight month in December, the index dropping 0.7 per cent as compared to one of almost two per cent in November. However, food inflation rose to 8.17 per cent, the steepest in 17 months, from 5.2 per cent. This was on more expensive vegetable and non-vegetarian items, prompting economists to say the Reserve Bank...

-Hindustan Times Washington: Mark Zuckerberg’s Free Basics, the free but restrictive internet service that has run into trouble with Indian authorities, has picked up yet another opponent, the World Bank. Its World Development Report released Wednesday called Free Basics, which is a part of Facebook’s internet.org initiative, the “antithesis of net neutrality and a distortion of markets”. The bank is not opposing Free Basics specifically, or its Indian rollout. It believes any attempt...

-The Hindu With 610 deaths in just two months, State records highest ever suicides by farmers. Mumbai: Suicides by farmers touched a grim high in 2015. The year that had recorded 2,590 suicides until October -- the higher ever since 2001 -- went on to register 610 more deaths in just the last two months. The death toll on December 31, 2015 stood at 3,228, indicating that the slew of measures the...

-The Hindu The public now sees the Internet not just in market terms, but as a social phenomenon that requires public interest regulation. In its aggressive campaign for Free Basics, couched in simplistic developmental language, Facebook underestimated the political sophistication of the Indian public. It must be regretting it now. The social networking service’s reportedly Rs. 100-crore campaign, through double full-page newspaper advertisements, billboards and television, appears simply to have congealed public...