Internet censorship in India

Recently, i came across an article on wikipedia about Internet censorship in India. It was an interesting reading. After doing little study on it, here are main point for you...

The Government of India some years back established the Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-IN, as a means to monitor all incoming and outgoing Internet traffic from India. The primary purpose of CERT-IN is to handle Internet security and many institutions and agencies are allowed to call on it, including the home affairs ministry, courts, the intelligence services, the police and the head of the National Human Rights Commission.

In 2001, the Bombay High Court appointed a Committee to oversee issues relating to cyber pornography and Cybercrime.

Instances of censorship in India:

In the wake of the Kargil War in 1999, the website of Dawn Newspaper was blocked from access within India by Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited. , a government-owned telecommunications company which at the time had monopoly control of the international Internet gateways in India.
The first documented incident of Internet censorship in India was the Yahoo groups ban of 23rd September 2003. Kynhun, a Yahoo group linked to the outlawed "Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council,", a minor separatist group from the North-Eastern state of Meghalaya, which espoused the case of the Khasi tribe was banned.
The second reported incident of Internet censorship is the Indian Government's censorship of 17 websites including some blogs starting July 1, 2006.
The leading Indian website rediff has dropped bulletin boards on all news items relating to the Glasgow attacks and other stories related with terrorism . This order is supposed to be a self censorship based on guidelines from the government .

Internet telephony services in India without a proper license:
Companies such as Skype, Yahoo, MSN, Net2Phone and Google are facing government scrutiny on payment of service tax through the provision of illegal Internet telephony services.

ISPAI (ISP Association of India) had alleged that an ISP license or a unified access services license (UASL) is required to provide Internet telephony, which these firms do not possess. This means that the alleged offenders neither pay service tax (as there is no billing for such calls in India), or the 6% AGR or even the 0.75% of AGR to be paid as ADC. ISPAI had also pointed out that these companies were also violating the security norms governing telecom licenses.

Mr. Kusumba S from vebtel.com an IP telephony company based in Hyderabad, India says:

"ISPs donot have any objection for the FREE pc to pc services provided by those companies mentioned above. However, ISPs DO have objection for their paid PC to Phone services in India as ISPs take license from DoT and pay Revenue share @ 6% to DoT for providing Internet Telephony Services.

Hence, the services provided by above not only are competing with the licenses services in India, but are also National Security threat to India, since, the above mentioned service used encrypted voice transmissions that are beyond the scope of Indian licensing terms."

Mr. AMIT Singh from Times Groups ( one of the largest media services in India ) says:

"Google, skype, Yahoo, MSN, Vonage, Dialpad, Net2phone,Peoplecall and so many illegal gray providers are violating the LAW, destroying the competitive land-scape and posing a serious risk to national security. The criminal, terrorist or underworld guys can to make calls and to threaten anyone may be using this illegal providers and Indian govt can’t do anything as there is no LOG report available in India as the servers who are providing these services are out of there reach some where internationally.
Also As the legit ITSP of India are required to pay 12.36% service tax and 6% revenue share to Dot where as these firm sitting outside India get escape of all this and provide services in India from a grey route. Innocent customers just because of saving there few amount of money come in there loop and also become a victim of equal crime which is leading to lose for national revenue and high amount of threat to national security."

MSN and Yahoo, however, denies such claims. IAMAI, the association supporting Yahoo, MSN and others, says,

".....that since these companies offer free service there is no question of levying a service tax through licencing."

Agree ? Disagree ? Leave your comment ...

Via:
wikipedia
ISPAI (ISP Association of India)

More Links:

Internet censorship in India: an RTI application at National Highway
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China
Censorship in Saudi Arabia

Labels: Internet censorship