Indian court orders Facebook, Google to offer plans for protecting children

The New Delhi High Court has given Facebook and Google one month to submit suggestions on how minors can be protected online in India. Mahima Kaul reports

India moves toward media regulation

As talk in India turns to media plurality and regulation, attention is turning to murky ownership structures and monopolistic practices. Mahima Kaul reports

Past Event: New World (Dis)Order – What do Turkey, Russia and Brazil tell us about freedom?

Index, in partnership with the European Council on Foreign Relations, held a debate launching the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, with a special report on The Multipolar Challenges to Freedom of Expression

Is India about to gets its own PRISM?

Two surveillance entities are being set up to monitor Indian citizens’ communications, Mahima Kaul writes

Indian broadcasters draw bans for stepping over obscenity lines

Recent decisions by India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting have raised questions about the country’s approach to broadcasting regulation. Mahima Kaul reports

Saradha Group scandal exposes ties between India’s media, politicians

The discovery of a colossal financial scam at a company in India's West Bengal state is exposing the underbelly of the relationship between politicians and media owners in the world's largest democracy, Mahima Kaul reports.

Saradha Group scandal exposes ties between India’s media, politicians

The discovery of a colossal financial scam at a company in India's West Bengal state is exposing the underbelly of the relationship between politicians and media owners in the world's largest democracy, Mahima Kaul reports.

The big issues for Indian web users

Some of India’s most prominant internet writers, researchers and policy analysts came together in Bangalore on 9 April to discuss “Strengthening Freedom of Expression on the Internet in India”, organised by the Internet Democracy Project. The subject has been intermittently making headlines in India, with a number of politically motivated arrests made under the Information Technology Act’s controversial Section 66a. Causing more confusion, in 2011, the Minister for Communications & Information Technology, Kapil Sibal, made headlines by asking social media intermediaries to take down “objectionable” content. At the time, the content in question seemed to be mainly objectionable to to the government itself. The content in question seemed to be mainly objectionable to the government alone. This caused a huge public uproar, [...]

Will new plans for a digital rural India hit or miss?

Since the internet was introduced  in 1995 in India’s major cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkatta, it has steadly grown in urban areas. By 1998, India has its first Internet Service Provider, Sify (later sold for $155 million). By 2001, India has its first crime branch. By 2005, the country had over 200,000 internet cafes. Facebook arrived in 2006, and in 2009, the government drafted policy on Indian language internet domain names. As individuals in cities stock up on phones, laptops and tablets, accessing free wifi at more and more public places, the question of digital access in rural India still remains. Over the last decade, The National e-Governance Plan sought to bridge this gap by establishing a Common Service Center in [...]

How India censored one of its own websites

India’s University Grants Commission (UGC), amongst its other responsibilities, determines and maintains the standards of institutions of higher education in India. As a part of this duty, it had warned students that an institution called IIPM (Indian Institute of Planning and Management) is not a recognised university and does not have the right to issue certificates. The message on the commission’s website has now been blocked, following an interim court order by the Gwalior High Court in relation to a case filed by one of the companies owned by IIPM’s head — Arindam Chaudhuri — seeking to block defamatory content against his institution. The UGC site is not the only website affected by the order. On 15 February, the Department of [...]

India’s flourishing offence industry hits literary festival – again

A few days before the now-famous (and perhaps infamous) Japiur Literature festival, the only thing most people thought they knew was that Salman Rushdie’s potential visit was being blocked, this time by elements of the Indian People’s Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist group. William Darampyle, author and organiser of the festival, […]

Internet freedom in India – open to debate

In the aftermath of an Index on Censorship debate New Delhi, Kirsty Hughes says India's web users are standing at a crossroads