Internet Governance Blog
India's Supreme Court Axes Online Censorship Law, But Challenges Remain
- March 27, 2015
The Supreme Court of India took a remarkable step to protect free expression on March 24, 2015, striking down controversial section 66A of the IT Act that criminalized “grossly offensive” content online. In response to a public interest litigation filed by Indian law student Shreya Singhal, the court made this landmark judgement calling the section “vague”, “broad” and “unconstitutional”. Since Tuesday's announcement, the news has trended nationally on Twitter, with more than 50,000 tweets bearing the hashtags #Sec66A and #66A.
Read more →Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt
- April 17, 2015
Much confusion has resulted from the Section 66A verdict. Some people are convinced that online speech is now without any reasonable restrictions under Article 19 (2) of the Constitution. This is completely false.
Read more →Historic day for freedom of speech and expression in India
- March 26, 2015
In a petition that finds its origin in a simple status message on Facebook, Shreya Singhal vs Union of India marks a historic reinforcement of the freedom of speech and expression in India.
Read more →Internet censorship will continue in opaque fashion
- March 26, 2015
A division bench of the Supreme Court has ruled on three sections of the Information Technology Act 2000 - Section 66A, Section 79 and Section 69A. The draconian Section 66A was originally meant to tackle spam and cyber-stalking but was used by the powerful elite to crack down on online dissent and criticism.
Read more →What Does Facebook's Transparency Report Tell Us About the Indian Government's Record on Free Expression & Privacy?
- April 05, 2015
Given India's online population, the number of user data requests made by the Indian government aren't very high, but the number of content restriction requests are not only high on an absolute number, but even on a per-user basis.
Read more →The Centre for Internet and Society joins Worldwide Campaign to Discover Depth of GCHQ's Illegal Spying
- March 01, 2015
The Centre for Internet and Society has joined an international campaign to allow anyone in the world to request whether Britain’s intelligence agency GCHQ has illegally spied on them.
Read more →Right to Information (RTI) Requests to BSNL and MTNL Regarding Security Equipment
- February 25, 2015
As part of research, on July 2, 2013, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) had sent Right to Information (RTI) requests to two of the largest internet service providers (ISPs) in India: Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) requesting answers to some questions.
Read more →Reply to RTI Applications filed with respect to Foreign Contractors and Vendors of IT and Telecommunication Enterprises
- February 25, 2015
An RTI application was filed by the Sh. Matthew Thomas on August 06, 2014 enquiring about the details of the foreign contractors and vendors of certain Information Technology and Telecommunication enterprises. Mr. Mathews in his application asked some specific questions.
Read more →A Selection of Tweets on How to Make Crowdmaps Effectual for Mapping Violence against Women
- March 10, 2015
This is a collection of tweets by Rohini Lakshane on making crowdmaps more effective for mapping gender violence. The compilation of tweets has been republished by GenderIT.org.
Read more →The Surveillance Industry in India – An Analysis of Indian Security Expos
- March 08, 2015
The author talks about the surveillance industry in India and analyses Indian security expos.
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