We are anonymous, we are legion

New Recommendations to Regulate Online Hate Speech Could Pose More Problems Than Solutions

amber — 2018-01-02T03:06:18Z

The T.K. Viswanathan committee’s recommendations could prove to be dangerous for free speech if acted upon without resolving its flaws.

The article was published by Wire on October 14, 2017

It was reported last week that an expert committee headed by T.K. Viswanathan, former secretary general of Lok Sabha, recommended that the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Information Technology Act be amended to include stringent penal provisions regarding online hate speech. While this report has not been made public, the Indian Express reported that the committee’s recommendations include, among other things, insertion and expansion of penal provisions in the IPC on ‘incitement to hatred’ (Section 153C) and ‘causing fear, alarm or provocation of violence’ (Section 505A) to include online speech, and creation of the offices of state cyber crime coordinator and district cyber crime cell.

Online hate speech has been among the more complex issues with regard to the regulation of technology. The complexity of restricting hate speech has to do with a number of factors, including the ubiquity of strong opinions in online speech, often offensive to certain groups, the interplay between individual and group rights, and the tensions between the values of dignity, liberty and equality. Siddharth Narrain has pointed out in his thesis on hate speech law that the use of law to curb offensive or hurtful speech has been done by religious groups, caste based groups, occupation based groups with strong caste associations, language groups and gender based groups. The range of actions arising from such uses of the law include the banning of books, criminal proceedings for political satire, or even ‘liking’ political posts on social media.

The relationship between speech acts and acts of violence is a complicated issue with little consensus on appropriate ways to regulate it. Scholars such as Jonathan Maynard have advocated greater reliance on non-legal responses such as counter speech, as the use of criminal law to tackle speech often has the effect of chilling forms of dissent. The formulation and application of legal tests in criminal law with respect to hate speech is also hard as hate speech has much to do with the content of speech as it has to do with the context, including factors such as power structures. Speech by a figure in a position of power also has a greater likelihood to result in a call for violence.

Before looking at the specific recommendations made by the T.K. Viswanathan committee, it would be worthwhile to also look at the background of this committee. The committee notes with approval the Law Commission of India’s 267th report on the issue of hate speech. The Law Commission, in turn, was acting at the behest of observations made by the Supreme Court in Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan v. Union of India in 2014. In this case, the Supreme Court exhibited judicial restraint and refused to frame guidelines prohibiting political hate speech, and had instead requested the Law Commission to look into it. However, the court noted with approval international case law on the issues, particularly the observations in the Canadian case Saskatchewan v. Whatcott. Relying on Whatcott, the Supreme Court provides a definition of hate speech that includes the following statements:

“Hate speech is an effort to marginalise individuals based on their membership in a group. Using expression that exposes the group to hatred, hate speech seeks to delegitimise group members in the eyes of the majority, reducing their social standing and acceptance within society. Hate speech, therefore, rises beyond causing distress to individual group members..[and] lays the groundwork for later, broad attacks on vulnerable that can range from discrimination, to ostracism, segregation, deportation, violence and, in the most extreme cases, to genocide. Hate speech also impacts a protected group’s ability to respond to the substantive ideas under debate, thereby placing a serious barrier to their full participation in our democracy.”

Thus, it is evident that the Supreme Court itself clearly states that hate speech must be viewed through the lens of the right to equality, and relates to speech not merely offensive or hurtful to specific individuals, but also inciting discrimination or violence on the basis of inclusion of individuals within certain groups. It is important to note that it is the consequence of speech that is the determinative factor in interpreting hate speech, more so than even perhaps the content of the speech. This is also broadly reflected in the Law Commission’s report that identifies the status of the author of the speech, the status of victims of the speech, the potential impact of the speech and whether it amounts to incitement as key identifying criteria of hate speech.

However, in the commission’s recommendations, these principles are not fairly represented in the suggested new Sections 153C and 505A, as per a draft released by the Internet Freedom Foundation. Section 505A, for instance, refers to “highly disparaging, indecent, abusive, inflammatory, false or grossly offensive information” and “derogatory information.” These are extremely broad terms, not having any guiding jurisprudence within Indian or international law, which may be helpful in restrictively interpreting them. It is important to note the similarities between this provision and the repealed Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which sought to criminalise speech that was “grossly offensive,” having “menacing character,” or “causing annoyance..danger..insult..enmity, hatred or ill will.”

These terms in the recommended Section 505A also run foul of the observations of Justice Nariman in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, where he took exception to the nature of the terms in Section 66A by stating that, “Information that may be grossly offensive or which causes annoyance or inconvenience are undefined terms which take into the net a very large amount of protected and innocent speech.” While these terms are somewhat tempered in this provision with a requirement to show intent to “cause fear of injury or alarm,” they remain exceedingly broad and contrary to the requirement that restrictions on speech must be couched in the narrowest possible terms.

The T.K. Viswanathan committee, in addition, seeks to bring, within the scope of the prospective Sections 153C and 505A, electronic speech. As per its recommendations, ‘means of communication’ would include “any words either spoken or written, signs, visible representations, information, audio, video or combination of both transmitted, retransmitted or sent through any telecommunication service, communication device or computer resource.” This could have the impact of bringing in a provision that has some similar effects as that of the now defunct Section 66A of the Information Technology Act. The lack of regard for the Supreme Court’s observations on hate speech, the need to look at it through the lens of equality and the over-broadness of restrictions on speech are likely to be dangerous for free speech if the recommendations of this committee are acted upon.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-amber-sinha-

December 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2018-03-17T11:12:26Z

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
Shruthi Anand wrote a report that seeks to map the development of Artificial Intelligence both generally and in specific sectors culminating in a stakeholder analysis and contributions to policy making. CIS made a submission to the Department of Industrial Planning and Promotion on December 7, 2017. CIS also offered its assistance on other matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India, and, working towards sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India. The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks held a meeting with IP stakeholders on December 7, 2017, chaired by the Secretary, DIPP, to take suggestions on improving procedures and functioning of the Office. Anubha Sinha attended the meeting and requested the DIPP to improve compliance of uploading Form 27s by patentees and ensure proper enforcement of related provisions within the Indian Patent Act, 1970. A Kannada Wikipedia orientation workshop was held at the Entrepreneurship Centre, SID, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru on 26 November, 2017. The day long event was aimed at adding content to Kannada Wikimedia projects on topics such as ecology, environment, wildlife and sciences of Karnataka. Shyam Ponappa wrote an article on the tragedy of commons in the Business Standard on December 6, 2017. Just like porn is not real life, all news is not real news. It’s time, therefore, to come of age in the 18th year of this century, wrote Nishant Shah in an article in the Indian Express on December 31, 2017.

Highlights

Shruthi Anand wrote a report that seeks to map the development of Artificial Intelligence both generally and in specific sectors culminating in a stakeholder analysis and contributions to policy making.
CIS made a submission to the Department of Industrial Planning and Promotion on December 7, 2017. CIS also offered its assistance on other matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India, and, working towards sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India.
The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks held a meeting with IP stakeholders on December 7, 2017, chaired by the Secretary, DIPP, to take suggestions on improving procedures and functioning of the Office. Anubha Sinha attended the meeting and requested the DIPP to improve compliance of uploading Form 27s by patentees and ensure proper enforcement of related provisions within the Indian Patent Act, 1970.
A Kannada Wikipedia orientation workshop was held at the Entrepreneurship Centre, SID, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru on 26 November, 2017. The day long event was aimed at adding content to Kannada Wikimedia projects on topics such as ecology, environment, wildlife and sciences of Karnataka.
Shyam Ponappa wrote an article on the tragedy of commons in the Business Standard on December 6, 2017.
Just like porn is not real life, all news is not real news. It’s time, therefore, to come of age in the 18th year of this century, wrote Nishant Shah in an article in the Indian Express on December 31, 2017.

CIS wrote the following articles:

New Recommendations to Regulate Online Hate Speech Could Pose More Problems Than Solutions (Amber Sinha; Wire; October 14, 2017). This was published in the month of December on the CIS website.
Breeding misinformation in virtual space (Amber Sinha; Asian Age; December 3, 2017).
India’s Data Protection Regime Must Be Built Through an Inclusive and Truly Co-Regulatory Approach (Amber Sinha; Wire; December 1, 2017).
Digital native: Memory card is full (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; December 3, 2017).
Should Aadhaar be mandatory? (Amber Sinha; Deccan Herald; December 9, 2017).
Digital native: The age of consent (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; December 31, 2017).

CIS in the News:

Aadhaar linking deadline approaches: Here are all the myths and facts (Business Today; December 7, 2017).
Checks and balances needed for mass surveillance of citizens, say experts (Hindu; December 9, 2017).
Masking personal data to protect privacy crucial for India, say experts (Deepti Govind; Livemint; December 11, 2017).
Paranoid about state surveillance? Here’s the FD Guide to living in the age of snoops (Sriram Sharma; Factor Daily; December 12, 2017).
Deadline For Linking Bank Accounts With Aadhaar To Be Extended To 31 March (Komal Gupta and Ramya Nair; Livemint; December 14, 2017).

-----------------------------------
Access to Knowledge
-----------------------------------
Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Copyright & Patent

Submission

Submission to DIPP at Meeting with IP Stakeholders (Anubha Sinha; December 12, 2017).
CIS' Submission to DIPP and CGPDTM at meeting with IP Stakeholders (Anubha Sinha; December 13, 2017).

►Openness

Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.

►Wikipedia

Blog Entries

Christ University Wikipedia Education Program Internship (Manasa Rao; December 11, 2017).
Wikipedia Orientation Program at Rotary Club of Salem (Manasa Rao; December 11, 2017).
Nichole Saad from the Wikimedia Foundation visits Christ University (Manasa Rao; December 17, 2017).
Kannada Wikipedia Orientation Workshop at IISc, Bengaluru (A. Gopalakrishna; December 19, 2017).
Wikimedia Technical Workshop at Savitribai Phule Pune University (Manasa Rao; December 19, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia workshop for Sandarbh Science magazine writers (Manasa Rao; December 19, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia - Vishwakosh Workshop for Science writers in IUCAA, Pune (Manasa Rao; December 20, 2017).

-----------------------------------

Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

►Free Speech & Expression

Blog Entries

It Hurts Them Too (Mir Farhat; December 19, 2017).
Internet Shutdowns: A Modern-day Siege (Ayswarya Murthy; December 19, 2017).
Days to Derail Work of Two Generations? (Mahesh Kumar Shiva; December 19, 2017).
Sorry, Business Closed until Internet is Back On (Nalanda Tambe; December 19, 2017).
Stock Brokers Don't Love an Internet Shutdown (Binita Parikh; December 19, 2017).
Was there an Unofficial Internet Shutdown in BHU & NTPC? (Saurabh Sharma; December 19, 2017).
How Media beat the Shutdown in Darjeeling (Manish Adhikary; December 19, 2017).
Internet and the Police: Tool to Some, Trash to Others (Manoj Kumar; December 19, 2017).
Business Woes from Saharanpur's Internet Ban (Mahesh Kumar Shiva; December 19, 2017).
Amid Unrest in the Valley, Students See a Dark Wall (Aakash Hassan; December 19, 2017).
The Rising Stars in Music Loath Losing their Only Platform (Umar Shah and Mir Farhat; December 19, 2017).
Internet and Banking: A Trust Broken (Roshan Gupta; December 19, 2017).
Online or Offline, Protest Goes On (Junaid Nabi Bazaz; December 19, 2017).
Digital Banking Dreams: Interrupted (Safeena Wani; December 19, 2017).
Will Darjeeling Regain the Trust of Tourists? (Roshan Gupta; December 20, 2017).
Silence on the Dera Front (Sat Singh; December 20, 2017).
ISPs in Kashmir Grappling with Mounting Losses Amid Recurrent Shutdowns (Safina Wani; December 20, 2017).
Taxes in the Time of Internet Shutdown (Avijit Sarkar; December 20, 2017).
Every Town had its Jio Dara (Ayswarya Murthy; December 20, 2017).
Education and Employment Opportunities Tossed out of the Window (Roshan Gupta; December 20, 2017).
Darjeeling’s e-commerce Crumbles after 100 days sans Internet (Avijit Sarkar; December 20, 2017).
E-administration Efforts are Lame Ducks without Internet (Amit Kumar and Sat Singh; December 20, 2017).

►Privacy

Blog Entries

Artificial Intelligence - Literature Review (Shruthi Anand; edited by Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari with research assistance by Sidharth Ray; December 16, 2017).
AI and Healthcare in India: Looking Forward (Shweta Mohandas; edited by Roshni Ranganathan; December 16, 2017).

Participation in Event

FIGI Symposium 2017 (Organized by Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), jointly with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructure (CPMI) and support of the Government of India; November 29 - December 1, 2017; Bangalore). Elonnai Hickok participated in the symposium and spoke in the "Security, Infrastructure, and Trust" working group on big data and privacy in DFS.

-----------------------------------

Telecom
-----------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Article

The tragedy of the unused commons (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; December 6, 2017).

-----------------------------------
About CIS
-----------------------------------

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2017-newsletter

E-administration Efforts are Lame Ducks without Internet

Amit Kumar & Sat Singh — 2017-12-20T16:05:44Z

Strap: How Haryana engages with the Digital India dream when one act of vandalism can invite a net ban.

Fatehabad, Haryana: It took Mahender Kumar a week to brush up his DJ-ing skills and understand what songs to play for crowds at different events. It wasn’t done out of some special love for music.

When he had to stop operations of his Common Service Center in Fatehabad district’s Badopal village for the third time in 18 months because of an internet shutdown “caused” by violence in his state, Mahender had to revisit his teenage hobby. He was more cautious about running a centre that depended on the internet. After all, the 31-year-old had to do something to feed a family of five. “Kuch to kaam karna tha. Parivar ko bhukhe to rakh nahi sakte."

Launched in 2015 as part of the central government’s ambitious Digital India programme, Common Service Centers or Atal Sewa Kendras (ASKs) are the “access points for delivery of various e-governance and business services to citizens in rural and remote areas of the country”. Sikander Kumar, in-charge of the Fatehabad District Informatics Center, informs that there are 14 such centers in urban areas and a whopping 223 in rural areas in his district alone.

These Kendras deal with banking, insurance, pension, health, and even railway ticketing, Aadhaar services, and electricity bill payment. The Haryana government claims to have integrated “around 170+ state government services of varied departments” with this scheme. More are in the pipeline.

Mahender, who undertook operations of the Kendra in December 2015, earns commissions ranging from Rs 10 to Rs 100 from his customers. A Rs 10 for paying electricity bills, another Rs 10 for correcting every mistake in Aadhar cards. He even fills up job applications and pension forms using the internet. His daily earning ranges from Rs 1000 to Rs 1200, and he provides food and pays Rs 1500 each to the two persons who assist him occasionally.

“Things were running in perfect order until February 2016. I had to incur losses after losses due to multiple internet bans since then," says Mahender. The Jat reservation stir of February 2016 had led to an internet ban when protests turned violent in various parts of Haryana. Internet service were suspended as a preventive measure a year later in March when the protests were brewing again. When Dera Sacha Sauda Chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim was convicted for rape in August 2017, Fatehabad faced internet shutdown for a week.

Mahender lost his bread and butter on these occasions, and being a part-time DJ was his way of minimising the risk. He continues to run the center though.

Rajesh Kumar too makes a living by running an ASK in Dhangar in Fatehabad. A graduate in arts from the National College in Sirsa, he started the Kendra in October 2015. Though he has reservations about the crawling pace of internet in his village, it doesn’t stop him from fulfilling the needs of customers who can be found “flooding the Kendra on any working day”.

He places great importance on the role of the center he runs. After the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in November 2016, Rajesh says his Kendra “reduced the inconveniences caused to common people by the move”. When the cash lying around became of no use, the e-banking services his centre offered came to the rescue. This is why he doesn’t approve of the internet shutdowns. “Rural areas suffer the most. My friends in cities do not have to go through this.”

Even updating panchayat records on time is a hassle during shutdowns. Rajesh Koth, Fatehabad district development and panchayat officer, does not directly face the brunt of internet shutdowns since his office functions out of the mini-secretariat, which continues using internet through a lease line meant for such situations. But shutdowns do affect his department’s work as the 200 something panchayats with which emails are to be exchanged do not have the same luxury. “Village panchayats have been equipped with a computer and an internet connection, which are used to update the department on development works passed by the panchayat,” Rajesh says.

With villages losing access to whatever internet they had, panchayats have to send physical records to the Fatehabad district headquarters, thereby increasing the office’s burden.

Internet lost, grains lost

The impact of internet shutdowns on the administration’s e-governance schemes was felt even by fair price shops. Subhash Singh has been running a ration depot in the same village as Mahender’s, Badopal, for a decade now. It wasn’t just Subhash’s loss when he couldn’t disburse ration because of the internet shutdown in August 2017.

He says he was bound by authorities to not distribute ration without an Aadhar-enabled authentication using a thumbprint. “Several people came, but they had to return empty-handed due to failing biometric verification. I must’ve lost about Rs 2500 in that time.”

Fatehabad district food and supply controller Ashok Bansal confirmed that his department had indeed “issued clear instructions as mandated by the government to distribute ration only after Aadhar-enabled verification”. Strict action is taken on complaints for not complying this order, he says.

Being his only source of income, Subhash eventually "spent a lot of time and energy to persuade people to return” to his shop again. But he clearly remembers how he was accused of finding an excuse to not give people their lot of ration.

Amit Kumar and Sat Singh are Haryana-based members of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/e-administration-efforts-are-lame-ducks-without-internet

Will Darjeeling Regain the Trust of Tourists?

Roshan Gupta — 2017-12-20T16:01:33Z

An agitation coupled with an internet ban that left tourists stranded, it looks like a tough time ahead for tourism in the Hills.

Darjeeling, West Bengal: The tourism industry in Darjeeling proved to be as crippled as most businesses operating from the town due to the agitation for a separate state of Gorkhaland. With the scenic beauty of the hills and the spectacular views it affords, Darjeeling has always been a major tourist attraction. A substantial part of the town’s employment is attributed to the tourism industry, which took a bloody blow with the ban on internet services that eventually lasted a hundred days.

“The bookings for Darjeeling generally commence four months prior to the annual Hindu festival Durga Puja (usually in September or October), but this time most of the enquiries were for Sikkim. The Hills usually see huge footfall during Puja, but the unrest hit tourism badly and we incurred huge losses,” says Samrat Sanyal, a tour operator.

The tourist season generally starts around April and continues till late October. That the internet shutdown came right in the middle of this period — it was first announced on June 18 and lasted till late September — did not help matters. Sanyal says that in 2016 around 85% of the tourist footfall took place around the time of Durga Puja, but in 2017 it had fallen to around 5-10%. Though things have relatively calmed down, Sanyal believes the flow of international tourists will remain low for a while. Other tour operators this reporter spoke to also echoed Sanyal’s sentiments and said that the aftermath has left tourists with little confidence in the Hills.

Sources in the tourism department say that apart from the internet shutdown, a general response to the strikes and the violence attributed to the agitation played a major role in “maginalising tourist flow”. The tourists who came to the Hills around the time the agitation intensified could not even get in touch with their families as the mobile reception was poor for days, besides no web connectivity. Many who had already arrived at Darjeeling had to cut short their vacation.

One of them was Kartik Lodha. A tourist from Rajasthan, Lodha was caught unawares by the strike that came just as he prepared to go paragliding in Delo. He had no choice but to return to his hotel midway. With no internet to assist him in looking for a way out, Lodha left Kalimpong the next morning in a state bus with police escort. "It’s the locals who suffer the most during such situations. They are the ones who will have to deal with these problems and difficulties in the long run. Barring a missed vacation, we will be fine," said Lodha.

Blaming the state for imposing the shutdown and creating “unwanted problems” in the Hills, Tapash Mitra, a tourist from Kolkata, said that "the West Bengal government is hindering its own tourism industry”. He had planned a three-day trip with his family, but had to return on the day of his arrival. "I just want the people to have peace in the Hills."

Homestays were also badly hit and saw a spate of booking cancellations in the wake of the agitation and the subsequent network shutdown. Nimlamhu, the owner of Green-Hills homestay at Sangsay, said that more than the owners of hotels or homestays, tourists suffered as they were left stranded, unsure of what they would have to do. “Nothing works when the internet is banned. Even refunds cannot be processed.”

When asked about the arrangements that were eventually made to refund the tourists’ money, he said, "The amount was refunded because we were left with no option, and for those guests who were our regular customers, we adjusted the balance with their future bookings."

He said, however, that it was difficult to contact those who booked stays in advance but were hit with the news of the strike before they arrived there. "There was no way we could contact the guests as the internet was banned. About 50-60% of our bookings are done online and we couldn’t even refund their money through netbanking. We had to personally call them up and apologise for the unforeseen circumstance, and request hem to bear with us, not knowing that the strike would last as long as it did," said Nimlamhu.

Sweta Neriah, who is in charge of Palighar, a homestay in Ecchay, was preparing their promotions when the town was hit with the blanket-ban on internet. "For international guests we have a system where payment is done only during checkout. We did incur heavy losses this season and I’m sure we will feel the impact of this slump for some years. Incidentally, this happened just when the international tourist flow started to pick up in this part of the world."

Complaining that the internet ban cost them a year’s business, Kabir Pradhan, the owner of the homestay, said, "Internet is the only way to really promote a business these days. We need to keep updating out official pages on every social networking site to market it. Only then can we attract clients and agents."
He now looks forward to the spring season.

Meanwhile, many tour guides say they suffered huge losses with the internet ban and dip in the number of tourists. Manisha Sharma, who used to work as a tour guide, says she regrets being in the hills as the ban robbed her of three months’ income. “Had I not been here, I could have travelled to some other places with tourists, but the movement of vehicles was also restricted during the agitation, leaving me broke and with few options,” says Sharma.

Roshan Gupta is a Siliguri-based journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/will-darjeeling-regain-the-trust-of-tourists

Silence on the Dera Front

Sat Singh — 2017-12-20T15:58:44Z

Strap: How DSS followers, accused of violent protests after their leader was sentenced, manage without the internet.

Sirsa, Haryana: Raj Rani’s two expensive smartphones are her whole world. But the 32-year-old entrepreneur from Haryana’s Hisar district found them entirely useless when she needed them most – on August 25, during the violent protests by members of the spiritual group Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) after their leader Gurmeet Ram Rahim was convicted of rape.

“My family follows DSS, and had gone to attend the monthly congregation on August 15 (which also happened to be Ram Rahim’s birthday), when were told that ‘Pitaji’ asked us to stay back in the premises, in case of an adverse verdict by the court in rape cases against him,” she says. This is understood to have been done as a show of support that could put pressure on the judiciary and state for a favourable verdict.

Along with lakhs of other followers, Rani was present in Dera’s Sirsa headquarters with her two children. She stayed in constant touch with her husband Sunny Kumar, a businessman based in New Delhi. "Every day, I showed him the Dera premises and religious activities through WhatsApp video calls,” she says.

She recalls “the nightmarish moment” on the night of August 24 when the Haryana police and the Indian army surrounded the Dera. They imposed a curfew in the town, and restricted people from coming in and going outside the premises spread over 700 acres.

Rani says that the government blocked the internet on August 24 – a day before the self-styled godman appeared in the Panchkula court. Service providers of different companies, including mobile phone and landline services, were also barred at the Dera Sacha Sauda headquarters. As a result, Rani lost all contact with her husband. “I was confident until I was connected with my family over WhatsApp call and video chat, but as soon as this went away, I started losing faith, and felt afraid,” she says.

After the curfew was imposed and internet was shut down, Rani says the devotees started to panic. They demanded that the DSS management permit them to go to their respective homes after Gurmeet’s arrest on August 25. After his conviction for rape, Rani says the politically influential and funds-flushed DSS fell like a house of cards. “There was chaos all around,” she says.

Fearing that Dera followers would vandalise public property to protest their leader’s conviction, the police had restricted public transport. Private vehicles were being allowed to move only after multiple security checks. On the morning of August 27, hundreds of devotees started to leave the Dera premises by foot. Rani walked about 50 kms along the national highway 10 (Hisar-Sirsa) up to Fatehabad district.

It was a coordination committee of police, legislators, and bureaucrats from Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh, under the chairmanship of Punjab governor and union territory administrator VP Singh Badnore, that took the decision to ban the internet. After the order on August 24, all the SMSes, dongle, and data services provided on mobile network were suspended. The government only allowed phone calls during the internet shutdown in affected districts in these states.

Dissing the police’s claims that Dera followers started the violence first, provoking the cops to fire, 32-year-old shopkeeper Gaurav Soni, an ardent DSS follower for seven years, insists that things went out of control because the internet connection was snapped. He says that senior members in the Dera’s internal WhatsApp groups couldn’t send messages to calm angry followers. “Whatever happened was a result of a communication gap,” says Soni, who joined the protests. “No one asked the followers to get violent, and followers never attempt such things without proper instructions. But since there was a leadership gap, thanks to the break in communication, all this occurred.”

Vikas Kumar, an IT expert of the Dera Sacha Sauda agrees, "As soon as we came to know about the conviction, we tried to send a message from Dera chairperson Vipasana Insan, requesting followers to maintain peace, and keep faith in the judicial process. But we couldn’t upload this message because mobile internet and broadband services were banned." They also tried to call key Dera leaders. “But it was too late by then, and followers clashed with law enforcement agencies," Vikas adds.

The Dera’s protests, and the related internet and transport shutdown seemed to have impacted the group’s own followers too.

Those outside Haryana received misleading or panic-inducing forwards and videos, worrying them, but also worsening the anger against the state administration. Rajat Singh, a 65-year-old Dera follower from Mansa district, Punjab, says his son Rishipal Singh, had gone with several followers to the court in Panchkula, Haryana, where Gurmeet’s case was being heard. Rajat Singh says that since the internet was not banned at Punjab’s Mansa, he continuously received photographs of bullet-ridden bodies, charred cars, massive fires, and vandalism on WhatsApp. It’s unclear how Dera members from Haryana were able to send these pictures, overriding the blocked internet. “I was so disturbed,” he says. “As soon as we came to know that the Haryana police had opened fire on the followers, I started calling my son,” he says. But phone networks were constantly busy or spotty. “My son’s phone was not reachable. I asked relatives to send him text messages, or messages on WhatsApp, but the internet was not working.” It was much later, when Rishipal made a rushed call, that they were assured of his well-being.

Unaware of the violence at the Dera, 37-year-old Rakesh Kumar, a DSS follower from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, was visiting Sirsa on August 24. “I booked a hotel in Sirsa district through an app, and chose to pay at the hotel. When I reached Sirsa, the internet was off.” Kumar went to the Dera taking lifts from a few vehicles plying on the sly, but soon returned to his hotel after followers went on a rampage. He wanted to leave Sirsa, but “got stuck” because the hotel didn’t allow him to leave without paying. ATMs were closed, vandalised, or not working, and it was generally unsafe to go out. “I had some balance on PayTM, but that was also not working as there was no internet connection,” he says.

Without Facebook or Twitter accounts, the Sirsa police had no way to counter rumours, discourage violence, or call for peace, says additional deputy commissioner (ADC) Sirsa, Munish Nagpal. A ban, he says, was the only way for them to nip crowd mobilisation in the bud, and curb rumours from spreading to Dera followers in other states of north India.

“The ban controlled the situation to a certain extent, but it handicapped us, and slowed the process of our communication with seniors in Chandigarh,” admitted Ashwin Shenvi, the superintendent of police (SP).

The Haryana police, chief minister and health minister are usually active on social media, and the government too prides itself on being digitally savvy, but during the ban, every account was inactive. This despite the state offices having broadband.

It is worth pointing out that DSS is credited for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s first ever win in Haryana in the 2014 state elections. Gurmeet Ram Rahim and CM Manohar Lal Khattar have even shared stages multiple times for photo-ops. Many believe this to be the reason behind the state government not being very vocal, online or offline, in condemning the violence by Gurmeet’s followers. It could have ticked off DSS’s over 50 million followers, a large votebank. The political dynamics, hence, were also responsible for internet becoming a victim of the violence unleashed.

Sat Singh is a Rohtak-based journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/silence-on-the-dera-front

ISPs in Kashmir Grappling with Mounting Losses Amid Recurrent Shutdowns

Safeena Wani — 2017-12-20T15:54:06Z

Strap: Internet savvy youth taking to alternative routes to access the world wide web.

Srinagar, J&K: CNS Infotel Services, once a buzzing cybercafé in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk, is now a prominent internet service provider (ISP) for the town. It is popular for providing uninterrupted, fast internet connection, but that reputation has been tough to maintain as the Kashmir Valley has witnessed 56 internet shutdowns since 2012, 38 over the last two years alone. This has pushed the economy downhill and discouraged new enterprises from emerging.

Once the internet is blocked, executives at ISPs either skip calls to avoid public ire, or express their helplessness over the sudden disruption of internet ordered by authorities in the wake of some security situation.

An executive at CNS, Imran says how a sudden ‘police directive’ often forces them to apply the internet ‘kill switch’. “In May this year,” says Imran, “we received a circular stating that authorities want us to block 22 social media and messaging sites, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Skype, Telegram and Viber, with immediate effect.” That day, CNS executives were only repeating a prohibition procedure that has become a norm in the Valley. In the post-2008 Kashmir, as street protests became the popular
mode of dissent, the state’s observation has been that resistance is being “fuelled by social media.”

“There’s a perpetual struggle for us to grapple between police orders and annoyed customers,” says Owais Mir, an executive of G Technologies, another ISP in Srinagar. “The frequent internet gags hamper our operations… annoyed customers often threaten to either switch over to another service provider or to deactivate their connections.”

Mobile data and broadband services in Kashmir were banned 10 times between April 8 and July 13 in 2017. “By then,” Imran says, “we were running into huge losses.”

While Imran does not have an actual figure to quote about the loss he faced, mobile ISPs were decrying daily losses to the tune of Rs 2 crore between April and July 2017.

According to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), mobile service providers in Kashmir suffered losses worth Rs 180 crore during that period. When such orders are passed, usually, except the state-run BSNL, other service providers — Airtel, Aircel, Vodafone and Reliance (Jio) — promptly shut down their operations. The postpaid BSNL numbers, which are mainly with police, army and government officials, continue running.

Alternative access

The repeated loss of communication in the Valley has prompted Kashmiri netizens to explore solutions. Many of them have learnt to access the Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), mostly through broadband internet and state-owned BSNL, in order to continue using messaging services and social media.

A VPN uses proxy servers to securely access a private network while allowing users to change location and share data remotely through public networks. It secures a connection through encryption and security protocols, and enables access to content that is otherwise blocked. VPN keeps the ISP from placing restrictions on access.

“VPNs help us to overcome the irrational social media blockade,” says Shagufta Mir, a college student from Srinagar. “More than a political statement, using VPN sends out a positive message that Kashmiris have evolved to tackle repeated restrictions imposed on them.” Most users have learnt about VPNs from their tech-savvy peers.

“When the government banned social media earlier this year,” says Shafat Hamid, a trader, “my friend taught me how to access a VPN. I felt empowered to be able to overcome the frequent gag on online activities.”

‘India worse than Iraq’

Jammu & Kashmir has higher internet penetration than the all-India average with 28.62 internet subscribers per 100 people compared to the national figure of 25.37.

Although broadband was functioning, the suspended mobile internet for over five months from July 9 to Nov 19, 2016 (data services on pre-paid mobiles remained suspended until January 27, 2017) saw many operators winding up. During that period, internetshutdowns.in, a website run by Delhi-based non-profit Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) to track incidents of internet shutdowns across India, recorded that Kashmir had no internet access for “over 2,920 hours”. This made India worse than Iraq and Pakistan in terms of number of days without internet, according to a report by the Brookings Institution.

According to a report, out of the 14,000 local youth employed in the IT sector in the Valley, an estimated 7,000 people lost their jobs due to the frequent internet shutdowns imposed last year. Online businesses incurred losses worth Rs 40-50 lakh on a daily basis during that period.

During the internet shutdown last year, COAI had written to the department of telecommunications that such communication bans have an adverse impact on the subscribers and result in losses to telecom operators. “Kashmir lost around 4.5 lakh active subscribers during the 2016 unrest,” says Sameer Parray, an area manager for Vodafone.

But service providers say they have to comply with the orders, lest their licenses be cancelled.

Safeena Wani is a Srinagar-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/isps-in-kashmir-grappling-with-mounting-losses-amid-recurrent-shutdowns

Taxes in the Time of Internet Shutdown

Avijit Sarkar — 2017-12-20T15:49:31Z

Strap: Darjeeling businesses buckle under a bandh, network ban, and GST

Darjeeling, West Bengal: In mid-June, SC Sharma, a tax lawyer in Darjeeling, was in a fix. Thanks to street protests, he had not left his house for a week. There was an internet shutdown across the district. As a third assault, the finance minister was announcing a new tax regime that confused him. A combination of these factors made Sharma anxious: many of his clients were going to miss the tax deadline and be saddled with a huge fine.

Spurred by the West Bengal government’s new language policy that sidelined minority interests, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, a political party that campaigns for a separate state for Nepali-speaking Gorkhas, had called for a bandh from June 12 across the northern hills. Schools and offices were closed. Public transport stopped. Banks would be closed for 104 days. GJM activists and the police clashed everywhere.

The state administration shut the internet down in the Darjeeling hills on June 18. A fortnight later, with the lockdown still in place, the central government rolled out the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), a pan-India single tax to replace several state-level indirect taxes.

“My clients were jittery because of the penalty issues,” Sharma says. “There was no way I could study the GST, as there was no internet. We were crippled from all sides.” He had also heard reports of GST filing website crashing repeatedly even in regions with regular network services. “Everything was already a mess, and then GST is launched with all the fanfare.”

Since the GST was a new concept, it had to be studied before returns were filed. With no internet, most businessmen were in the dark. Even advisors like tax lawyers and chartered accountants were in a soup as they were unable to use the internet or go down to the plains in Siliguri to address the issue.

Girish Sharda, owner of Nathmulls Tea, an online-cum-retail business of high value tea, felt lost when the GST was introduced. “We tried to solve the GST issues but we could not go online and find a solution.So we just sat around as all shops were shut too, and waited for the bandh to be declared open. It has been a terrible time for all of us in business.”

The June-July season was one for second flush tea, the darker, stronger variety that constitutes 21% of Darjeeling tea exports, and 41% of its revenue. Losses of Rs 250 crores ($39 million) in the season from the triple attack trickled down to the 55,000 permanent and 15,000 temporary workers in the 87 tea gardens in the region.

Ranjeev Pradhan, who runs a construction company in Darjeeling, says those weeks were nightmarish, “The bandh, the internet shutdown, the voice call drops, the sudden introduction of the GST – all this has really taken a toll on me and several others who run small businesses in Darjeeling. Things are still not right. All we need is some peace of mind which is missing right now.”

Only small-scale businessmen like Jeevan Sharma, who had dual offices in Darjeeling and Siliguri, managed to file GST. “If I did not have my chartered accountant based in Siliguri, it would have been impossible to file returns. Siliguri was open and the net was available, so the CA didn’t have a problem. Although the process was very slow because of technical snags in the servers.”

Businessman Gyanendra, who runs Krishna Service Apartments, was not so lucky. “I was held up in Darjeeling because of the bandh. We had practically zero business for the 108 days of forceful bandh, and yet I had to think about filing GST first. This magnitude of shutdown was unthinkable for us.”

Anjan Kumar Kahali, a prominent lawyer who deals with income tax and GST, had a harrowing time during the initial launch. “The system was not stable at all and the GST site kept on hanging after a short duration of use. Entries were taking forever to upload and results were not shown on time and taking really long to verify. The delay was hampering all my other work. Even today, the servers are still far from fast. I have heard that it is not before the end of this financial year that matters will be sorted out.”

In September, the GST council headed by the finance minister Arun Jaitley provided some relief for GST defaulters by extending the July deadline to October first, and then again to November. “I am relieved that I will be getting some extra time to file the returns without paying heavy fines,” says Kahali.

The tea and tourism industries, on which Darjeeling depends most, were severely hit by the bandh. In a politically sensitive time, the double whammy of the internet ban and GST seems to have deepened anger against the state. “The people of the hills feel betrayed, both by the centre and the state,” says Sharma. “They feel they have been taken for a ride once again like they have been several times before.”

Avijit Sarkar is a Siliguri-based journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/taxes-in-the-time-of-internet-shutdown

Every Town had its Jio Dara

Ayswarya Murthy — 2017-12-21T16:24:52Z

Strap: In the hills of Darjeeling, residents facing an indefinite internet shutdown were thrown an unexpected lifeline in the form of 'Jio dara', a feeble signal from Sikkim towers that nevertheless kept a small line of communication open between the besieged towns in the region and the rest of the world.

Bangalore, Karnataka: Alvin Lama writes rock music is his downtime, and these days his songs are rather politically charged. The 100-day internet shutdown in Darjeeling during the Gorkaland agitation in 2017 inspired his latest single, titled Jio Dara. In Lama’s song, he tells his listeners, “Come let’s go to Jio Dara” where they can be free from the prison of internet shutdown to send and receive messages from the outside world. “I am using that window of access to tell people about our struggle. It has a bit of an anti-administration message,” he says.


View from Carmichael Ground, a Jio Dara spot (Picture Courtesy: Nisha Chettri, Caffeine and Copies)

Jio Dara (‘dara’ meaning ‘hillock’), also alternatively called ‘Reliance gully’, was not always a specific place but a small window of opportunity during which a weak 2G signal could be accessed in the hills. Towns like Darjeeling and Kalimpong lie very close to the border of West Bengal, separated from their northern neighbour Sikkim by the river Rangeet; and often in the hills along the river bank, phones pick faint signals from the mobile phone towers in Sikkim. For a population that was completely shut off from the outside world, even this thin, fragile lifeline was precious. “I was not here during the agitation but somehow would get information about what was happening in the hills from my family and friends through the Jio Dara,” Alvin says.

Alvin, also founder director & CEO of the Good Shepard Institute of Hospitality Management, is not the only musician to immortalise Jio Dara in song. Young student Saif Ali Khan and his friends also wrote and composed their own ode to this happy accident. “It was really born out of boredom,” he says. “My brother, my friends and I were sitting around the campus and chatting. Classes were cancelled due to the strike and our education was on hold. And we overhead a couple talking about where they were going to go for their date. Of course, we should go to Jio Dara, the girl said, and that led to an argument.”

This sparked off their Jio Dara song which was written, composed and recorded by Khan and his friends under their Firfiray Productions. A satirical take on the internet shutdown and how it has affected the lives of the students in Darjeeling, the song plays out like a dialogue between two lovers and serves as a light-hearted look at a situation that was anything but.

For three months between June and September, the administration had shut down internet access in Darjeeling and in its surrounding hills. This prevented the outside world from hearing the voices of the Gorkhaland protesters but information still trickled out, as it is wont to do, through various sources, one of these being the Jio Dara.

How did this work? Reliance Jio had not long ago made a big splash in India’s telecom market with cheap unlimited data packs and lifetime validity deals, and many had switched to Jio to take advantage of this. This was what eventually gave Jio users the edge, helping them tap into the signal from the towers across the border. While it isn't clear whether signals from other networks were also available in these spots (information varies from they were no other networks at all to there were some but they were even weaker than Jio), what's certain is that without the free internet that Jio subscribers enjoyed, access to the internet through other networks was not feasible after a point because recharging your number at the local mobile shop wasn't an option anymore.

These hotspots used to vary, according to Lama. “The signal would be strong today, but next day one might have to move a few hundred metres up or down till they connected with the network. So, you would go searching in the hills till you get a signal and then the word would spread,” he says. People in Darjeeling were lucky in that their Jio Dara was inside town near the mall in Chowrasta, but it was not as convenient in Kalimpong. One had to travel a couple of kilometres from the city centre to Carmichael grounds, sometimes go even further up the hill towards areas that were facing Sikkim. “People would get to know through word-of-mouth and the number of people there would snowball,” Lama tells us. People, young and old, would come to log in, even though the connection was patchy and slow, to talk about the events of the day, upload pictures, connect with family and friends and basically tell the world what really was happening in Darjeeling.

It became an unofficial symbol of resistance. Each town had its very own Jio Dara and it transcended merely a physical location to become an idea. “Our habits changed after June 18, when the government undemocratically blocked the internet service in the hills,” writes Nisha Chettri, a journalist with the Statesman, in her blog ‘Caffeine and Copies’. Carmichael Ground in Kalimpong invariably became a meeting spot for all sorts of occasions – birthdays, dates, get-togethers. She says that some Jio users even shared their mobile hotspot with others so that everyone could use the internet.

Local journalists would file their stories and upload their pictures side by side with ordinary citizens updating their social media statuses. It helped journalists like the Telegraph’s Passan Yolmo to maintain a line of communication with his publishers. Most evenings he would connect to the Jio Dara to send across photographs from the day, as many as the feeble 2G connection would allow.

“I don’t know who first found this spot behind Chowrasta,” says Khan. Perched in the centre of the city and at a higher elevation than the rest, Chowrasta is a popular tourist destination in Darjeeling; so it couldn’t have been long before people stumbled onto this secret. “I accidentally discovered it one day when I walked past it and suddenly my phone started pinging and I received a bunch of texts on WhatsApp. I checked my phone and realised I was connected to Sikkim’s Jio network.”

Ayswarya Murthy is a Bangalore-based journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/every-town-had-its-jio-dara

Education and Employment Opportunities Tossed out of the Window

Roshan Gupta — 2017-12-20T15:41:37Z

Strap: Schools, students and teachers remember how they survived 100 days of internet shutdown.

Darjeeling, West Bengal: When a shutdown was placed on internet services in Darjeeling on June 18, it was unclear how long it would last or what it would mean to the schools, colleges and the academic community at large.

However, the more time the town spent cut off from the web a picture emerged of an education system, which had increasingly taken most of its activities online, caught completely off-guard. Missed school payments, lack of clarity on admissions and important dates became commonplace. Students were forced to find new ways to share notes and study without search engines.

The shutdown was first announced for a week but it eventually lasted 100 days, with several extensions in between. This meant that the restrictions came at a particularly bad time with many important academic dates falling within this period.

The online registrations for schools following the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) syllabus were set to start mid-July but did not take place as planned. The ICSE council heads had to later give an assurance to extend the dates for registration till late August.

The ban was lifted only in late September and this extension eventually proved inadequate. Representatives of many schools said they had to travel to Siliguri to complete the online registration of students who would be appearing for their board exams next year.

“Most of the schools had to go to Siliguri to access fast internet for the registrations. Schools like St. Augustine and St. Joseph’s Convent could also not post results of their term examinations online,” said a source.

Saptashri Gyanpeeth, a school in Kalimpong, had designed a new website to post their results and other activities, but they had to wait until the shutdown was lifted to get it up and running. “We could not update our website, we could not post about the school openings and activities for the alumni,” said a teacher at the school.

Schools in the area also use the web to make available notes and study materials, and authorities said they were hard pressed to work around the restrictions that had been enforced. Other routine activities like independent research by the students or a basic Google search for unclear concepts quickly became a thing of the past.

“Most students study the material provided in the textbooks and guide books. But there are a few who are creative and look for new information and ideas, and they found it very difficult during the internet shutdown,” said Milan Chettri, a teacher in St. Mary School.

Teachers from several schools often had to take classes without adequate preparation. “Sometimes teachers also need the internet to cover all the angles of the topics we teach in class, our homework so to speak,” said Chettri.

Many parents claimed that paying school fees on time was cumbersome and inconvenient. Many schools were also unable to offer the parents time to make the payments as salaries for their staff was also due. “We used to pay fees online but not having internet for three months meant that we were put in a position where we had to pay a late fee,” said Dawa Tamang, whose daughter is set to take her board exam next year.

The clampdown on services also threw a spanner in the works of online admissions in several colleges. Late June to August-end is when these admissions take place and the new batch of students hit a major roadblock in securing entry to good colleges.

Many students also complained of not getting admissions in cities of their choice due to delayed applications. Some who didn't want to wait another year had no choice but to take admissions in local colleges.

Some colleges tried to ease the hassle by extending admissions but had a limited effect as it was not clear when services would be restored. The heads of all 46 colleges affiliated to North Bengal University (NBU) based in the Hills had negotiated with the varsity officials, seeking to extend the dates for the admission process. “We had received letters from the colleges, mostly from the Dooars, asking if the admission procedures could be extended,” confirmed Dr Nupur Das, Secretary of the Undergraduate Council, NBU.

Principal of Parimal Mitra Smriti College in Malbazar, Uma Maji Mukhrjee, said, “The suspension of internet services had cut down the opportunities for the students to apply. They had to visit the campus and take admissions manually.”

Colleges also had little way of letting the students know if they had been admitted. Principal of St. Joseph’s College, Darjeeling, Fr Dr Donatus Kujur SJ, said, “Our admission procedures run from June 5-15. We could not publish the merit list as we had no network.”

However, in late July, a few pockets — including areas like Mall road, adjoining areas of Bhanu Bhakta in Darjeeling Carmichael Road, Delo, Durpin and Chiso-pani in Kalimpong — did get data signal from Sikkim. As word spread, internet connections at these places, however slow or unreliable, proved to be a great relief for people.

“My sister had just graduated from college and she had come home for a few days. We often climbed up to the hotspots where we could receive internet signals, but the speed was so slow that pages couldn’t be loaded. She had a lot of trouble applying for jobs. Eventually, she was somehow able to apply, only to later find that she could not check any call letters or responses to those applications,” said Manisha Tamang, who was at the time on the lookout for jobs herself.

Months after the restrictions were lifted in late September, the registrations have now been completed and most schools in the Hills have adjusted their winter breaks to compensate for the 100-day paralysis. The final exams have also been rescheduled for January.

Roshan Gupta is a Siliguri-based journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/education-and-employment-opportunities-tossed-out-of-the-window

Darjeeling’s e-commerce Crumbles after 100 days sans Internet

Avijit Sarkar — 2017-12-20T03:16:40Z

Strap: The shutdown on ground and that of the internet have together hurt the economy critically

Darjeeling, West Bengal: Chitra Dutta, 80, owner of a courier service in Darjeeling called Turant, says the 108 days of bandh (strike), including the 100-day ban on internet, had almost paralyzed her business. The shutdown on ground and that of the internet led to courier packages being undistributed for three months. Despite suffering severe loss of revenue, Dutta says she had to pay her employees’ salaries during the bandh, and “it won’t be before March next year” that she will be able to make up for the losses.

When Darjeeling suffered 108 days of bandh called by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) to press their demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland, the worst hit were businesses in the hills. What made it even more difficult for traders to cope up with the loss was the complete absence of internet services, as several of them depended on the medium to run their operations.

GJM’s movement for Gorkhaland picked up momentum when Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) government tried to impose Bengali as a compulsory subject for all schools in West Bengal in early 2017. GJM party chief Bimal Gurung called for an indefinite bandh of all activities in the hills from June 15. It led to several incidents of arson, violence and deaths in retaliatory police action. From June 18, internet services were banned in Darjeeling and Kalimpong. The ban was lifted on September 25.

Dutta’s Turant, a third-party firm, has a tie-up with major courier service providers Bluedart and Ecospeed to distribute their consignments in Darjeeling and around. Another major player in the delivery business, Amazon, had finalized Turant as its service provider in the hills just before the internet ban, but the deal remained in a dicey state after the situation worsened and Darjeeling was cut off from rest of the state, she says. Her business largely depends on a software to track the goods and communicate with business providers and customers, but the prolonged breakdown of internet has brought it to a halt. Dutta says they used to deliver around 40 parcels per day before the shutdown, but no business materialized during the bandh.

Bitter days for tea trade

Girish Sarda, a third generation owner of Nathmulls Tea and Sunset Lounge, an online-cum-retail business outlet that exports Darjeeling tea, says he is disappointed with the state of affairs in the hills.

“Ninety per cent of my business is internet-based. In international trading if you stop supplies to your client for three months, they will source tea from elsewhere to run their business. Clients from Japan started asking me how I was surviving,” says Sarda.

Explaining the losses he faced due to the internet shutdown, he says, “Only 5% of my business is operational at present. I have six months of tea produce and I don’t know how I am going to sell that. It will take months for me to get back on my feet. I’m gone. Things are still hazy here and god only knows when the situation will return to normal.”

The harvest season’s second plucking (of tea leaves), called the second flush, is considered to provide high quality premium tea, and draws the best price. The shutdown in Darjeeling overlapped with the second and the third flush, which occur between the months of June and August, and October and November, respectively. Sarda says, “The bandh ensured there was no second flush and a poor third flush. The entire tea industry has seen the worst phase ever. It may take three years to get back to normalcy.”

Darjeeling produces around 8.9 million kg of tea per annum. Of this, around 20 lakh kg is premium tea and sold at high price, according to S K Saria, owner of Rohini and Gopaldhara Tea Estates. While 80% of the tea produce is sold through auction in Siliguri and Kolkata, the rest is sold directly by traders in Kolkata and Darjeeling, including the 45-60kg tea per day sold online.

Hotel business too saw a downfall in the Darjeeling hills. Vijay Khanna, secretary of Gorkha Hotel Owners Association, says, “Most of the hotel bookings are done online, and we need the internet to check these. The sudden shutdown has left the hotel industry in a bad shape. Clients from abroad could not be informed of the sudden closure of all establishments and few even failed to understand what a bandh is.”

“It was and still is a very difficult time for the industry. Neither the state nor the central government is interested in our plight. There are just a handful of tourists here. Darjeeling hills are out of business,” Khanna says.

Restraining GJM's 'message'

Bimal Gurung, the GJM chief who floated the party in 2007 to capitalize on the growing public disenchantment with Subhash Ghisingh’s way of leading Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), realised the power of internet and social media early on, and utilized the medium to push the propaganda for Gorkhaland statehood through his party.

Several audio and video messages, where Gurung alleges the present TMC government and the chief minister of dividing the hill people by creating separate bodies for each tribe and taking them for a ride, had been going around on WhatsApp and other platforms before his call for an indefinite strike in Darjeeling. West Bengal government responded to the GJM’s call for strike with a heavy hand, initiating police action against protesters and raiding Gurung’s home and offices. However, the Gorkha community residing in the Dooars and Terai region kept on getting his messages throughout the shutdown period as internet was on in these regions.

The movement only kept the Gorkhas away from critical resources like internet that fortify their market, it has not led to any productive dialogue towards statehood yet. The combined effect of internet ban and indefinite strike has hurt the economy of the hills so bad that it will take months to recover. However, people are still unsure about the recovery.

Avijit Sarkar is a Siliguri-based journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/darjeeling2019s-e-commerce-crumbles-after-100-days-sans-internet

Days to Derail Work of Two Generations?

Mahesh Kumar Shiva — 2017-12-21T16:18:57Z

Strap: How an internet shutdown hurt a family woodwork business.

Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh: It was reportedly Bahlul (Bahlol) Lodi, the founder of Lodi dynasty, who in the 15th century first settled some Afghani craftsmen and their families on the outskirts of the old town in Saharanpur. Today, this area houses the Lakdi Market, home to world-famous wood art and handicrafts. From large fretwork screens and doors to trays, bowls and trinket boxes, these intricately carved wooden objects are called for from as far as Europe, the Middle East and Australia. The woodworking industry is the mainstay of thousands of artists, workers and entrepreneurs here, many of whom are part of small mom-and-pop operations.


Craftsmen at Furqan Handicrafts in Saharanpur

Mohammad Aarif, 28, heads one such business which has been in the family since two generations. Founded by his father four decades ago, Furqan Handicrafts has survived several challenges, such as rising prices of the fast exhausting raw material and middlemen, but the losses caused by a 10-day-long internet shutdown jolted him. He lost around Rs 7 lakh ($10,900) during this time. Six months on, he is still dealing with the repercussions, uncertain if he would ever recover the money.

Dalits and Thakurs in Shabbirpur village of Saharanpur district had their daggers drawn since violence first broke out in the village on May 5. The increasing friction led to a revenge cycle of violence, and subsequently to indefinite suspension of internet services on May 24, which went on till June 2, under the orders of the district magistrate to avoid rumour-mongering and hate messages being circulated on social media and messaging apps. The suspension of services in this west Uttar Pradesh city brought life to a standstill and Aarif’s business is just one of those which suffered dramatic losses during this one week.

Furqan Handicrafts is famous for its handicraft items and furniture, both in the country and abroad. Their products go as far as Malaysia, Finland and China. Aarif uses his mobile to make payments for the raw materials as he travels a lot, and this helps him conduct his business on the go.

“We have employed around 20 workers,” says Aarif. When the shutdown came into effect without warning on May 24, he had only around Rs 20,000-30,000 ($310-470) cash in hand. “Can you imagine running a business of this size, with a weekly turnover of Rs 10 lakhs, with so little cash in hand and having the liability of over 20 families on your head?” Aarif asks. “I ran out of cash on May 26 and then the real problems began. The banks were closed and the internet was shut down. We were left with no options. The situation was so tense outside that we could not even think of going to other districts to transact or to even our own banks when they eventually opened after two days,” the businessman says.

Moreover, Furqan Handicrafts has been accepting a good chunk of their orders online - either through their website or on WhatsApp. So the shutdown also affected the demand side of the business adversely. All the little consolatory lies he told himself to steel against the mounting panic didn’t help for long with the shutdown stretching on indefinitely. “I told my workers that the media said the situation would return to normal soon, and that helped us keep calm initially. We were hopeful that we would be able to conduct transactions in the next two days, but the situation worsened when the shutdown continued for over a week,” Aarif says.

“Our suppliers refused to sell us the raw materials without being paid first. Sometimes we may get some materials on loan, but most times only money does the talking. The chemicals that we get from Delhi have to be paid for fully in advance. We had more difficulties when we weren’t able to move our finished product. They were just lying there, collecting dust, and we incurred further losses in re-polishing them. And we were not able to pay our workers for the hours they had put in,” Aarif recalls.

It was not just his business that suffered, his employees felt the sting of the shutdown as well. Najeer Ahmad, a woodworker at Furqan Handicrafts, says that everything was normal in the beginning but situation started worsening after two days. “After the second day, work started slowing down and eventually, stopped completely. Our boss told us that we couldn’t get any raw materials because we weren’t able to pay the suppliers. Whatever little materials we had in the workshop, we used up, but then when there was none left, there was no work… since there was no work, there was no money. The boss usually settles our wages at the end of every week and gives us walking-around money every day. Without either of these, it became quite difficult to manage.”

Another of his employees, Rashid, was able to weather the shutdown because he had some cash lying around at home. “Aise to jumme ke jumme hisaab ho jaata hai (Usually, we get paid every Friday).” So, even though he wasn’t paid that Friday like he usually is, he made do. But he still lost wages because of the lack of work during that week.

“We have lost money in lakhs already. If something like this were to happen again it would ruin us,” says Aarif. But he still manages to see the silver lining in this suffering, and is glad that he did not lose his clients. “Allah ka shukar tha ki hamara koi bhi client toota nahi. Nuksaan ki bharpaayi to ab tak nahi ho paayi hai, lekin Allah chahega to jald hi ho jayegi (Thank god that we didn’t lose any of our clients. We haven’t been able to recover the losses yet, but god willing, we will be able to make up).”

Mahesh Kumar Shiva is a Lucknow - based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters. With inputs from Saurabh Sharma, a Lucknow-based reporter.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/days-to-derail-work-of-two-generations

Internet Shutdowns: A Modern-day Siege

Ayswarya Murthy — 2017-12-19T16:29:41Z

Strap: Technology activists, lawyers, politicians and NGOs weigh in on the spate of internet shutdowns in India in 2017.

Bangalore, Karnataka: For thousands of years, military sieges have been an effective means of depriving a population into submission. Attackers would surround the fort or city and simply wait for the food to run out. In today’s connected age, you can mount a successful siege remotely with a single signed order that can shut down the internet and practically bring life to a standstill.

So, it’s not surprising that inter-governmental organisations and NGOs around the world are starting to promote the idea that access to internet is a fundamental right, and watchdogs declare any deliberate interference to this access to be a violation of human rights. “In today’s modern digital world, shutting down mobile and internet networks is a drastic action that infringes on everyone’s rights and is inherently disproportionate. Internet shutdowns cut off everyone’s ability to speak and access information, regardless of whether they have done anything wrong. Considering the broad harm to rights that shutdowns can cause, government officials should certainly take them more seriously as a human rights violation,” says Cynthia Wong, senior internet researcher at Human Rights Watch.

But in India, there is no legal recourse yet against such decisions. In 2015, a Public Interest Litigation filed in the Gujarat High Court against a week-long internet shutdown was dismissed (as was a Special Leave Petition filed in the Supreme Court in 2016 challenging this decision). In fact, tech entrepreneur and Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekar attributes the dramatic increase in the number of internet blocks in 2017, which has doubled since last year, to this ruling. “This dramatic increase in the number of internet blocks can be attributed to the Supreme Court ruling in February 2016 which upheld the right of districts and states to ban mobile internet services for maintaining law and order .”

Typically, mobile internet bans were enforced under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which can prohibit assembly of more than four people and is usually invoked by a district magistrate. “Indeed, mobs come together due to the spread of misinformation over internet services such as Facebook and WhatsApp,” says Chandrasekar. “However, internet shutdowns also disabled authentic news organisations who can dispel such misinformation. I have argued that governments and administrations do have the right to shut down internet or take down content consistent with the Constitution’s Article 19 guarantee of fundamental right to free speech being subject to reasonable restrictions. So, the debate is not whether the government has a right to temporarily shut down the internet or not, but does the government or administration use this right reasonably and with clear guidelines,” he warns.

Enter the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency of Public Safety) Rules that were released in August. The primary concern of tech activists is that these ‘Suspension Rules’ set a dangerous precedent because they legalise internet shutdowns where ideally there should be none. But these rules also received a wary welcome.

"Use of an archaic law like Section 144 of CrPC for shutting down the internet is not justified. The new rules seem to have been hastily put together without much forethought," according to Prasanth Sugathan, legal director at Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). “There is no transparency on how these rules were drafted as there was no consultation with the stakeholders. These rules are not conducive to ensuring the right to internet access of citizens which is essential for the success of initiatives like Digital India. As regulations go, these aren’t particularly robust, giving central and state governments the power to shut down telecom services, without having to cite further reasoning than “public safety” and “national security”. In fact, the rules don’t even specify a maximum duration after which services must be restored."

Calling the whole deal shoddy, Sugathan says it seems like they were put out just to subvert the illegality of Internet shutdowns.

Chandrasekar also feels the process should have been more consultation-driven. “The rules can and must be improved to remove adhocism and arbitrary use. As I say repeatedly, these kinds of government policies run the real risk of straying from the reasonable restrictions acceptable to our Constitution to an infringement of the Right to Expression. Governments, especially political leadership, should be careful that bureaucratic lack of imagination or paranoia or simply laziness doesn’t cause that crossover from right to wrong.”

According to SFLC, which has been tracking internet shutdowns in the country over the past five years, authorities in India have shut down networks 60 times just in 2017, spelling a staggering cost to the economy beyond the incalculable harm to human rights. Brookings estimated that the 22 network shutdowns in India from 2015-2016 cost the country’s economy $968 million. It’s baffling that while the government is pushing citizens to embrace ‘Digital India’ on one hand, they are concurrently pulling the rug from underneath these same users with these total and partial internet shutdowns. “From the perspective of promoting India’s digital economy, if people learn they cannot rely on their mobile phone service because of arbitrary disruptions, they are less likely to adopt digital technologies. If the Indian government truly wants to be a global leader in the digital age, it should cease all arbitrary and overbroad restrictions on internet access,” says Wong.

Osama Manzer, founder of Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), has an ever-expanding roster of people who were keenly affected by the shutdowns in their regions, irrespective of whether it last three days or three months. “One of the biggest impacts is that residents must live with is that their access to basic services becomes very limited. In Darjeeling, many state government employees were not paid their salaries because the banking system is online and centralised. The livelihood of sim card sellers and recharge shop owners, internet cafes and mom-and-pop shops that offer printing, scanning, online form filling services took a huge hit. It is especially detrimental to them since they rely on daily sales for their income,” he says.

While the economic impact of internet shutdowns has been documented, the social and psychological impact is just as crucial to investigate, says Manzer, especially in cases where these shutdowns are frequent and long term. DEF is in the final stages of releasing a report based on such a research. “We've found through our research that when shutdowns are ordered for a few days, residents can reason it out and some even find justifications for it. They may say the security and safety circumstances warranted it. But prolonged shutdowns have an acute negative impact on residents psychologically. Residents of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and J&K feel the impact of internet shutdowns acutely. They feel doubly isolated from the rest of the country and their faith in the government erodes. People we've interviewed have said they feel helpless and panicked. Some interviewees in Kashmir went so far as to question the democratic process and their right to it.”

Ayswarya Murthy is a Bangalore-based journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-shutdowns-a-modern-day-siege

Sorry, Business Closed until Internet is Back On

Nalanda Tambe — 2017-12-19T16:25:24Z

Strap: Exporters say they lose face with international clients when internet shutdowns block deliveries.

Vadodara, Gujarat: A household name in Vadodara, Jagdish Farshan has been famous for Gujarati snacks like Leelo Chevdo and Bakarwadi since 1938. Since the year 2000, they started exporting their snacks to the millions of Gujaratis settled across the globe, especially in Africa, USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It is one of the many indigenous businesses that helps Gujarat contribute 25% of the total exports from India. But the outfit synonymous with both tradition and modernity for 79 years, was also one of the many exporters to receive an unexpected jolt in August 2015, during the week-long internet shutdown during the Patidar protests for reservations across the state.

Kalpesh Kandoi, the chairman of Jagdish Farshan Pvt Ltd says, “Gujaratis in various countries buy our snacks online through our website, or through email. During the internet ban, we suffered quite a lot due to the blockage of orders and failure of deliveries.” Since nearly 50% of their annual revenue comes from exports, the shutdown threw a significant spanner in the works. Although the government claims it banned only mobile data, many businesses admit to their broadband and WiFi also being hit, or seeing debilitating delays.

“Of course, if there is an emergency from the importers’ side, they can call us directly,” says Kandoi. “But then again, a kind of inconvenience is created to them from our side, which is very shameful. It destroys our trustworthiness and credibility.” Many of their production centres in Gujarat, especially Vadodara, fell back on meeting orders when bank payments were stuck, or orders weren't accessible. Thankfully for the company, its manufacturing unit in Australia was able to meet at least some of the international orders when most districts of Gujarat couldn't access the internet.

The ban seems to have had a domino effect outside India too. Preeti Shah, who imports snacks and sweets from Jagdish Farshan through her small home-based business in the USA, couldn't meet orders there during the internet ban in Gujarat. She told 101reporters on the phone from Philadelphia that when she started her business of selling Gujarati snacks 3 years ago, she marketed her service by calling her neighbours, friends and acquaintances personally. “I found that in return they emailed me their snack orders,” says Shah. “During the internet blockages in India, I had to apologise for not delivering the snacks to my clients because my orders were not fulfilled by the Gujarat-based exporters.” She lost 12 to 15 clients, most of them regulars. “The government has to realise the impact of the ban. What if I had lost all my clients just because of the internet ban?” she asks.

Gujarat is a major hub for several industries like dairy, automobile, gems, and pharmaceuticals, but its biggest exports are of cotton yarn, oilseeds, and seafood. With its highly advanced and well-equipped marine fish production techniques, it is able to export fish to UAE, Australia, USA, Japan, China, Canada, Brazil, Thailand, and Germany. Gems and jewellery too, though exported from Mumbai, are processed in Surat, Gujarat, one of the largest diamond hubs in the world. Already severely hit by demonetisation in November 2016, with large-scale closures, layoffs and losses, the diamond industry nearly buckled under the internet ban too.

Most of all, it is the unpredictable, ad hoc, and unannounced nature of the internet shutdowns that frustrates exporters, who liken it to annoying roadblocks traffic policemen install to allow VIP movement. For instance, in February 2016, the state suspended mobile internet services suddenly for four hours to prevent cheating during a revenue service exam.

Chandresh Shah, president of the Exporters and Importers (Exim) Club and the founder of Madhav Agro Foods, says that the entire export industry relies on the internet for over 95% of its business. “It is absurd on the part of government to ban internet for any reason especially when they know that it will hamper exporters to a great extent. They have to provide alternatives, or announce beforehand. People who are importing our products consider us unprofessional and we look foolish in the international markets. So such policies need to be revamped and rationalised properly.” He adds that the rising economic cost of such shutdowns must be factored in. A 2016 study by Brookings Institution that looked at 81 instances of internet shutdowns across 19 countries between July 2015 and June 2016 found that they had cost the world economy a total of $2.4 billion. India, at a conservative estimate of $968 million due to 22 shutdowns (as much as Iraq), was one of the biggest losers.

As the digital economy grows, the cost of frequent internet shutdowns will only accelerate. As the central government pushed the ‘Make in India’ initiative, Surat-based Falguni Patel (name changed) was inspired to start an online boutique in late 2014. A textiles student and first-time entrepreneur, she invested nearly Rs 10 lakhs ($15,600) through loans and savings. Unfortunately, a few months into her business, an internet ban was put in place. “It was a sheer coincidence that I received an order from Madhya Pradesh, along with an advance payment, just two days before the week-long internet ban. After that they mailed me four times – first with some requirements, then two follow-up emails and a final one demanding a refund of the advance –but I didn’t receive any of these due to the ban. Meanwhile, I used the advance to purchase raw materials needed.” After the ban was lifted, Patel realised what had happened. “When I called them personally and explained the situation, they called me unprofessional. When I said I would repay their money in 3-4 instalments, they filed a police complaint against me for theft.” Only a single order had turned bad, but it delivered a strong enough blow. Discouraged by the experience, and pressured by her parents who didn't want her to invest in the business anymore, Patel shut her website, and shelved her e-commerce dreams.

Some companies, like Dinesh Mills, one of Vadodara’s oldest textile companies, prevented losses by invoking their brand value and stepping up customer relations during the ban. Uday Shitole, General Manager – Sales, at Dinesh Mills, says the internet is a boon for the export industry due to its speed, web orders, low cost, and proper documentation. But he admits that in India, it's mandatory to have traditional back-up systems, even if this is much costlier, because political realities make even something as advanced as the internet unpredictable. Sudhir Purohit, Vice President (Exports), Dinesh Mills Ltd, says their decade-long relationships with suppliers and purchasers, initiated in the pre-internet days, stood the company in good stead. “We export the materials through digital orders too, but in our system, the negotiation of contracts has to be handled in person and non-negotiable ones can be done wholly through the internet. Without this, we will be vulnerable to any disruption, like internet ban, or accidents, that will definitely lead to delays and losses.”

Nalanda Tambe is a Vadodara- based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/sorry-business-closed-until-internet-is-back-on

The Rising Stars in Music Loath Losing their Only Platform

Umar Shah and Mir Farhat — 2017-12-21T15:59:24Z

Strap: The music from Kashmir wants to find a way out, but shutting internet down only adds to the bitterness.

Srinagar, J&K: Amid the gaudy Old City area of Srinagar, where the air is heavy with the pungent smell of teargas shells, 25-year-old Ali Saifuddin has been busy working on compositions that he will perform at a prominent indie music festival in Pune in December 2017. Pune may be discovering Saifuddin’s music only now, but he has performed in Dubai and London too, owing to the fanbase he has garnered on social media.


Mehmeet Syed’s popularity on social media has taken her to countries like US, UK, Australia and Abu Dhabi (Picture Courtesy: Mehmeet Syed Facebook page)	Umar Majeed shot to fame with his rendition of Pakistan’s national anthem on the Santoor		Yawar Abdal, a Kashmiri singer, says he doesn’t see the logic behind keeping the internet shut for months (Picture Courtesy: Yawar Abdal Facebook Page)

It was in 2014 when the budding musician bought recording gear and created a Facebook page. Hours after uploading his first video, Saifuddin became an internet sensation. “I was stunned to see thousands of views on Facebook. People who I had never met with hailed my tunes and encouraged me to produce more,” Saifuddin says.

With 9,000 followers on Instagram and more than 6,000 ‘likes’ on his Facebook page, Saifuddin often gets offers to perform outside Kashmir.

“(As an artist) you need a platform, and in Kashmir, it is the internet that sides with you,” says Yawar Abdal, another popular Youtuber, whose song Tamanna has garnered over 400,000 views since June. “I uploaded a minute-long video on Facebook in April last year. It became viral and made me famous,” Abdal says.

The 23-year-old Pune University student has more than 13,000 followers on Instagram and above 10,000 likes on Facebook. “There are no shows organised in Kashmir. Internet is the only platform where people can broadcast what they posses,” he says.

Frequent curfews, even online, are like a curse for Kashmiris. Internet services are being clamped down in the Valley quite often, particularly after the killing of militant leader Burhan Wani on July 8. Wani’s killing sparked violent protests resulting in the deaths of 15 civilians the very next day. The clashes killed 383 people - including 145 civilians, 138 militants and 100 state and Central security personnel - and around 15,000 others were injured. While many were also put under illegal detention following the outbreak of deadly violence, the government suspended internet for more than six months in 2016.

In such a scenario, where shutdowns are stretching from streets to the social media, it is not surprising to see Kashmiris voice their dissent through art whenever they find a window open. In 2017, internet services were blocked 27 times across various districts of the Valley, either on mobile, or on both mobile and broadband, in the hope that it prevents rumour mongering and instigation of violence.

“This is unnatural and tantamount to choking a person’s right to free speech,” says Saifuddin, who has been criticising the human rights violations in Kashmir with songs that carry a political undertone. Son of medical doctors based in UK, Saifuddin got initiated to rock music through Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin during school days, before heading to Delhi University for a BA degree in 2011. “There I found the treasure of music. I finally had a computer and an internet connection. Youtube became my first, and so far, the only teacher,” recalls Saifuddin. His songs on Youtube include Aye Raah-e-Haq Ke Shaheedon, Phir Se Hum Ubharaygay, and Manzoor Nahi - a song he posted to protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kashmir in November 2015.

For Mehmeet Syed, whose music was limited to CDs since 2004, internet opened new avenues. Her popularity on social media has taken her to countries like US, UK, Australia and Abu Dhabi among others. “Being on social media is very important as it lets people stay updated about my work. My popularity touched new heights after I took to the internet,” says Syed, who owns a verified Facebook page with more than 1.20 lakh followers. On Instagram, she is a novice. But an internet ban means “heartbreak” to her. “Internet is not shut down in other places witnessing violence and conflict…We are very unfortunate to face internet bans,” says Syed.

“As singers, we have to record songs, mail them for editing, or receive content from studio. Without internet, we are stuck, paralysed,” she says.

Explaining how internet is more than a means of free expression, Mehmeet says, “Times have changed. This is the era of iTunes and YouTube. The songs we release in Kashmir are watched online across the globe. And this is how you earn today.”

The freedom to share content has empowered even the marginalised lot who were only known locally for their talent. Abdul Rashid, a transgender wedding singer popular as ‘Reshma’ in Srinagar’s Old City, became an online sensation after one of her wedding songs was widely viewed on Facebook, and media followed up with stories around her.

“Nobody knew me outside my locality. But today, I get calls from across Kashmir to sing on weddings. This became possible through Facebook. It gave me wide publicity,” Reshma says.

Umar Majeed, a Class 12 student from Zainakoot in Srinagar, is keeping the folk tradition of Kashmir alive with the help of internet. While the 19-year-old inherited skills on Santoor from his father, Abdul Majeed, it was social media that propelled him to fame. Umar played the national anthem of Pakistan on Santoor, accompanied by two other musicians on Rabaab. “The instrumental composition was viewed 450,000 times in two days,” says Umar, adding that they are working on a musical theme of the Indian national anthem as well.

With 5,000 friends on Facebooķ and 2,500 followers on Instagram, Umar has a quite wide network for a schoolkid. “We get a lot of encouragement and confidence when people comment on and appreciate our work online,” he says. But repeated internet ban keeps the young musician away from the much needed feedback.

“When I get an idea, I instantly compose it on Santoor and upload it on Facebook to get viewers’ response… But when there is internet ban, I have no mood to play even when I get an idea, and soon I forget it,” he says.

Mehmeet points out that internet not only promises freedom of expression but also provides monetary support to indie artists through platforms like iTunes, Google Play, Pandora, Amazon and Sawaan. She has been generating revenue to support her music through 21 of her tracks uploaded on these platforms, Mehmeet says.

The repeated shutdown of internet during the Republic Day and Independence Day also sends a wrong message to Kashmiris, says Mehmeet. “We realise that such attitude is step-motherly, which is unacceptable. And we as Kashmiris have not yet reached the stage where we think we have got independence.” Saifuddin seconds her sentiments. “If it is a democracy, then I have a right to speak my heart out. Why would the government choke my voice?” he asks.

When asked if the clamping down of internet service affects his music and earning, Saifuddin retorts poetically: “If not for the internet, I wouldn’t be around. So yes, it pains to see Kashmir being sealed on streets and on the cyberspace as well.

“It makes you angry at times to see things that happen nowhere but in Kashmir.”

Abdal, on the contrary, wants his music to be apolitical. “I sing the songs of Sufi saints and strive to rejuvenate the dying Kashmiri music,” he says.

But, the ban on internet services leaves him perturbed. “Without listeners, you begin losing interest. I hope one day the government understands that there is no logic in keeping the internet shut for weeks and months,” says Abdal, adding that he also observes a drop in demand for live gigs in the absence of internet.

“When you have a lot to share, but the medium through which you could take it to people is blocked, discomfort is what you’re left with.”

Umar Shah and Mir Farhat are Srinagar-based freelance writers and members of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-rising-stars-in-music-loath-losing-their-only-platform

Stock Brokers Don't Love an Internet Shutdown

Binita Parikh — 2017-12-19T16:20:49Z

Strap: For a trade that rides on price volatility and fast reactions, an internet shutdown is a costly slowdown.

Ahmedabad, Gujarat: An internet shutdown means breaking contact with the lifeline of the stock market: information about share price movement. “The entire momentum for trading and investing comes from the control the trader feels he has on information about share prices," says Minesh Modi, a trader based in Ahmedabad. "The internet puts information on our fingertips, so the trader could play on the stock exchange. It gives you a sense of control on the data, and is also mechanism to trade."

So, when the Gujarat government shut the internet down for a week during the Patel agitation in September 2015, and for four hours to prevent cheating on phones during a Revenue Accountants Recruitment Exam in February 2016, Modi says, "That intense feeling of connect goes away, and the faith is shaken.”

An obvious fallout of mobile internet shutdown is that terminals connected via phone internet stop working, and mobile trade is not possible. However, many Gujarati investors say that while they check price variations and movements online, they still trade through brokerage houses. Playing the stock market is usually a part-time business activity for most Gujaratis. “I don’t trade online directly. I place actual orders of purchase/sell through my broker," says YK Gupta, an investor in the city. Still, he did struggle during the internet shutdown. “I couldn't keep a tab on the price movement, and had to call up my broker for updates. How many times can I take updates on the phone? The television gives prices of only a few stocks, and there is a delay of three to five minutes of prices on the television. Stock prices being as volatile as they are, that time gap can be life-changing in the stock market.” Not willing to risk a huge mistake, Gupta chose to stay away from making any stock transactions during internet shut down.

The stock market rides on people's aspirations and individual deductions about trends and data, which in turn impacts business valuations. Since internet penetration has increased, traders say there is a premium on speedy reaction as well. Anil Shah, a former director with the Bombay Stock Exchange (2011-14) and a member of the National Stock Exchange, believes that an internet shutdown, however partial, will paralyse the ecosystem that sustains the share market. “Most of our work is on the terminals and when they stop, the smooth flow gets disrupted. The information that is the base in the stock market, the actual trading and fund flow work, all this will stop. When the internet stops, data stops, and the flow of work stops. It's as simple as that,” he says.

Recalling the impact of the internet and how it has evolved and woven itself into the stock market ecosystem, Shah adds, “Earlier, when the telephone number was the basis of trading, we could establish connectivity via phones. But since 2006-7, we have slowly moved to the internet to establish interconnectivity. The more reliable, faster and cheaper the internet services got, the more it integrated itself into our trading patterns. More people shifted to it as a connecting platform. About 95% connections are now established online."

He says that NSE/BSE members now have a dedicated lease line so that they don’t lose contact with the stock market. "Many brokerage firms are connected via VSAT linkages, so that we, as Gujarat state, don’t get disconnected fully with the rest of India. The loss due to internet shutdown is not quantifiable. It will have to be measured as the cost of a missed opportunity."

It is not just the stocks, but also banking transactions that stop or decrease drastically in volume when the internet stops, Shah says. “During the Patidar agitation, mobile internet services in most areas were shut down. However, broadband services were not stopped, so the brokers managed to keep the ball rolling. But brokers will lose in volumes. It is difficult to put a figure to it, but the movement and momentum of trade goes down.”

Echoing a similar sentiment, VK Sharma, head of Public Consulting Group and Capital Market Strategy at HDFC Securities, says that large companies have the facility to call their other branch offices and get the transactions through. So only customers and traders who don’t have a landline fallback option will be affected. However, those who wish to transact on the stock market with help of mobiles will not be able to do so. “This way, the volume of transactions is not stopped completely, but definitely curtailed,” Sharma says. “The decrease can be roughly estimated to be around 3%, but the state-wise breakdown of transactions and impact is not available from the exchange. Moreover, internet slowdown or shutdown results in a lot of disputes among traders and brokers - about the price entered into for transaction and the price that the deal is finalised on.”

Sarit Choksi, an investor who trades regularly, lamented the absence of a recovery mechanism for the losses that the people incurred. “When the net shuts off, we have to call the broker, who does not have dedicated phone lines to handle the huge hike in calls, so getting through to him is itself a challenge,” he says. “Then, as we don’t have the information at our fingertips, we cannot adjust the mutual funds choice, ‘stop loss’ and set ‘buy or sell’ limits in tune with the market movement. By the time I see it on tv, and get through to the broker to execute the deal, the price has changed. Who is going to compensate for this loss?”

It’s impractical to tell the Stock Exchange Bureau of India or the traders that the transactions could not go through due to internet shutdown, or ask them to forgive the price difference due to the long waiting time on the telephone. If brokerage houses makes a mistake, Choksi explains, arbitration is available, but there is no platform to claim or address the kind of losses one incurs due to external limitations like an internet ban.

“If internet connectivity is put on ransom due to political ambitions, it is very disruptive,” Choksi says. “In a society deliberately being pushed to go digital, the impact of such a shutdown is felt in financial and social sectors. When such political decisions are taken without considering the other impacts, our bread and butter is affected, and we are left high and dry, with no recourse or means to compensate the loss.”

Binita Parikh is a Ahmedabad - based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/stock-brokers-dont-love-an-internet-shutdown