Kapil Sibal snaps at social networks, says code of conduct coming!Having announced the Cabinet Decision to Restrai n Indian Media Coverage with a Provision to CANCEL the License for the Erring Media, the LPG Mafia Government of India Incs Ruling India for the Zionist Brahaminical Hegemony, now is All Set To Control the Social Network sites to kill the Freedom of Expression!Facebook to remove content that violates its terms!
A proposed government move to regulate content on blogs has ignited a firestorm of protests from the blogging community, which is accusing the government of restricting free speech and acting like guardians of a police state.
Draft IT guidelines may gag internet freedom!
Parliamentary Soap Opera on Multi Brand Retail FDI takes a break ahead of another round of ANNA BRIGADE Show of Anti Corruption Campaign as POLITICAL Class of the Ruling Brahaminical hegemony stands United Rock Solid to CURB the Media.The deadlock in Parliament over the government's decision to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail ended on Wednesday after an all-party meeting passed aresolution to suspend the move till a consensus was reached.
Five reasons why India can't censor the internet!
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams ,Chapter 717
Palash Biswas
http://indianliberationnews.com/
http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/
http://basantipurtimes.blogspot.com/
Kapil Sibal snaps at social networks, says code of conduct coming!A proposed government move to regulate content on blogs has ignited a firestorm of protests from the blogging community, which is accusing the government of restricting free speech and acting like guardians of a police state.
Draft IT guidelines may gag internet freedom!
Parliamentary Soap Opera on Multi Brand Retail FDI takes a break ahead of another round of ANNA BRIGADE Show of Anti Corruption Campaign as POLITICAL Class of the Ruling Brahaminical hegemony stands United Rock Solid to CURB the Media.The deadlock in Parliament over the government's decision to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail ended on Wednesday after an all-party meeting passed aresolution to suspend the move till a consensus was reached.
Having announced the Cabinet Decision to Restrai n Indian Media Coverage with a Provision to CANCEL the License for the Erring Media, the LPG Mafia Government of India Incs Ruling India for the Zionist Brahaminical Hegemony, now is All Set To Control the Social Network sites to kill the Freedom of Expression!India, the world's largest democracy, may force companies such asGoogle Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. andFacebook Inc. to take down online content that it deems offensive because they haven't been able to come up with an effective self-censorship mechanism governing millions of users.
Full coverage
Five reasons why India can't censor the internetTimes of India - 36 minutes ago In just 24 hours, in the Facebook alumni group of St Stephen's College, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal's ratings crashed faster than that of US President Barack Obama or what former telecom minister A. Raja, now in judicial custody over second ... Twitter, Facebook users target SibalTimes of India - 25 minutes ago Kapil Sibal's move to regulate online content is inviting a barrage of barbs on the very social media sites –– Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus –– which he aims to muzzle. MUMBAI: Communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal's move to regulate online ... Speak Out The Times of IndiaTimes of India - 43 minutes ago Union telecom & IT minister Kapil Sibal has warned that the government would remove offensive material from the web if Internet giants such as Google and Facebook failed to do so. Sibal has taken objection, specifically, to the content insulting to ... Google asks govt to set guidelinesIndia Today - 13 minutes ago Internet giant Google stood its ground on Tuesday against the government's directive to websites to remove "controversial" content. "We work really hard to both follow the law and also give people as much access to information as we can. ... Views | Kapil Sibal vs the internetLivemint - 48 minutes ago The word 'information' is on Kapil Sibal's business card. He should try to figure out what it means If we can't be China as far as all the good things about China go, we can at least try to emulate the bad stuff. That's the message that telecom and ... India's government will screen Internet contentSan Francisco Chronicle - 1 hour ago India Information Technology professionals work during an "Open Hack Day" organized by Yahoo, one company that's not filtering content to the Indian government's satisfaction. India's top telecommunications official said Tuesday that ... Kapil Sibal snaps at social networks, says code of conduct comingTimes of India - 5 hours ago NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday appeared set to dictate a code of conduct for the social media networks and other websites despite an assurance from the likes of Facebook that they would remove content that violates their terms. ... Rahul Gandhi to keep ears to ground via Google AppsDaily News & Analysis - 3 hours ago Notwithstanding the telecom minister Kapil Sibal threatening to block Google for permitting objectionable material against Congress leaders, party general secretary and tech-savvy Rahul Gandhi is ... Code of conduct for social media: Indian politicians way too touchy about ...Times of India - 5 hours ago KOLKATA: Indian politicians appear too sensitive on how they're portrayed online. Why else would government agencies inundate Google - with an estimated 100 million users in India - with requests to remove content, especially those showing political ... | RelatedTimeline of articlesNumber of sources covering this story
ImagesNew York Times ... Financial Post IBNLive.com Globe and Mail IBNLive.com indiablooms Rediff Zee News IBNLive.com VideosGovt, Congress back Sibal over Facebook censorship NewsX - 5 hours ago *India going the China way on online content? IBNLive - 6 hours ago *Shashi Tharoor supports Sibal's stand on Facebook NewsX - 22 hours ago *Want to regulate content unfit for public consumption: Sibal NDTV - 22 hours ago *Facebook censorship: Varun Gandhi attacks Kapil Sibal NewsX - 22 hours ago |
India's top telecommunications official said Tuesday that Internet giants such as Facebook and Google have ignored his demands to screen derogatory material from their sites, so the government would have to act on its own.
The dispute highlights India's continuing difficulty in balancing the Internet culture of freewheeling discourse with its homegrown religious and political sensitivities. Government officials are upset about Web pages that are insulting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ruling Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi and major religious figures.
Kapil Sibal, India's telecommunications minister, said he spoke repeatedly with officials from major Internet companies over the past three months and asked them to come up with a voluntary framework to keep offensive material off the Internet.
In a meeting Monday, the Internet companies told him there was nothing they could do, he said, so the government would formulate a policy on its own. He declined to specify what that policy would be.
Indian media reports said that during the meeting Monday, Sibal specifically told officials from Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft about posts that were insulting to Singh, Gandhi and religious leaders.
Facebook said in a statement Tuesday it would remove content that "is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity."
Google said it removes content that violates local law and its own standards.
"But when content is legal and doesn't violate our policies, we won't remove it just because it's controversial, as we believe that people's differing views, so long as they're legal, should be respected and protected," Google said in a statement.
Yahoo declined to comment and Microsoft had no immediate comment.
One person with knowledge of the meeting Monday said that the demand was sparked by a Facebook page about Sonia Gandhi. Facebook has three pages titled "I hate Sonia Gandhi," two titled "We hate Sonia Gandhi," and one titled "Manmohan Singh is a puppet of Sonia Gandhi." India has more than 25 million Facebook users.
India has had conflicts with technology companies in the past over information access, and Sibal said Tuesday that many of the companies have been reluctant to hand over data the government has asked for related to terrorists.
Last year, India threatened to ban the popular corporate e-mail and messenger services on BlackBerry devices amid security concerns over access to encrypted information. The government later backed down.
The Indian government has made 68 requests to Google this year to remove content, according to Google.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/06/MNR51M95QB.DTL#ixzz1fpwekaWJ
The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government had no option but to "evolve guidelines" to ensure that "blasphemous content on the Internet or television is not allowed", with Internet and social networking sites such as those above "failing to respond to and cooperate with" the government's request to keep "objectionable" content out of their websites, Kapil Sibal, minister of communications and information technology (IT), said in New Delhi on Tuesday.
A file photo of telecom minister Kapil Sibal.
His comments unleashed a firestorm of criticism by Internet advocacy groups and experts, who said the move amounted to censorship and was anti-democratic, impractical and unwarranted since existing laws were comprehensive enough to remove "objectionable" content. The move, they argued, would also stem the growth of user-generated content sites, and thus the Internet itself.
The government has been battling a series of corruption scandals and criticism of its inability to move forward on policy reforms. A campaign against corruption fuelled by online support has also challenged the government's authority to legislate, forcing its own version of an anti-graft legislation onto the agenda.
The latest move by the government follows the introduction of new rules to the Information Technology Act, 2008, that were published earlier this year, also heavily criticized, that called on Internet service providers (ISPs) along with other entities to police online postings, including blogs.
Sibal referred to what he considered objectionable content as a "matter of grave concern", which affects the "sensibility of our people and is against our cultural ethos".
Watch video
Sibal justifies his decision to create guidelines for removing objectionable content online, and claims it doesn't amount to censorship.
Once the new policy framework is implemented, companies "will be duty-bound to share information about those who post content, even if it (the content) is posted outside India". He didn't say by when the policy would be put in place.
Discussions with executives from the firms mentioned above had begun in September, Sibal said. They had been asked to come up with solutions to address the perceived problem in a month's time and had failed to do so, he said.
According to local media reports, the move follows posts about some senior Congress leaders, including party president Sonia Gandhi. The minister, who is also one of India's top lawyers, did not refer to any specific "objectionable" material during his press briefing, but rued that "the content has still not been removed".
Google India defended the right of free speech, while saying that it didn't condone illegality.
"Even where content is legal but breaks our own terms and conditions, we take that down too, once we've been notified about it," Google India said in a release. "But it also means that when content is legal but controversial, we don't remove it because people's differing views should be respected, so long as they are legal."
Facebook India also said that it would remove any content that crossed the line.
It "has policies and onsite features in place that enable people to report abusive content", the company said. "We will remove any content that violates our terms, which are designed to keep material that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity off the service."
While Yahoo India declined to comment, Microsoft did not respond to an email till press time.
Internet censorship is a rising trend, with approximately 40 countries filtering the Web in varying degrees, including democratic and non-democratic governments. Governments are using increasingly sophisticated censorship and surveillance techniques, including blocking social networks, to restrict a variety of types of content, says the 2010 Global Network Initiative (GNI) report. GNI seeks to protect freedom of speech online.
This August, for instance, the Centre had written to the department of telecommunications, asking it to "ensure effective monitoring of Twitter and Facebook", which minister of state for communications and IT Milind Deora acknowledged a few days later in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha. He mentioned access to "encrypted data" on social networking sites, but did not elaborate on the subject.
Currently, the Indian Telegraph Act and the IT Act, 2008, (amendments were introduced in IT Act, 2000) give the government the power to monitor, intercept and even block online conversations and websites. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has put up a list of 11 such websites blocked by a government order. The data was received from the department of information technology (DIT).
Moreover, under section 79 of the IT Intermediary (Rules and Guidelines), 2011, intermediaries (comprising telcos, ISPs, network services providers, search engines, cyber cafes, Web-hosting companies, online auction portals and online payment sites) are mandated to exercise "due diligence" and advise users not to share/distribute information violative of the law or a person's privacy and rights. Intermediaries are expected to act on a complaint within 36 hours of receiving it, and remove such content when warranted.
In case the intermediary doesn't find the content objectionable, the matter will have to be contested in a court of law.
"Currently, you need a court of law to direct a company in case something has to be removed. That takes a lot of time. So there has to be a mechanism that is faster in dealing with such content as (it) can be very damaging," said a DIT official, who did not want to be named.
"The Indian government can, and should, monitor conversations and websites if it believes the content can harm the security, defence, sovereignty and integrity of the country," said Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court lawyer and cyber law expert. However, he wondered how the government would go about implementing the task of monitoring each and every conversation on an unstructured Internet.
Bangalore-based CIS, an Internet advocacy group, said "this pre-emptive manual screening of content, if implemented, would sound the death knell of freedom of expression in India".
"This screening is worrisome. Companies will err on the side of caution in a bid to please the government, and the courts will not be involved," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of CIS. "This is not only unconstitutional, but technically impossible too. Speech and words have nuances. Can humans decipher these with accuracy?"
The move will undermine key principles on which the Internet was built, said Nikhil Pahwa, editor and publisher of digital industry news and analysis blog MediaNama.
"It is completely impossible to enforce this. There is no way that content can be prescreened before it is placed online," he said. "It also kills the concept of immediate communication, which the Internet stands for."
Cyber law expert Na Vijayashankar, who runs cyber law information portal Naavi, said: "The government has valid reason to control anti-national activities on the Internet. But there are existing laws for it. The current proposition is impractical since pre-scrutiny of content on the Internet is not possible. It will affect the growth of user-generated content, which is helping Internet penetration grow in India."
Internet censorship happens frequently in countries such as Myanmar, Cuba, China (which had blocked keyword searches of the word "Egypt" on the Internet as well as on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter), Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. On the very day the Egyptian government set out to block Internet services in the country (in January), US Republican senator Susan Collins floated the COICA Bill, popularly called the "kill switch" Bill, which, if approved, would give the US president similar powers.
Also Read | Ourview | Controls on freedom of speech
Views | Censorship by any other name…
surabhi.a@livemint.com
http://www.livemint.com/2011/12/06130244/Govt-wants-to-scrub-the-Intern.html?h=A1
Five reasons why India can't censor the internet
In just 24 hours, in the Facebook alumni group of St Stephen's College, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal's ratings crashed faster than that of US President Barack Obama or what former telecom minister A. Raja, now in judicial custody over second generation (2G) spectrum case, ever had.In a survey to pick star alumni for a big debating clash with counterparts from the rival college across the road, Sibal was on the top five a week ago -- among other stellar Stephanians like Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, former federal minister Mani Shankar Aiyar or former UN diplomat Shashi Tharoor. No longer!
As the #Idiot hash-tag topped Twitter trends, some withdrew their votes for Sibal, and there were posts like "Chuck him across the road" -- a scathing insult, equivalent to the Parsis' excommunication.
Just a preview of the global firestorm over the next two days!
The fire wasn't from anonymous teens. Seasoned analysts blasted Sibal. Investor Mahesh Murthy posted: "Censor this! :) ! Five of the top 10 Twitter trends in India right now are: #IdiotKapilsibal, #KapilSibal, #Censorship, #FreeSpeech and #FreedomOfSpeech."
All this, for just one statement from a politician not unknown for his foot-in-mouth disease? Not quite. For, he has the power to misuse and try to make it happen.
During the Anna Hazare movement, Sibal summoned representatives of the social networks. In a king-and-subjects interaction, he kept them waiting, then kept them standing in his room; gave them a pre-emptive dressing down; and snapped: "I don't want any anti-government stuff on your networks. Fix it." There was no room for discussion.
So here's a five-point Internet 101 for the illustrious Mr. Sibal.
1. The internet cannot be edited: Duh! In an early Dilbert strip, the pointy-haired boss demanded that Dilbert "download" the internet and fax it to him. A decade down, it's not so funny any more.
The internet is not traditional media. India's 1975 emergency and the media clampdown was possible because of the linear, broadcast nature of the old media. New media is distributed. No copy desk or censor board can "fix" it. There is no editor to arrest. And, most content is hosted outside India's jurisdiction.
2. User-generated content cannot be filtered: That would slow down the global internet to a crawl, with posts appearing after days -- even assuming so many "editors" could be hired by, say, a Facebook or a Twitter.
Are phone operators responsible for "content" carried on their networks -- or their CEOs arrested if someone made a terror threat over a phone call? No, the telco is simply asked to help with the investigation -- into who made the call.
Yes, internet content has the permanence and public-impact potential that a phone call does not, but equally, it lends itself brilliantly to self-regulation.
3. Peer review works: Wikipedia is the best example. Who could have imagined that a user-created encyclopedia could be so objective, and comprehensive? Yes, anyone can go in and edit anything (barring entries like "Kapil Sibal", which have been locked due to vandalism!).
If you make an inappropriate change, someone will come in and correct it. And so it is on Facebook or Twitter. Abusive posts will be reported, blocked, and the individuals knocked out of the site.
4. Draconian controls are not necessary: In this age of global cooperation on terror, companies cooperate. A rational request from India to Google or Facebook to bring down offensive content will be heard -- regardless of jurisdiction.
5. Yes, there are precedents for Internet control, but...: Such censorship is in countries India doesn't want to be -- China, Pakistan, Myanmar or Saudi Arabia. Pakistan became a laughing stock when it issued a list of banned words for SMS messages. (That list is now standard reading for anyone wanting a quick lesson in present and future abuses that aren't in any dictionary.)
The big daddy of "regulation" is China, where everything is filtered, and if you break those filters, you are charged with treason. What a role model.
But wait.
Kapil Sibal knows all this, right? So why is this bright star from Harvard Law School and St. Stephen's college now sounding so anachronistic in the internet age? Is it the old "thou shalt display higher loyalty to the royal family than the prince himself" mantra?
If Kapil Sibal is to defend himself against the charge of sycophancy, he is on a weak footing. There were many prior potential triggers for tackling social media, including fanatic religious posts, derogatory comments by Pakistan sympathisers, Anna Hazare, and more. That he finally picked a post that targeted Sonia Gandhi suggests that this was not out of serious, objective concern about India's stability, security or secular fabric.
Both houses of Parliament functioned normally and took the crucial Question Hour for the first time since the winter session began on November 22.
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who chaired the meeting made a brief statement in the Lok Sabha and read out the resolution passed in the all-party meeting.
"The decision to permit 51 percent FDI in retailtrade is suspended till a consensus is developed through consultation among various stakeholders," a one-paragraph resolution passed in the meeting said.
Mukherjee said he was "glad" that all political parties have agreed. He said as per the government's latest formula, they would now consult all stakeholders, including the chief ministers of all states and political parties, before going ahead with the policy.
"The government will take a final decision through consultation. Let the houses conduct normal business."
Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj of the Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) welcomed the decision and said it was not the defeat of the government "but it strengthened democracy".
She complimented the finance minster and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who was present in the house. "I thank the finance minister and the Prime Minister," Sushma Swaraj said.
Earlier, leaders of political parties emerging out of the meeting said they have agreed on the government's formula to suspend foreign investment in retail.
The issue had led to a continuous logjam in parliament as both houses were not been able to run since the winter session began. There were other issues, including rising prices, Telangana and corruption, that blocked parliament for the first nine days of the session.
Calling it "peoples' victory", the Communist Party of India (CPI) said the government has virtually revoked the FDI decision.
"It is a virtual rollback. I compliment the government for taking a belated decision. It has been retreated," CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta told reporters.
He said the government would consult on the issue and when "they will come to us, we will oppose it again. There will be no consensus and it won't be implemented," Dasgupta told IANS.
He said both the houses will function normally now.
Trinamool Congress, a bitter critic of the policy and a ruling Congress ally in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), said every political party, "including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)", agreed to let Parliament function and put the FDI decision on hold.
"It has been accepted. Whatever you may want to call it, holdback or rollback, it is not being implemented," Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Bandhopadhyay told IANS after the meeting.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Shukla dismissed the notion that the government has bowed before the opposition and its own allies, the Trinamool Congress and the DMK.
"There is no question of bowing down. This is democracy. We always wanted to have a discussion. They have agreed on our formula. The meeting went off very well. Parliament will function now," Shukla told reporters.
Allowing FDI in retail was the biggest reform policy of the Manmohan Singh government since it regained power in 2009 and putting it on hold is being seen as an embarrassment for the UPA.
However, the resumption of parliament is good news for the government. It has listed some key legislations, including the anti-graft Lokpal bill, to be passed in the session.
Facebook says will remove contents that violate its terms after Indian government asked internet companies to remove 'offensive content'.
The government told several leading Internet companies including Facebook and Google they need to remove 'offensive content' from their services, the information and telecoms ministerKapil Sibal said on Tuesday, but he insisted the request was not censorship.
Sibal reiterated that the government did not believe in censorship, but the internet companies needed to evolve a mechanism to remove 'offensive' content.
Sibal wanted the content on Indian leaders to be screened and also said that he wouldn't allow any religious sentiments of communities to be hurt.
Kapil Sibal, said he had on several occasions asked Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to screen user content but the companies had not responded to his requests.
At a meeting on Monday the companies said they were unable to filter information as he wanted, Sibal said.
Officials, said the issue was proving difficult to be sorted out. The executives were shown content which could hurt religious sensibilities and obscene images of Indian political leaders.
The executives told the government that the material was in line with US laws and community standards, a senior official said. "So far, they have refused to cooperate with us. We have not decided what action we can take although the law empowers us," the source added.
The New York Times reported that about six weeks ago Sibal called legal representatives from the top internet service providers and Facebook into his office and showed them a Facebook page that maligned Congress president Sonia Gandhi. "This is unacceptable," he said, reported an executive. The minister asked them to find a way to monitor what is posted on their sites.
In the second meeting with the same executives in late November, Sibal told them that he expected them to use human beings to screen content, not technology, the executive said. Three executives said Sibal has told these companies that he expects them to set up a proactive prescreening system, with staffers looking for objectionable content and deleting it before it is posted.
"If there's a law and there's a court order, we can follow up on it," said an executive from one of the companies. But these companies can't be in the business of deciding what is and isn't legal to post, he said.
Times of India Reports:
The government on Tuesday appeared set to dictate a code of conduct for the social media networks and other websites despite an assurance from the likes of Facebookthat they would remove content that violates their terms.Indicating a hardening its stance, sources in the IT ministry insisted that the terms should be in line with Indian community standards so that they do not offend local sensitivities. While communications & IT minister Kapil Sibalreiterated that the government was against censorship, he said that the US laws and community standards could not be applied in India.
"We have to take care of the sensibilities of our people¦ Cultural ethos is very important to us," Sibal told a hurriedly called press conference at his residence on Tuesday. With the legal process expected to take a while, the code of conduct may contain provisions that stipulate heavy penalty for websites that put out "offensive" material, sources added.
The minister, however, managed to stir foreign websites and social media sites such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to engage after he disclosed that the government was trying since September 5 to get these companies to formulate a strategy to check patently objectionable material that could trigger social/communal strife on their websites.
Sibal said that the companies had verbally agreed to some of the elements of a code discussed by the government but had now taken a position that they would only remove objectionable content if the court asked them to do so. The minister also said that on several occasions, these companies did not respond to proposals sent by the government.
Maintaining that the government does not want to interfere with press freedom, Sibal said if foreign social networking sites are not willing to cooperate with the government on stopping "incendiary" material, "then it is the duty of the government to think of steps that we need".
Although he refused to disclose elements of the proposed code of conduct, the alleged unwillingness of these websites to cooperate with the government in removing content has opened the doors for the government to step in to dictate what it can classify as "objectionable".
Reacting to the minister, Facebook said in a statement, "We want Facebook to be a place where people can discuss things freely, while respecting the rights and feelings of others, which is why we already have policies and on-site features in place that enable people to report abusive content. We will remove any content that violates our terms, which are designed to keep material that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity off the service. We recognize the government's interest in minimizing the amount of abusive content that is available online and will continue to engage with the Indian authorities as they debate this important issue."
Microsoft and Yahoo refused to comment, but Google seemed to be holding firm on its decision to not follow Sibal's orders. A Google spokesman told TOI: "We work really hard to make sure that people have as much access to information as possible, while also following the law. This means that when content is illegal, we abide by local law and take it down. And even where content is legal, but violates our own terms and conditions, we take that down too, once we've been notified. But when content is legal and doesn't violate our policies, we won't remove it just because it's controversial, as we believe that people's differing views, so long as they're legal, should be respected and protected." Google also owns social networking site Orkut and video-sharing site YouTube.
Officials showed print-outs taken from various websites which were caricatures and sketches depicting Mecca, a Hindu goddess, PM Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Sibal said that following complaints received by him he had asked his staff to search the internet and download some material. On seeing the content that was "so offensive that it hurt the religious sentiments of large sections of the community", Sibal said he called for a meeting in early September.
Draft IT guidelines may gag internet freedom
Shilpa Phadnis & Pranav Nambiar, TNN | Mar 11, 2011, 12.04AM IST
BANGALORE: The draft rules proposed under the Information Technology Rules 2011 (due diligence observed by intermediaries guidelines) by the Indian government could lead to unprecedented levels of online censorship.
Intermediaries include telecommunications companies, internet service providers (ISPs) and blogging sites. Under the draft rules, intermediaries will have to notify users of their computer resource not to use, display, upload, publish, share or store a variety of `objectionable' content.
This includes infringement of proprietary information, blasphemy or abuse, information that could harm minors, content that impersonates another person or discloses sensitive personal information etc.
Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Centre for Internet and Society, said that these moves would have a chilling effect on internet freedom. For example Sec 3 (2)(a) states that any website with social media integrated into it and allows public to add content comes under the blanket surveillance regime. Sec 3 (h), which talks about impersonating another person, will potentially discourage cases like the fake IPL player who revealed rich information while keeping his real identity under wraps.
The draft rules use a standard set of rules across a variety of intermediaries including telecom service providers, blogging sites, online payment sites, e-mail service providers, and Web hosting companies.
Abraham believes that the government is explicitly targeting bloggers as a community and the draft rules are far from being tech neutral. "The government has come out with standard terms of use for due diligence. But you can't treat a small blogger on par with others who have large-scale commercial interests," he said.
According to the draft rules, an intermediary has to inform users that in case of non-compliance of its terms of use of the services and privacy policy, it has the right to immediately terminate the access rights of the users to its site. In case of infringement, the intermediary has to work with the user or owner of the information to remove access to the information.
Apar Gupta, partner in Accendo Law Partners, said intermediaries like blogs and search engines would have censorship powers. "It will not directly impeach the freedom of speech and expression. But intermediaries have to comply with some certain standards such as notify users on compliance issues,"he said.
Some also fear that certain terms are so vague that to stay on the right side of the law, intermediaries may remove third-party content that appears even slightly controversial.
While some terms like obscenity have been defined by the Supreme Court, others like sensitive personal information are loosely defined and vague. Sajan Poovayya, managing partner of law firm Poovayya & Co, who has represented companies like Google and Yahoo in legal matters, thinks Sec 3 (2)(a) deals only with proprietary information. "It has been loosely worded as belonging to another person," he says. But such loose wording is the big worry for many.
Under the current IT Act, an intermediary is not liable for any third-party information, or data hosted as long as he/she has observed due diligence as per the rules. But experts feel that the new rules will give rise to subjective interpretations, thus giving discretion to non-judicial authorities to decide whether the intermediary has observed due diligence or not.
The draft rules also add new provisions to give the government easier access to content from intermediaries. Intermediaries will be required to provide information to authorized government agencies for investigative, protective, cybersecurity or intelligence activity. Information will have to be provided for the purpose of verification of identity, or for prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment of offenses, on a written request stating clearly the purpose of seeking such information, the rules add.
Draft rules* Internet intermediaries like telecom companies, internet service providers (ISP) and blogging sites have to notify their users not to use, display, upload, publish, share or store objectionable content.
* If such objectionable content is uploaded, the ISP or blogger has to remove such content and terminate the access rights of the publisher of that content.
The worry
* Ordinary bloggers have to undertake tasks that are too onerous, and will discourage blogging.
* The rule against impersonating people could potentially discourage cases like the fake IPL player.
* Certain terms are so vague that to stay on the right side of the law, intermediaries may remove third-party content that appears even slightly controversial.
Govt may regulate your blogs
TNN | Mar 9, 2011, 07.24PM ISTBANGALORE: A proposed government move to regulate content on blogs has ignited a firestorm of protests from the blogging community, which is accusing the government of restricting free speech and acting like guardians of a police state.
At the heart of the issue is the Indian IT Act, which was amended in 2008 to incorporate much-needed changes to clarify the legal position of intermediaries, or those who provide web-hosting services, internet service providers (ISPs), and online auction sites.
However, the term intermediaries , for some reason, was also broadened to include blogs, though they neither provide the same kind of services as ISPs nor do they have large-scale commercial interests.
The law stated the government should clarify rules under which intermediaries should function, and the list of prohibitions applicable to them. The list was published last month and comments were invited from the public, bloggers and other members of the intermediaries group.
Intermediaries include web-hosting providers, which would include companies like Amazon, cyber cafes, payment sites like Paypal, online auction sites, ISPs like BSNL, Airtel, etc. Blogs also fall in this category as networked service providers. The due diligence specifies intermediaries should not display, upload, modify or publish any information that is 'harmful' , 'threatening' , 'abusive' , 'harassing' , 'blasphemous' , 'objectionable' , 'defamatory' , 'vulgar' , 'obscene' , 'pornographic' , 'paedophilic' , 'libellous' , 'invasive of another's privacy' , 'hateful' , 'disparaging' , 'racially , ethnically or otherwise objectionable' , 'relating to money laundering or gambling' . "It's a fundamentally flawed exercise.
One has to keep in mind the nuanced role of bloggers. The government needs to understand the power of the blogging community," said Pavan Duggal, senior advocate in Supreme Court, and cyber law expert. "The blogosphere has to align themselves to the changes in the norm. But since the term 'intermediaries' is vaguely and loosely used, the bloggers are right when they express agitation," he added.
Angry Protests on Twitter
A senior government official defended the govt's response. "We are in the process of finalising it. We welcome positive feedback and constructive criticism. We might have made a mistake in understanding the public aspect. The public could have a different viewpoint," the official said.
Bloggers fear the government will use these omnibus terms to charge writers with almost anything. On Twitter, online users have expressed their anger and frustration in equal measure. "We cannot let the government to play the judge, jury and the executioner in this. Our entire audience is Indian. If our site is blocked, we are gone. I am a small player, everything we have built goes away in one shot," said Nikhil Pahwa, founder and editor of Medianama, a digital business news site.
The penalty under this law is of two kinds. Under the civil penalty, the intermediary could be sued for damage by compensation up to Rs 5 crore per contravention. The criminal penalty is imprisonment ranging from three years to life imprisonment for the top management of the intermediary, if it is a company.
There are no exceptions to the due diligence. The law can be a potential threat to online businesses. Players in this space believe the guidelines are very broad and vague and there is no apparent recourse. "Why is the draft obsessed with bloggers, I don't know. The rules are so vast that they cause annoyance. Who defines that the content is objectionable?" asks Shivam Vij, who is a regular contributor to Kafila, a blog that comments on media and politics.
Blogs in India are slowly gaining traction. According to the Vizisense, an online audience measurement site, Indian blogs attracted traffic close to 31 million unique users in January.
--Srividya Iyer
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/social-media/Govt-may-regulate-your-blogs/articleshow/7664175.cms
Won't remove content just because it's controversial: Google
TNN | Dec 7, 2011, 01.02AM IST
NEW DELHI: Communications & IT ministerKapil Sibal managed to stir foreign websites and social media sites such as Facebook, Google,Yahoo and Microsoft to engage after he disclosed that the government was trying since September 5 to get these companies to formulate a strategy to check patently objectionable material that could trigger social/communal strife on their websites.Sibal said that the companies had verbally agreed to some of the elements of a code discussed by the government but had now taken a position that they would only remove objectionable content if the court asked them to do so. The minister also said that on several occasions, these companies did not respond to proposals sent by the government.
Maintaining that the government does not want to interfere with press freedom, Sibal said if foreign social networking sites are not willing to cooperate with the government on stopping "incendiary" material, "then it is the duty of the government to think of steps that we need".
Although he refused to disclose elements of the proposed code of conduct, the alleged unwillingness of these websites to cooperate with the government in removing content has opened the doors for the government to step in to dictate what it can classify as "objectionable".
Reacting to the minister, Facebook said in a statement, "We want Facebook to be a place where people can discuss things freely, while respecting the rights and feelings of others, which is why we already have policies and on-site features in place that enable people to report abusive content. We will remove any content that violates our terms, which are designed to keep material that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity off the service. We recognize the government's interest in minimizing the amount of abusive content that is available online and will continue to engage with the Indian authorities as they debate this important issue."
Microsoft and Yahoo refused to comment, but Google seemed to be holding firm on its decision to not follow Sibal's orders. A Google spokesman told TOI: "We work really hard to make sure that people have as much access to information as possible, while also following the law. This means that when content is illegal, we abide by local law and take it down. And even where content is legal, but violates our own terms and conditions, we take that down too, once we've been notified. But when content is legal and doesn't violate our policies, we won't remove it just because it's controversial, as we believe that people's differing views, so long as they're legal, should be respected and protected." Google also owns social networking site Orkut and video-sharing site YouTube.
Times View
The world must get used to the idea that online media is fundamentally different from media that is confined to geographical bounds. When the same content is accessible to people across different countries with widely differing cultural contexts, there are bound to be friction points with what is considered locally acceptable. Dealing with this is a complex issue and methods will evolve as the media itself matures and as governments and societies also adjust to this new reality. To mechanically extend rules of defamation, etc, from conventional media to the online sphere is simply not practical.
What social networking and other websites can do is to have a 'report abuse' button and use commonsense to decide whether to take out specific content if many people complain about it. Of course, if a court asks them to do so they would have to. The commonsense to be used in situations where content could be offensive to public sentiment will differ not just from one culture to another, but also over time. Much of what was considered obscene, vulgar or offensive a few decades ago is today regarded as normal and the same kind of evolution of social mores is bound to happen in future too. In general, it is to be expected that the envelope will be pushed over time, but just how far is right in a particular context is a matter of judgment.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/Wont-remove-content-just-because-its-controversial-Google/articleshow/11012354.cms
No need for censorship of internet: Cyber law experts
NEW DELHI: Cyber law experts say while there is a need to tighten existing regulations, social media sites should not be given the right to determine the definition of defamatory content on their networks. They also say that there should be no move towards censorship of the Internet.
In the US, social media websites are defined as 'providers of pipe' and these providers of a pipe have not been made responsible for what flows through the pipe. But in India, these providers of pipe are not liable for what flows in their pipe only if they exercise due diligence and comply with rules and regulations.
Existing rules mandate that social media companies, once they are informed or have actual knowledge that defamatory content is on their network, must act within 36 hours and remove the content.
"It is only a paper tiger. We need to strengthen the law and I don't think social network sites should be given the right to determine the adequacy or the completeness of defamation of the said content on their networks," said Pawan Duggal, a cyber law expert and Supreme Courtadvocate.
At the same time, Duggal said any government move on the issue could be misused and any attempt for censorship should be resisted. "Yes this could be used as a platform for regulation of any activity, media or otherwise, in the electronic format or ecosystem," he said.
"If it goes in the direction of where it is headed, it could potentially raise a large number of legal issues and challenges," he added.
Rules on policing the Internet vary across the world. China maintains a strict vigil on Internet content. Recently, Britain had also considered moves to curb on social media sites to control the recent riots but backed off after facing stringent criticism. Some estimates say there are 10 core internet users in India now and it is expected to go up to 30 crores in the next three to four years. India ranks third after the United States and China on internet users.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/No-need-for-censorship-of-internet-Cyber-law-experts/articleshow/11014990.cms
Govt proposal to muzzle bloggers sparks outcry
Atul Thakur, TNN | Mar 10, 2011, 03.44AM ISTNEW DELHI: A government proposal seeking to police blogs has come in for severe criticism from legal experts and outraged the online community. The draft rules, drawn up by the government under the Information Technology Amendment Act, 2008, deal with due diligence to be observed by an intermediary.
Under the Act, an 'intermediary' is defined as any entity which on behalf of another receives, stores or transmits any electronic record. Hence, telecom networks, web-hosting and internet service providers, search engines, online payment and auction sites as well as cyber cafes are identified as intermediaries. The draft has strangely included bloggers in the category of intermediaries, setting off the online outcry.
Blogs are clubbed with network service providers as most of them facilitate comment and online discussion and preserve the traffic as an electronic record, but equating them with other intermediaries is like comparing apples with oranges, says Pavan Duggal, advocate in theSupreme Court and an eminent cyber law expert.
'This will curtail the freedom of expression of individual bloggers because as an intermediary they will become responsible for the readers' comments. It technically means that any comment or a reader-posted link on a blog which according to the government is threatening, abusive, objectionable, defamatory, vulgar, racial, among other omnibus categories, will now be considered as the legal responsibility of the blogger," he explains.
Even Google, the host of Blogger, among India's most popular blogging sites, expressed displeasure at the proposal. "Blogs are platforms that empower people to communicate with one another, and we don't believe that an internet middlemen should be held unreasonably liable for content posted by users," a spokesperson told TOI.
Blogs, which are typically maintained and updated by individuals, have showcased their political importance in recent times and the internet community views these rules as a lopsided attempt to curtail an individual's right to expression.
"If individual blogs are an intermediary, then why can't Facebook and Twitter also be classified as such, as they too receive, store and transmit electronic records and facilitate online discussions," retorts the spokesperson of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based organization, which works on digital pluralism. "These rules will not only bring bloggers and the ISP provider on the same platform, but the due diligence clause will also result in higher power of censorship to the larger player. Imagine your ISP provider blocking your blog because it finds that certain user-comments fit these omnibus terms," the CIS spokesperson added.
Most experts, including Duggal, see these rules as the outcome of the government's one-size-fits-all approach - at least in regulating online activities - and ask for an amendment to the IT Act.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Govt-proposal-to-muzzle-bloggers-sparks-outcry/articleshow/7668026.cms
TNN | Dec 7, 2011, 06.44AM IST
Control freakery
Hindustan Times
November 15, 2011
First Published: 23:17 IST(15/11/2011)
Last Updated: 23:22 IST(15/11/2011)
The chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice Markandey Katju, lost little time after his appointment to make known his contemptuous views about the Indian media. The obvious danger of talking out of turn in order to sound crusading is that one ceases to be objective. You only have to
tabulate the weak points of the target institution and emerge a reformist yourself.
While doing so Katju overlooked the fact that despite many weaknesses, the Indian media is a key protector of our democracy and does not need to be regulated. The argument that every institution in a democracy needs to be regulated is not a valid one. It is this mindset that produced the Emergency of the mid-70s. Has anyone dared to suggest that the Supreme Court is an unregulated and hence needs to be regulated? This 'control' psyche is destructive of democracy.The media, both print and electronic, is today judged by the readers and viewers. It is for this reason that some newspapers and channels manage to consolidate while others are marginalised. The viewer is king. He has a remote in his hand. The viewer is the best regulator of a channel. I would rather trust him than a retired judge seeking more powers. Freedom of choice and rejection of the unacceptable is a preferred option to a Big Brother who watches and intimidates the media.
As an active participant in politics I have no hesitation in admitting that besides one's own ethical preferences, a vigilant media is an additional deterrent in the conduct of public and private affairs of a public person. The possibility of being exposed by an intrusive media may be an irritant for a politician, but it has played an important role in keeping politicians on their toes.
The media has its own share of problems. Its campaigning zeal leads to a lynch mob mentality. It has tended to create an environment of prejudice against media targets and influence free and fair trials. The remedy for this can be greater editorial control or, in extreme situations, even judicial intervention. The remedy can't be government intervention.
The past one year has seen several ministers carry on a campaign accusing the media of being hostile to the government. The recent move of the ministry of information and broadcasting to renew a licence to operate a channel depending on the number of violations of the broadcasting and advertising codes was a result of this governmental irritation with the media. Media licensing is repugnant to press freedom. Thankfully, the move was short-lived.
Institutions like the legislature, the judiciary and the media must adopt an attitude of statesmanship while dealing with each other. There is no place for an attitude that entails teaching the other a 'lesson' in order to establish its own primacy. In this context, the recent judicial order of a court imposing R100 crore as damages against a news channel and its editor in a libel action raises serious questions.
The channel, Times Now, was telecasting a news report relating to the involvement of a retired judge of a high court in the provident fund scandal in Ghaziabad. It correctly pronounced the name of the judge, who has since retired from the Calcutta High Court. The operator of the channel's database was asked to provide a photograph of the judge that could be flashed on the TV screen. He erroneously pulled out a photograph of a retired Supreme Court judge whose name was phonetically similar to the name of the judge whose photograph he was searching. Instead of Justice Samantha, a photograph of Justice PB Sawant was flashed for a few seconds after which the retired judge's office protested. An apology was carried on the scroll, though belatedly. A Pune court awarded R100 crore as damages in favour of the former Supreme Court judge for loss of reputation.
As someone having familiarity with the quantum of damages Indian courts award, this order appears to be somewhat unusual. Observers are still unable to come to terms with the quantum of damages awarded even in cases of death or disability caused by Union Carbide in the Bhopal gas tragedy. The quantum awarded in various death cases, be it an accident or otherwise, in India, is normally modest. The quantum awarded recently in the Uphaar fire tragedy is a case in point. If a former judge is entitled to R100 crore for his photograph being flashed erroneously on account of being mistaken with another phonetically similar name, will this precedent be applied by Indian courts to other ordinary mortals who complain of loss of reputation on account of far more serious allegations? I am not aware of a single case where even 1% of this amount has been awarded to an ordinary citizen or a public person for loss of reputation. There is no better way of shutting down Indian media than by awarding punitive damages against journalists, newspapers or TV channels that are completely disproportionate to the value of money in Indian society.
Each media organisation is expected to exercise due care and caution. Errors, however, will take place on account of the very nature of the news circulation business. If channels or newspapers are to suffer such an order, on the assumption that R100 crore are to be the normal damages awarded to a citizen, we may in the next 10 years become a nation without media organisations.
Citizens deserve a free and fair media. We can't have a free and fair media by having the Press Council act as Big Brother, or with the government threatening to de-license news channels, or with the judiciary imposing unreasonable punitive damages on them. We need an independent and a vigilant media as much as we need an independent judiciary.
Arun Jaitley is Member of Parliament
The views expressed by the author are personal
http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/ColumnsOthers/Control-freakery/Article1-769681.aspx
Views | Kapil Sibal vs the internetThe word 'information' is on Kapil Sibal's business card. He should try to figure out what it means
Sandipan Deb
If we can't be China as far as all the good things about China go, we can at least try to emulate the bad stuff. That's the message that telecom and information technology minister (and HRD also, I think, I'm feeling too lazy to check on Google) Kapil Sibal has broadcasted. He called the Indian bosses of Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft and told them to screen content on social media networks (possibly he couldn't find anyone to call from Twitter). He later denied that he was promoting censorship and said some images and statements on social media sites could fan religious and communal tensions.A file photo of telecom minister Kapil Sibal.
Congress MP and discredited ex-minister Shashi Tharoor who has made more than a fool of himself on the net, quickly broke through the high benchmarks he had set for himself, by first tweeting that he was not in favour of censoring, and then soon after, apparently after a meeting with Sibal, saying, via the same medium, that he supported Kapil Sibal: "Pretty vile stuff. Sadly public didn't object2them 1st."
So I went on YouTube and watched this wonderful video called Manmohan Singham: the trailer of the Hindi film Singham with our Prime Minister's face replaced for Ajay Devgn's in all the shots, and statements added which are macho enough to fit the visuals. As Manmohan Singh kapows lowlifes, the screen blanks out and says: "He fights the black economy", or "His valour will impress his boss". As he breaks a streetlight—well, it's in the film so you can't blame the guys who fiddled around with the video for that--as he breaks a streetlight on the head of someone who clearly deserves streetlights broken on his head, the video proclaims: "He fights corruption" and "He bashes inflation". I loved it. This is creativity that must be treasured and rewarded. (It also has a shot where the heroine's face is replaced with Sonia Gandhi's, and the ticker goes: "Mamma mia, what a man!")
The government would of course find this highly objectionable, and possibly even "inflammatory". As for me, my body temperature did not rise at all while watching this hilarious take-off, and I stayed as inflamed about the current state of affairs as I was before watching it.
Of course there's enough hateful and sick stuff going around on the net, and people are forwarding and giving links, to content that is at the very least insane, and at its worst, highly dangerous. But if Kapil Sibal—and by implication, this government—had any brains (someone started a "Kapil Sibal is an idiot" tweet, and boy, did it get retweeted!), he would ask our intelligence agencies to keep track of the source of this content -- who's uploading this content, who's passing it on. Mr Sibal, you are the minister in charge of information technology, so for God's sake, so try to understand this simple fact: this content is public, not hidden, and you can get to know more about the hate-mongers by studying that content and following the leads that public posting on the net invariably provides.
Terrorists planning the next bomb attack are not discussing it on social networks. Yet social networks can be very useful sources for checking trends, spotting mood shifts, pinpointing incipient troublemaker groups. Instead of haranguing executives running social networks, who anyway have no way to control what is being posted where, use the damn things for your valid and necessary purposes.
If this sounds like I am advocating government snooping in private spaces, it is not so at all. Facebook and Twitter are not private spaces. Those who don't realise this are fools. And those who put up stuff there that can be dangerous are asking for closer scrutiny, something which is the duty of a state. (And India not being China, Manmohan Singham will still have free run on the net).
Mr Sibal, there's the word "information" on your business card. Try to figure out what it means.
http://www.livemint.com/2011/12/07131308/Views--Kapil-Sibal-vs-the-int.html
Facebook and location-sharing startup Gowalla announced Monday that Gowalla's founders as well as several team members will join Facebook and move to the social network giant's headquarters in Palo Alto, California.
The announcement was made following media reports last Friday that Facebook is acquiring Gowalla as a whole to work on its Timeline feature, one of the most drastic changes to the social network since it was founded, Xinhua reported.
Facebook confirmed in a statement that the Gowalla team is moving to Facebook in January to join its design and engineering teams, saying "while Facebook isn't acquiring the Gowalla service or technology, we're sure that the inspiration behind Gowalla will make its way into Facebook over time".
Gowalla, launched in Austin, Texas in 2007, is primarily a social mobile app allowing users to check in locations they visit with photos and other contents. As of last November, the service has around 600,000 active users.
A blog post by Gowalla CEO Josh Williams said the Gowalla service will be winding down at the end of January and they plan to provide an easy way to export user data.
"Facebook is not acquiring Gowalla's user data," he noted.
Besides Timeline, Gowalla is also expected to beef up Facebook's location service Places to overtake "foursquare", the most popular location service Gowalla has been struggling to compete against.
Major US tech bloggers and news sites used buzzword "acqhire" to describe Gowalla's departure, which refers to big tech companies purchase small companies primarily as talent recruitment strategy usually at a relatively cheap price.
"I haven't had a boss in over a decade. This could get interesting," Williams tweeted Monday morning.
The Indian Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry registered revenues of US$16.3 billionin 2010 and is expected to be in excess of US$25 billion in the next four years, according to Ernst & Young's report – 'Spotlight onIndia's Entertainment Economy'. The study released today shows that India's growing digital media consumption and favorable demographics are key drivers for the media and entertainment industry's future growth.
Enticed by economic liberalization, near double-digit annual growth, a fast-growing middle class and a huge volume of demand for leisure and entertainment, there has been a surge in investment by global media companies in India. The Indian media and entertainment industry now finds itself at a new turning point – digital media. A surge in mass broadband adoption is expected, led by the launch of 3G and 4G services. By 2015, 90% of India's projected 187 million broadband subscribers will access the net through wireless devices. This presents global M&E companies with exciting opportunities to develop '"anytime, anywhere"' content that caters to a new generation of Indian digital consumers.
"The M&E industry in India has been, and will continue to be, one of the biggest beneficiaries of India's favorable demographics," said Farokh Balsara, Ernst & Young's media and entertainment leader for Europe, Middle East, India and Africa. "Having one of the world's youngest populations, high volumes of content consumption, a favorable regulatory framework and growing digital adoption, makes India an attractive investment destination for global media and entertainment companies."
Key findings from the report include:
- India's increasing per capita income, growing middle class and working population are generating huge domestic demand for leisure and entertainment. The country has more than 600 television channels, 100 million pay-television households, 70,000 newspapers and produces more than 1,000 films annually.
- India has diverse regional markets with distinct cultures, languages and content preferences. These markets provide global media and entertainment companies with a variety of opportunities to deliver localized content.
- India's favorable regulations and reforms are creating investment opportunities for global media and entertainment companies.
- The newspaper industry, which is facing declining readership in many international markets, continues to thrive in India, driven by increasing literacy rates, consumer spending and the growth of regional markets and specialty newspapers. Newspapers account for 42% of all advertising spend in India, the most of any medium.
- The mandatory digitization of India's television distribution infrastructure is driving growth of digital cable and DTH and creating a need for these companies to fund expansion.
- The third phase of radio license auctions, expected soon, will see radio networks expanding their reach to add around 700 radio stations across the country.
"The growth strategies in most companies in the US and Western Europe are linked to India and other emerging markets," said John Nendick, Global Media and Entertainment Leader at Ernst & Young. "However, to succeed in India, global media and entertainment companies need to navigate unique challenges in the areas of content localization, distribution and pricing, regulations and piracy."
According to the report, the two greatest challenges faced by media and entertainment companies doing business in India are low average revenues, with the Indian average revenue per user among the lowest in the world; and piracy, which is rampant in Indiaand accounts for in excess of US$4 billion per year.
About Ernst & Young's Global Media & Entertainment Center
Whether it's the traditional press and broadcast media, or the multitude of digital media, audiences now have more choice than ever before. For media and entertainment companies, integration and adaptability are becoming critical success factors. Ernst & Young's Global Media & Entertainment Center brings together worldwide teams of professionals to help our clients achieve their potential – teams with deep technical experience in providing assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The Center works to anticipate market trends, identify the implications and develop points of view on relevant industry issues. Ultimately it enables us to help our clients meet their goals and compete more effectively. It's how Ernst & Young makes a difference.
About Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. Worldwide, our 152,000 people are united by our shared values and an unwavering commitment to quality. We make a difference by helping our people, our clients and our wider communities achieve their potential.
Ernst & Young refers to the global organization of member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit www.ey.com.
This news release has been issued by EYGM Limited, a member of the global Ernst & Young organization that also does not provide any services to clients.
Types of Converged Licenses in India
The proposed framework of India's Unified Licensing Regime includes three categories of licenses:- Unified license. All public networks, including switched networks, irrespective of media and technology, capable of offering voice and/or non-voice (data services), including Internet telephony, would be covered under this category. This includes fixed copper, cable TV and wireless networks, including cellular mobile and wireless local loop (mobility) networks. A unified license implies that a customer can get all types of telecom services from a unified license operator, technology permitting. These services would include telephony, Internet, broadband, cable TV, direct to home (DTH) and radio broadcasting. Moreover, it incorporates authorizations provided for in the other two licenses.
- Class license. All services (including satellite services) that do not offer two-way connectivity with public networks would be covered under a class license. This category excludes radio paging and public mobile radio trunked services (PMRTS) but includes niche operators – a concept developed to improve penetration and competition in under-served areas. Short Distance Charging Areas (SDCA) in which rural tele-density (based on fixed-line subscribers) is below 1 per cent have been identified as operating areas for niche operators.1 Niche operators would be permitted to offer fixed telecommunication services, including multimedia services, only in these SDCAs, but these operators would be permitted to use fixed wireless networks. This definition of niche operators will be reviewed depending on market conditions and development of various technologies and applications.
- Licensing through authorization. This category would cover service provision, including provision of passive infrastructure and bandwidth services. It would also cover radio paging, PMRTS and Internet services, including Internet telephony (which is currently restricted).2
The new licensing regime would enable a unified licensee to provide any or all telecommunication services by acquiring a single license. But the framework would be hierarchical in nature, meaning that greater regulatory burdens would be placed on the unified licensees. Other proposed provisions are as follows:
- The amount of the upfront license fee for a unified license would decrease to INR 3 million (USD 60,000) by the fifth year.
- The new licensing regime would impose no restriction on VoIP telephony or other IP-enabled services, provided they are offered by operators with a unified license that have duly paid all required registration charges.
- Migration to the unified licenses would be optional for the initial five years, after which it would be mandatory for all telecommunication operators. All new service providers would be under the new regime.
- Resale would not be permitted at this stage.
1 Each telecom circle is divided into few Long Distance Charging Areas (LDCA) which are further sub-divided into several Short Distance Charging Areas (SDCA).
2 Certain kinds of Internet telephony will only require an authorization. Currently, licensed operators, within their existing licensing arrangements, may offer Internet telephony using one of the following means: PC-to-PC and SIP device-to-SIP device from anywhere to anywhere, and PC-to-phone (where the phone is located outside of India). The proposed Unified Licensing Regime would allow these kinds of Internet telephony through an authorization process. Other kinds of Internet telephony, such as phone-to-phone Internet telephony, would require the operator to hold a unified license.
http://www.ictregulationtoolkit.org/en/PracticeNote.aspx?id=2390
Print media in India
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia| * | This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2011) |
This article is about print media in India. For a more general coverage of media in India see Indian media.
Indian print media is one of the largest print media in the world. The history of it started in 1780, with the publication of the Bengal Gazettefrom Calcutta.
It is relevant to note an anomaly here that circulation alone cannot be considered as parameter of quality of newspaper. Impartial, professional newspapers may also have smaller circulations based on geography, reader class and language.
Contents[hide] |
[edit]History
James Augustus Hickey is considered as the "father of Indian press" as he started the first Indian newspaper from Calcutta, the Calcutta General Advertiser or the Bengal Gazette in January, 1780. In 1789, the first newspaper from Bombay, the Bombay Herald appeared, followed by the Bombay Courier next year (this newspaper was later amalgamated with the Times of India in 1861).The first newspaper in an Indian language was the Samachar Darpan in Bengali. The first issue of this daily was published from the Serampore Mission Press on May 23, 1818. In the same year, Ganga Kishore Bhattacharya started publishing another newspaper in Bengali, the Bengal Gazette. On July 1, 1822 the first Gujarati newspaper the Bombay Samachar was published from Bombay, and is still being published. The first Hindi newspaper, the Oodunt Marthand began in 1826. Since then, the prominent Indian languages in which papers have grown over the years are Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, Assamese, Urdu and Bengali.[1]
The Indian language papers have taken over the English press as per the latest NRS survey of newspapers. The reason being the growing literacy rate. Increase in the literacy rate has direct positive effect on the rise of circulation of the regional papers. The people are first educated in their mother tongue as per their state in which they live for e.g. students in Maharashtra are compulsory taught Marathi language and hence they are educated in their state language and the first thing a literate person does is read papers and gain knowledge and hence higher the literacy rate in a state the sales of the dominating regional paper in that state rises.
The next reason being localisation of news. Indian regional papers have several editions for a particular State for complete localisation of news for the reader to connect with the paper. Malayala Manorama has about 10 editions in Kerala itself and five outside Kerala and two abroad (Bahrain and Dubai). Thus regional papers aim at providing localised news for their readers. Even Advertisers saw the huge potential of the regional paper market, partly due to their own research and more due to the efforts of the regional papers to make the advertisers aware of the huge market.
[edit]Metrics
Newspapers in India are measured on two parameters, circulation and readership.[edit]Circulation
Circulation is certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations which is an industry body. It audits the paid-for circulation of the member newspaper companies.[edit]List of newspapers by circulation
This is a list of the top 30 newspapers in India by daily circulation for the six month period ended 2008.[2] These figures are compiled by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.| Newspaper | Language | City | Daily Circulation | Owner | |
| 1 | Various cities and states | 3.146 | Owned by Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd. | ||
| 2 | दैनिक जागरण | Various cities and states | 2.168 | Owned by Jagaran Prakashan Ltd | |
| 3 | മലയാള മനോരമ | 10 cities in Kerala, Bangalore, Mangalore,Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Dubai, andBahrain | 1.514 | Owned by Malayala Manorama Group | |
| 4 | Various cities and states | 1.360 | Founded in 1878, owned by Kasturi & Sons Ltd., exposed theBofors scandal | ||
| 5 | Various cities and states | 1.349 | Owns Deccan Chargers franchise of the Indian Premier League | ||
| 6 | আনন্দবাজার পত্রিকা | 1.277 | Owned by Ananda Publishers | ||
| 7 | अमर उजाला | Various cities and states | 1.230 | Mainly prominent in the Hindi heartland | |
| 8 | दैनिक भास्कर | Various cities and states | 1.147 | Also published as the Divya Bhaskar in Gujarat | |
| 9 | Various cities and states | 1.143 | Owned by HT Media Ltd | ||
| 10 | हिन्दुस्तान | Various cities and states | 1.142 | Hindi extension of the Hindustan Times | |
| 11 | മാതൃഭൂമി | 10 Cities in Kerala, Chennai, Bangalore,Mumbai, and New Delhi | 1.077 | Owned by The Mathrubhumi Group | |
| 12 | ગુજરાત સમાચાર | 1.051 | Owned by Lok Prakashan Ltd. | ||
| 13 | पंजाब केसरी | .902 | Founder Jagat Narain was assassinated by Sikh militants on September 9, 1981 | ||
| 14 | தினகரன் | Various cities in Tamil Nadu and a few other cities | .901 | Bought out by SUN TV group in 2005 | |
| 15 | सकाळ | Various cities in Maharashtra | .879 | Launched English version Sakaal Times in 2008 | |
| 16 | தினத்தந்தி | Various cities in Tamil Nadu and a few other cities | .854 | Founded by S. P. Adithanar | |
| 17 | દિવ્ય ભાસ્કર | .840 | Gujarati version of the Dainik Bhaskar | ||
| 18 | आज | .748 | |||
| 26 | Various cities and states | Unknown | Owned by Deccan chronicle holdings Ltd. | ||
| 19 | Various cities and states | .651 | Owned by Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd. | ||
| 20 | Various cities and states | .465 | Owned by Ananda Publishers | ||
| 21 | ಪ್ರಜಾವಾಣಿ | .364 | Owned by Prajavani | ||
| 22 | Various cities and states | .309 | Owned by Express Publications Ltd. | ||
| 23 | Various cities and states | .214 | Owned by The Printers | ||
| 24 | ಉದಯವಾಣಿ | .185 | Owned by Udayavani | ||
| 25 | Various cities and states | .172 | Owned by The Statesman Ltd. | ||
| 26 | Various cities and states | .163 | Owned by Kasturi & Sons Ltd. | ||
| 27 | Various cities and states | .144 | Owned by Business Standard Ltd. (BSL) |
[edit]See also
- "Newspapers are not a sunset industry in India," says Jacob Mathew of Malayala Manorama
- List of newspapers
- List of newspapers in India
- Newspaper circulation
- List of newspapers in the World by circulation
[edit]References
- ^ Capitalism, Politics and the Indian Language Press India's Newspaper Revolution - Robin Jeffry
- ^ "Audit Bureau of Circulation". Retrieved 2011-07-18.
|
View page ratings
Rate this page
What's this?
Trustworthy
Objective
Complete
Well-written
I am highly knowledgeable about this topic (optional)
Submit ratings
Categories:
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment