[governance] India's proposal for a 50 member UN committee for Internet Related Policies

[Anja Kovacs]

Dear all,

The Hindu, a major English-language Indian newspaper also carried a piece
on India's proposal yesterday: India's proposal for government control of
Internet to be discussed in
Geneva<http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3423018.ece?homepage=true&fb_source=message>.
Interestingly, it mentions that when the reporter contacted the Ministry of
External Affairs for a response, she was referred to the Department of
Information Technology. The latter never got back to her.

The occasion for all this attention for India's proposal within the country
is a four page letter an independent MP has written to the Prime Minister,
requesting the PM to ensure that the proposal is withdrawn. The MP in
question (Rajeev Chandrasekhar) was also among the first to criticise a set
of rules for intermediaries that were notified by the government in April
2011 and which we have been trying to get Parliament to withdraw over the
past year. These rules are coming up for a debate (and probably also a
vote) in Parliament tomorrow.

Chandrasekhar's letter says, among other things:

"India's position (in the statement), even though cleverly worded, hurts
its reputation of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and democratic society
with an open economy and an abiding culture of pluralism. Further, it hurts
the advancement of the Internet as a vehicle for openness, democracy,
freedom of expression, human rights, diversity, inclusiveness, creativity,
free and unhindered access to information and knowledge, global
connectivity, innovation and socio-economic growth. It is fundamentally
against the interest of 800 million mobile users and over 100 million
Internet users in India, who need to play a continued role [sic] by
strengthening the existing multi-stakeholder process, rather than moving
Internet governance to a government-run, inter-governmental,
bureaucratically organised system - as proposed by India".

For those interested, the full text of the letter can be found here:
http://www.rajeev.in/NewsRoom/rajeev_writes/Government_proposal/Prime_Minister_May152012.pdf

Best regards,
Anja



On 16 May 2012 22:11, Sivasubramanian M <isolatedn at gmail.com> wrote:

> India Today, one of the most respected news magazines in Inda and
> Headlines Today, its Television channel today criticized India's current
> proposal for "web takeover"
>
>
> http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/india-wants-internet-watchdog-proposes-50-nation-regulator-to-un/1/189032.html
>
> The good news is that the press is beginning to pay attention to what our
> Government is doing on its own, without due consultation.
>
>
> Sivasubramanian M
> ISOC India Chennai
> http://isocindiachennai.org
>
>
> facebook: goo.gl/1VvIG
> LinkedIn:  goo.gl/eUt7s
> Twitter: http://goo.gl/kaQ3a
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> To be removed from the list, visit:
>     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing
>
> For all other list information and functions, see:
>     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
> To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
>     http://www.igcaucus.org/
>
> Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t
>
>


-- 
Dr. Anja Kovacs
The Internet Democracy Project

+91 9899028053 | @anjakovacs
www.internetdemocracy.in
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20120517/6781631e/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t