Indian law caught in web

THIS is one series of court cases the nation is following keenly. Within one week, in December last year, a criminal and a civil complaint were filed against 20-odd online giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo for hosting anti-religious and anti-social content on their websites. While the judge hearing the civil case ordered immediate removal and blockade of all controversial content from the web forums named in the plaint, the trial court summoned their top executives for violating the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The companies then approached the Delhi High Court for relief, citing that the matter of hosting objectionable content has been oversimplified and does not address the nuances of the way the Internet works.

Secretive tribunals, hidden damages

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) appears to have generated the most number of investor-state treaties and shows that rich countries are as much at risk as developing countries. Would you agree?  Interviewee:  Gus Van Harten

India’s many investment treaties make it vulnerable

Would it be correct to say that all countries are at risk from BITs and FTAs although the treaties are targeted at developing countries? Interviewee:  Nathalie Bernas...

Small brother is watching you

In one sense it was funny—if you were not affected that is. Customers using the Internet services of Reliance Communications (RC) and some other services found their access to file-sharing websites blocked last month. When a friend went to one such site, Megaupload.com, he was outraged to find that it had been blocked. The message on the site said: “This site has been blocked.” At the bottom of the screen, the censor proudly proclaimed, “Copyright Reliance Entertainment (RE). All Rights Reserved”. Was it the blocked page that Reliance Entertainment was copyrighting as its own intellectual property?

Battle for the Internet

Ideas and ideologies, images and reports of events, both minor and cataclysmic, fly on the Internet, swirling through cyberspace, gathering resonance, metamorphosing and touching millions of lives in different ways. Many of the ideas—and visuals—could be banal (as they very often are), some dangerous, others bringing promise of change. Some have the power to subvert, helping to stir and stoke the smouldering embers of political and social unrest as recent uprisings in north Africa, West Asia and Asia have shown. To many, the Internet is the rebel hero of our times, subverting conventional media and leaking news and information that governments would like to censor. Even a village in the remote reaches of Odisha’s Malkangiri district which may have no electricity is in some way linked to cyberspace through smart cell phones because mobile operators are increasingly turning Internet service providers (ISPs) and bringing the worldwide web to the conflict-ridden forests of central India.

Teasing death

"WONDER drug to be introduced on March 10, will relieve patients of painful injections," blazed a recent front page news item in several Indian dailies. One paper went on to describe how Deferiprone, the thalassaemia treatment drug developed by George Kontoghiorghes of London's Royal Free Hospital, was recently cleared by the drug controller of India (DCI), following trials on 200 child patients in Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi and Chandigarh.

Maps of the world

SANICHAR is a smalltime grocer in the straggling, dusty town of backyard Jhumri Talaiya in Bihar. He barely manages to sell a few dozen bars of soap and detergent a month. But 1,600 km away in Bombay, a man with a computer is keeping tabs on Sanichar's bottomline sales.

Countdown to self-reliance

NOW THAT the Russians have finally backed out of the deal to supply India with cryogenic rocket-engine technology, Indian space scientists face their biggest technological challenge ever. With more countries wanting communication facilities, satellite launching promises to be big business in the highest of high-tech leagues.

Tough on blog

A US District Court judge in Portland has drawn a line in the sand between “journalists” and “bloggers”. The distinction has cost blogger Crystal Cox US $2.5 million.

On Harmonious Urbanism

BIG cities are suffocating under their own weight. Growing population and shrinking spaces, expanding transport fleet and worsening pollution, less greenery and more concrete.