Internet Under Surveillance 2004 - India

• Population: 1,049,549,000
• Internet users: 16,580,000
• Average charge for 20 hours of connection: 7 euros
• DAI*: 0.32
• Situation**: middling

India has more media outlets than any other country in the world. It also has the most varied and lively news and magazine websites in Asia. Webmasters and Internet users fiercely resist federal and state authorities who regulate online activity with disregard for individual liberties.

The country is waging a intense "cyber-war" against its enemy neighbour, Pakistan. The two countries have reproduced their terrestrial rivalry on the Internet, hacking into websites and sending viruses to each other. "Roxx of Calcutta," "Cobra" and "Indian Snakes" are the new war heroes, blocking access to hundreds of websites and destroying thousands of Pakistani and Indian computers.

The government is making special effort to combat cybercrime and cyber-terrorism but the rights of Internet users are suffering.

New laws

Parliament approved the Information Technology Act in May 2000 to crack down on cybercrime, allowing cybercafés and Internet users' homes to be searched without warrants at any time as part of criminal investigations. It also allowed the authorities to block access to sites considered pornographic or that "endanger public order, the integrity and security of the nation and relations with other countries." Those setting up "anti-Indian" websites can be jailed for up to five years.

A July 2003 government decree extended the range of Internet content that could be censored under the 2000 law. Websites promoting hatred, defamation, gambling, racism, violence, terrorism, pornography (including child-porn) or violent sex risk being blocked or closed down. The decree said barring access to such websites "may be equated to balanced flow of information and not censorship."

It also set up a Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In) to handle Internet security and said many institutions and agencies would be allowed to call on it, including the home affairs ministry, courts, the intelligence services, the police and the head of the National Human Rights Commission. Many Asian and European countries have set up such regulatory bodies. Time will tell if India's CERT respects online freedom of expression. The case of the Yahoo! discussion forums (see below) raises some doubt about this.

Monitoring cybercafés

The strict laws about the Internet allow prosecution of anyone infringing the country's moral and political laws. To show their goodwill, cybercafés have put up notices warning young users.

Police in Mumbai proposed new measures against cybercrime to the state government of Maharashtra (which includes Mumbai) in February 2004 requiring people to show their ID and give their postal address before using a cybercafé, which would be obliged to retain such data for at least a year. Cybercafé owners would also have install monitoring equipment at their own expense (400 euros) to block access to pornographic websites and other offensive material. They would also have to register with the authorities and pay an annual licence fee (9 euros). The owners said these measures would involve the police demanding payoffs.

The Indian cybercafé association, APIAP, protested against the measures which it said would lead to closure of most of the city's 3,000 or so cybercafés. Asking customers for their address would discourage many, especially women, from going online.

A police inspector told journalists that "if people aren't doing anything wrong, why should they worry about privacy?" This reasoning is similar to that of most police states.

By early March 2004, the measures had not been implemented by the Maharashtra state authorities.

Government orders Yahoo! discussion groups blocked

When ISPs complied with a request in late December 2003 by Cert-In (its first censorship action) to block access to a pro-separatist Yahoo!-hosted discussion group, Kyunhun, all Yahoo! e-groups became inaccessible in India. In blocking the group's IP address, all other Yahoo! groups were automatically cut off as well..

Kyunhun is linked to the separatist Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council, a Khasi tribal organisation in Meghalaya province. The Indian government has accused it of giving false information to the Pakistani intelligence services.

Online newspaper turns to paper version

The news website Tehelka (www.tehelka.com) has been constantly harassed by the authorities since 2001. Its journalists, who have revealed several high-level corruption scandals, have been the targets of police searches and arrests and the site was shut down in early 2003 (see 2003 Internet Report). Tehelka was relaunched in January 2004 in printed form and the website simply reproduced the paper's content.

Links

• The Indian cybercafé association - www.apiap.cybernook.net
• The Tehelka news site - www.tehelka.com
• The government Department of Telecommunications - www.dotindia.com
• The independent magazine Frontline - www.flonnet.com
• The computer magazine Dataquest - www.dqindia.com

* The DAI (Digital Access Index) has been devised by the International Telecommunications Union to measure the access of a country's inhabitants to information and communication technology. It ranges from 0 (none at all) to 1 (complete access).

** Assessment of the situation in each country (good, middling, difficult, serious) is based on murders, imprisonment or harassment of cyber-dissidents or journalists, censorship of news sites, existence of independent news sites, existence of independent ISPs and deliberately high connection charges.