Last month, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was in India, defending his company’s initiative Internet.org, promoted now in a new avatar called Free Basics. The programme’s key feature is free access to select websites, or zero rating. Facebook claims it will help to extend Internet access to millions who find data charges unaffordable. Its critics see…
Over the past two decades, lines between the real and the virtual worlds have blurred at an unprecedented rate. With a number of goods and services ranging from fashion and lifestyle, doorstep grocery, food ordering and more, internet and networking have transitioned from being a luxury to an absolute necessity. This paradigm shift has caused…
A highly respected cryptographer and security expert is warning that David Cameron’s proposed ban on strong encryption threatens to “destroy the internet.” Last week, the British Prime Minister told Parliament that he wants to“ensure that terrorists do not have a safe space in which to communicate.” Strong encryption refers to the act of scrambling data…
Of all the initiatives announced by the Centre, the Digital India programme is the most ambitious, with the power to transform the lives of people as never before. The communication revolution has changed people’s lives but its possibilities have not been harnessed fully to give them easy access to public utilities, to provide services and…
MP government may be going great guns to promote female welfare schemes like Ladli Laxmi and Beti Bachao. But when it comes to access to digital technology, women in the state are far behind their male counterparts with only 20% and 12% rural women using mobile phones and Internet, respectively. Technology is still not only…
Standing alongside some of the titans of Indian industry and senior ministers in his Cabinet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the start of a “Digital India week” at a packed stadium in the capital this past week, highlighting his government’s push for greater Internet connectivity and services for more of the country’s people and a…
A DoT panel on net neutrality is learnt to have opposed projects like Facebook’s Internet.org, which allow access to certain websites without mobile data charges, while suggesting that similar plans such as Airtel Zero be allowed with prior clearance from Trai. The panel has stated however that “collaborations between telecom operators and content providers that…
A government policy that protects net neutrality is critical for the success of its Rs. 1.13 lakh crore Digital India program as any sort of prioritizing, throttling or blocking of the Web would stifle the digital ecosystem in the country. According to experts, preserving an open internet will prove to be the true test of…
India, with over 300 million internet users, is the second largest mobile market of the world, only after China. But, 300 million out of 1.2 billion population, surely leaves a lot of room for improvement. Urban India dominates 33 per cent of India’s total population, which means the next set of internet users will majorly…
Google India Vice President and Managing Director Rajan Anandan has expressed faith that India may well be home to the next Google, Facebook and Twitter. Talking about the Digital India and in particular Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s wish for the next big technology idea to be born in India, Anandan told ET Now, “We completely…