24 Sep 12 | Asia and Pacific, Digital Freedom, Opinion
The Indian government’s proposal to the United Nations General Assembly, to form a 50-member United Nations Committee on Internet Related Policies (CIRP) to “regulate” the internet has been met with controversy since it was tabled last October. On 19 September, one of India’s leading industry bodies, the Federation of Indian Chambers and Commerce Industry, FICCI, held a panel discussion bringing together government, business groups and civil society for the first time to debate the proposal.
Currently, a US-based nonprofit called the Internet Cooperation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) coordinates Internet domain names and IP addresses; with a sophisticated system of councils set up to address the concerns of various stakeholders (corporations, governments, Internet user groups, etc.) across the world.
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12 Sep 12 | Asia and Pacific, India
Across the world, debates around freedom of expression have intensified, in part due to people’s increased participation because of the many avenues communication available today. Confidence seems to follow connectivity. But think of the people who remain disconnected — excluded from national and international discourse — because of the lack of wires and signals. As tempting it is to believe that the whole world is connected, the truth is very different, especially in developing countries such as India. The numbers speak for themselves.
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10 Sep 12 | Asia and Pacific, News and features
The arrest of an anti-corruption cartoonist in India on sedition charges has sparked outrage. Marta Cooper reports (more…)
23 Aug 12 | Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa
An 11-year-old girl with Down’s Syndrome was last week arrested in Pakistan, after an angry mob demanded that the girl be punished for allegedly desecrating the Qur’an — the Islamic holy book. The young girl is a resident of a Christian neighbourhood on the outskirts of Islamabad, from where over 600 citizens have now fled after calls for her arrest were accompanied by threats to burn Christian homes in the area. This isn’t the first blasphemy case we’ve seen come out of Pakistan — earlier this year, charges were brought against Facebook for hosting “blasphemous content”. In September 2011, a young Christian school girl was expelled for misspelling a word on an exam question tied to a poem revering the prophet Muhammad.
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