The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog

Category: India (Page 1 of 2)

India’s IT Rules, 2021: Incompatible with the ICCPR and a fatal blow to democratic discourse – Raghav Mendiratta

In the recently released Freedom House Freedom Report, India has been demoted to ‘Partly Free’ from the ‘Free’ category. Civil liberties and free expression have seen a slow but steady breakdown in India over the last few years. A particularly disturbing trend is the silencing of voices through targeted prosecutions of activists, students, academics, protestors, and journalists. Continue reading

India: The Dubious Dilemma, muzzling fake news or gagging freedom of speech and expression – Toshaar Trivedi and Achyutam Bhatnagar

While the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus has forced a good number of industries to count their blessings, the social media sector and over-the-top (“OTT”) platforms have been an aberration and witnessed a significant surge in usage. As the content consumption increases, content production increases as well. Continue reading

New Regulations for News Media and Content Media in India: The Right Step? – Sameer Avasarala and Shreya Mukherjee

The Government of India has notified the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (the “Rules”) on February 25, 2021 under the Information Technology Act, 2000 (“IT Act”) applicable to internet intermediaries, social media intermediaries, publishers of news and current affairs content and online curated content (defined to mean curated catalogue of audio-visual content owned by, licensed to or contracted to be transmitted by a publisher and made available on demand). Continue reading

Case Law, India: Puttaswamy v Union of India, Supreme Court recognises a constitutional right to privacy in a landmark judgment – Hugh Tomlinson QC

On 24 August 2017, a nine judge bench of the Supreme Court of India handed down its decision in the important constititutional case of Puttaswamy v Union of India [pdf].  In a remarkable and wide ranging 547 page judgment the Court ruled unanimously that privacy is a constitutionally protected right in India. This is landmark case which is likely to lead to constitutional challenges to a wide range of Indian legislation. Continue reading

India: Intermediary liability regime, a historic opportunity missed by the Supreme Court – J Sai Deepak

India Supreme-Court1Ever since the pronouncement of the judgment by the Supreme Court [pdf] on March 24, 2015 in what I prefer to call the “IT Writ Petitions” (since they went beyond Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000), a lot has been written on mainstream and alternative forums on the striking down of Section 66A (see this Inforrm post). Continue reading

Case Law, India: Shreya Singhal v Union of India: Law on offensive communications ruled unconstitutional – Jonathan McCully

SupremeCourtIndia1On 24 March 2015, the Supreme Court of India ruled on the constitutionality of various provisions in India’s Information Technology Act 2000 in Shreya Singhal v Union of India W.P. (Crim.) No 167 of 2012. Most notably, the Supreme Court held that India’s law on offensive communications was unconstitutional as it was liable to be used in a way that would unnecessarily curb freedom of speech and expression. Continue reading

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