Human Rights Defenders Data Information Knowledge Solidarity

New IT Rules: How Is The Modi Govt. Working To Censor Digital Media? | Arfa Khanum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs3e6UnCDOg 

नए आईटी नियमों के तहत गूगल ने अपनी पहली मासिक पारदर्शिता रिपोर्ट दी है, जिसमें कहा है कि उसे स्थानीय क़ानूनों या व्यक्तिगत अधिकारों के कथित उल्लंघन को लेकर शिकायतें मिलीं, जिसके परिणामस्वरूप 59,350 सामग्रियां प्लेटफॉर्म से हटाई गईं. इस मुद्दे पर द वायर की सीनियर एडिटर आरफ़ा ख़ानम शेरवानी ने चर्चा की हार्ड न्यूज़ के सम्पादक संजय कपूर, सत्य हिंदी के संपादक आशुतोष और वरिष्ठ पत्रकार अनुराधा भसीन से

A Spectre Is Haunting This Government - The Spectre Of Digital News  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBKPasAMVtw 

FIR In UP Against News Site Over Documentary On Mosque Demolition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRq4IgxRWeU Days after a case was filed against online news platform - 'The Wire' - and several others over tweets linked to the assault of a Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad, the state police have filed another case against the news website - this time in Barabanki. In the FIR (first information report) filed over a documentary on the demolition of a mosque in Barabanki, which the authorities describe as an "unauthorised structure", the news website has been accused of "promoting enmity" and holding an "intent to cause riot".

How A Mosque In Barabanki Was Demolished | Ground Report | Seraj Ali  https://indianexpress.com/article/india/fir-against-the-wire-3-journalists-for-video-on-barabanki-mosque-demolition-7374688/lite/
Jun 22, 2021 FIR against The Wire, 2 journalists for video on Barabanki mosque demolition By: Express News Service : June 25, 2021 
Last month, Barabanki district administration had demolished a mosque located in the Ramsnehi Ghat Tehsil premises. Siddharth Varadarajan, the Founding Editor of The Wire, said: “This is the fourth FIR filed by the UP Police in the past 14 months against The Wire and/or its journalists and each of these cases is baseless. The Adityanath government does not believe in media freedom and is criminalising the work of journalists who are reporting what is happening in the state.”

https://scroll.in/latest/942938/we-may-be-sliding-into-orwellian-state-justice-srikrishna-worried-about-whatsapp-spyware-attacks Nov 07, 2019

Justice (retired) BN Srikrishna, who has chaired a committee of experts on data protection, has told The Indian Express that he is alarmed by the surveillance of phones of Indian human rights activists, lawyers, journalists, and scholars by operatives using a WhatsApp spyware called Pegasus. Asked what the government should do to prevent illegal snooping, Srikrishna said: “Generate strong public opinion against what you see as a clear onslaught on democratic and constitutional rights of citizens.”

Srikrishna was appointed to head the data protection committee on July 31, 2017. The following month, in a landmark decision in the Puttaswamy case, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld right to privacy as a fundamental right under Constitution.

Comment : Unfortunately in 2012, we are seeing this interpreted as the government's right to ask platforms to keep information on originators of posts ( ie asking platforms to do the surveillance for them), through a single point of contact (whom they can influence) without actually setting up a proper law on privacy, or norms and procedures for grievance redressal, as well as transparency and public disclosure of the decisions taken..