Human Rights Defenders Data Information Knowledge Solidarity

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..

New IT Rules breach law and gag free speech: 13 key news media firms move Madras HC https://indianexpress.com/article/india/new-it-rules-breach-law-and-gag-free-speech-13-key-news-media-firms-move-madras-hc-7372956/ June 24, 2021

submission that there is “sufficient basis for the petitioners…apprehension that coercive and arm-twisting action may be taken” undersuchprovisions and sought an order seeking restraint of operation of Rules 12, 14 and 16 Rule 16 of the Rules give the Secretary, I&B, emergency powers to block, as an interim measure, public access to any information or a part of it without giving the intermediary hosting the said information any opportunity of hearing. Provision 12 offers options for one or more self-regulatory body of publishers, while 14 says that I&B Ministry shall constitute an inter-departmental committee with representatives from other Ministries.

‘IT rules impose chilling effect on free speech’: TM Krishna moves Madras HC https://indianexpress.com/article/india/right-to-privacy-tm-krishna-it-rules-madras-high-court-centre-7352917/ June 10, 2021
The Madras High Court has given the government three weeks to file a response to the affidavit and the matter will be heard after four weeks.

the petition says the guidelines regarding content around belief, race or religion, will “thwart artists from raising difficult questions against existing aesthetic, gender and caste hierarchies in Karnatic music,” and thwart dissent against existing norms.

“A reading of the Code of Ethics contained in the Impugned Rules makes it impossible to glean what will be considered by the Union government as acceptable speech in the online world. In any event, it is submitted that determining what is acceptable isn’t the sole prerogative of the government,” the petition states.

'What Law have I violated" - Meet the Cartoonist who got a Twitter notice after Govt. complained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFWZLJaWWII Manjul has critiqued nine Prime Ministers through his cartoons- spanning the years between Rajiv Gandhi and Narendra Modi.. This past week he got a notice from Twitter saying they had been informed by "law enforcement " that his cartoon ( which he shared online ) was in violation of the law. Twitter has not taken any action against him yet or removed his content but said it was merely informing him of the development. He tweeted : “This cartoonist is a sinner, an atheist, and doesn’t consider Modiji as a god.”