As the World Science Day for Peace and Development is observed internationally, Modi-led Indian government continues to use technology to surveil political dissenters, opposition leaders and human rights activists in brazen infringement of privacy rights.
A report issued by Kashmir Media Service, today, said that in order to muzzle dissenting voices, curtail rights of people and exert more control over online content as part of an escalating crackdown on freedom of expression, the Modi-led Hindutva government of India has made laws enabling the authorities to establish new internet rules targeting social media platforms, digital news services, and video streaming sites.
In August, this year, New Delhi passed a law leading to increased surveillance by the authorities. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, gives the Indian authorities power to seek information from firms and issue directions to block content on the advice of a data protection board appointed by the government.
The law drew criticism from rights groups and opposition lawmakers. “It jeopardizes privacy, grants excessive exemptions to the government, and fails to establish an independent regulator,” digital rights group Access Now had said in a statement, adding that the new law will enhance the government’s control over personal data and increase censorship.
Several opposition lawmakers and digital experts said the legislation would allow the government and its agencies to access user data from companies and personal data of individuals without their consent as well as collect private data in a country where digital freedoms have been shrinking since Narendra Modi took office in 2014.
It is noteworthy that India shuts down the internet more than any other country in the world, increasingly to silence peaceful protests and criticism of the government. It is thus known as the internet shutdown capital of the world. For five successive years beginning from 2018, India has topped the global list of states that cut off the internet to their citizens.
Last year, around the world, governments in 35 countries shut down the internet at least 187 times and India took the lead with 84 shutdowns, 49 of them recorded in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. As per the US digital rights advocacy group Access Now, between 2015 and 2022, Indian authorities blocked at least 55,607 websites, social media posts, and accounts, it added.
Srinivas Kodali, digital rights activist and researcher with the Free Software Movement of India, in a media interview while talking about internet shutdowns happening in India, said, “It is a form of repression. The government is telling people that unless you toe the line, you will not be allowed to be part of a normal world”. Regarding the internet shutdowns in IIOJK, Anuradha Bhasin, the editor of the daily Kashmir Times, in a media interview, said this is the new normal in the territory.—INP
