Internet Democracy Project

Over the past two years or so, news reports of people getting arrested for Facebook posts or tweets have managed to stir a public debate about laws governing the Internet in India. With the arrests of Ambikesh Mahapatra, Aseem Trivedi and Shaheen Dhada, the issue of criminalisation of online speech and expression has caught mainstream attention. But the shape and details of this phenomenon remain surprisingly underexamined. On which occasions does the application of criminal law stir controversies? Who are the actors involved in such cases? This study seeks to make a beginning to expanding our understanding of these under-researched issues in the Indian context, by examining in depth seven famous Indian cases in which criminal law has controversially been drawn on in an attempt to stifle free speech on the Internet.   More

EROTICS — which stands for Exploratory Research on Sexuality and ITCs (same as ICTs)- is a global project that attempts to explore how marginalized sections are using the Internet and the ICTs, at large, to assert their sexual rights.  The India chapter, #EROTICSIndia, was organised in Delhi recently by the Internet Democracy Project in collaboration with South Africa based APC and Point of View, Mumbai.   More

#misogynyalert What’s the difference between a woman’s love, true love, and showing off? Ans Spitting, swallowing, and gargling. This is one of the many responses that we got when we started the hash tag #MisogynyAlert on Twitter with an aim to take on users who harass women in sexist and/​or …   More

In a move that has sparked renewed furore among netizens, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) of the Government of India (GOI) has ordered a blocking of 78 URLs, 73 of which are web pages related to the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM). Medianama today reported on the blocking …   More

It all started when The Kashmir Walla, an online magazine, reported that Kashmir’s first and only girls’ rock band ​“quit” after ​“criticism”. While expressing gratitude to The Kashmir Walla for flagging the story, I pointed out that their choice of words may have been problematic. The girls quit, not because …   More

On 29 November, 2012 the Minister for IT, Mr. Kapil Sibal called a multi-stakeholder consultation with representatives of government, businesses and civil society to break the deadlock on Section 66A of the IT (Amendment) Act of 2008. Owing to lack of a clear agenda or even as much as a …   More

The Internet Democracy project is presently conducting a research project that looks at how women in India who are active users of social media and the Internet deal with speech addressed to them that makes them feel uncomfortable as women. Such speech could range from isolated comments that are simply …   More

I recently attended the first India Internet Governance Conference (IIGC) convened at the FICCI Federation House in New Delhi. Among the various issues that fall under the umbrella of Internet Governance, the most important to me, personally, is freedom of legitimate political expression over the Internet. Many people of my …   More