Corporate war between media house and telecom operator: TRAI chief

New Delhi: Rajya Sabha MP and technology entrepreneur Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Thursday asked Trai chairman Rahul Khullar to come clean on his alleged statement that a corporate war between a media house and telecom operator is muddling the net neutrality debate.

Mr Chandrasekhar said that this is vital to ensure that allegations of conspiracies do not derail or distract from the real issues during this debate on the future of the Internet.In a letter to telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Mr Chandrasekhar said that it is important that the panel on net neutrality examine the issue in a holistic manner.

“Trai chairman characterises the current net neutrality debate as one driven by corporate rivalry between a media house and a teleco. The government must direct the Trai chairman to disclose the names of these parties as well as the evidence that he has on this,” wrote Mr Chandrasekhar.

Reacting on the issue, former MoS for telecom Sachin Pilot cautioned the government that any concession on net neutrality will put the country on a slippery slope. If India allows this, he said “demand for further concessions such as discriminatory treatment of peer-to-peer data and file transfers etc will intensify.” Meanwhile over 7 lakh emails have been sent to Trai on net neutrality from savetheinternet.in.