India’s ranking in Internet liberty rises

New Delhi: India is one of the few countries in the world in which freedom on Internet eased, according to Freedom on the Net 2014 report.“The year’s biggest improvement occurred in India, where authorities relaxed restrictions on access and content that had been imposed in 2013 to help quell rioting in north-eastern states,” said the report.  
On a scale of 0-100 (where zero was most free and 100 was least free), India saw its ranking improving to 42 this year, from 47 last year.

However, still the rep-ort in its “Freedom on the Net Status” maintains that India is “partly free”.India became the third largest internet consumer base in the world in 2013, after China and the United States.The report has ana-lysed the situation bet-ween May 2013 to May 2014 for its rankings.

In its chapter on India, Freedom on the Net 2014  said that news reports indicate that the government is continuing to develop the Central Monitoring System. This ambitious nation-wide surveillance program allows authorities to monitor individuals’ digital communications directly without issuing orders to service prov-iders, written or otherwise,” said the report.

The report said that Section 66A of the IT Act criminalises a wide range of speech and led to several arrests for social media posts in 2012 and early 2013. “However, detentions declined in the past year in the wake of negative publicity, as well as intervention from the government and Supreme Court,” the report explained. Content blocking in the name of maintaining public order declined during the coverage period, said the report.