India ranks 1 among nations in curbing the Internet shutdown
IN NEWS
A report from researchers of a UK-based digital privacy and security acclaimed that India tops the list of 21 countries’ curbing citizens’ web access in 2020.
ABOUT
- India incurred a loss of $2.8 billion because of Internet shutdown in the year 2020.
- India alone has a share of about three-quarters of the $4 billion loss worldwide because of internet restriction.
- China and North Korea were not included in the list because researchers relied on publicly available open source information.
- Restrictions that were imposed in 2019 continued till 2020. A blacked out or restricted bandwidth was of 8,927 hours- making India top the list.
- Restrictions in Kashmir, after the revoke of article 370, affected the business, trade, medicines and schools.
- However India has not corroborated to the findings of the report.
- The indicators used to assess the expenses incurred due to internet restraint were from the World Bank, International Telecommunication Union, and the Delhi-based Software Freedom Law Center. The shutdowns of social media were also included in the calculations.
- After India, Belarus suffered the maximum loss due to internet shutdown. It affected 7.9 million people with a monetary loss of $336.4 million. This happened due to protest against the presidential election.
- Myanmar and Yemen also suffered a loss with a curb of 5,160 hours and 912 hours, respectively.
- In the year 2020, 27,165 hours of internet restrictions was reported that was 495 higher than 2019. Approximately 42% of internet shutdowns were related to violation of human rights such as restrictions on freedom of assembly, election interference and infringements on freedom of the press
Internet Shutdown is done to maintain law and order, prevent the spread of misinformation and to ‘keep peace’ in disturbed areas and situations. Supreme Court has given a ruling that indefinite shutdowns are unconstitutional, despite that Jammu and Kashmir saw the longest shutdown in India’s history.
