India’s Supreme Court demands government detail internet shutdown rules

India’s Supreme Court has ordered the nation’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to disclose whether it has a standard protocol for ordering or allowing internet shutdowns. The order [PDF] was made after India’s Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) filed a lawsuit against the state of Arunachal Pradesh over its …

[djnapkin]

When I was in India some time ago there was a prominent story in the broadsheet Times of India. Students at some university were protesting that their "right to cheat" had been taken away for some examinations. Apparently cheating was a time honoured tradition at these exams. Wish I'd kept the newspaper. This was before the web took off. I assume they were using notes on paper?

[VoiceOfTruth]

Do an image search for "Indian exam cheating". It's there in full colour. Bihar was famous, but is merely the dust on top of the tip of the iceberg.

[Strahd Ivarius]

Are you implying there is a correlation between cheating and the rise of Indians to the top positions in IT and/or British politics?

[Andy The Hat]

"Just how having the likes of Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, and Raghu Raghuram run Microsoft, Alphabet and VMWare makes internet shutdowns unsustainable was not explained. All three are still in their jobs, at the time of writing, so Choudhary’s point is a little obscure."

Perhaps the questionable point is that having Indian nationals in some control of multi-national-IT-corp spouting internet freedom and undoubtedly being involved in internet service delivery negotiations at high, state Government levels may conflict with their own state policy of internet control and restriction?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just how having the likes of..."

She meant that if those aren't allowed to cheat anymore, they can't climb the ladders so fast...

[simonb_london]

Then I got to the comments...

I don't normally comment on the other comments I've seen so far, but there seems to be a consensus that Internet shutdowns on a whim are justifiable and desirable because there are exam cheats in existence. I certainly wouldn't want someone monkeying with Internet availability where I live/work! Not for any reason.

Its up to the exam venues to police the students within their own boundaries.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Then I got to the comments...

In a near future, Internet will be shutdown in any location where:

- exams are taking place

- a known child molester is present

- Muslims are present

- E.Musk is present