The Internet in India has undergone rapid growth in recent years and regulations are currently being developed to speed up access levels in the country. Parallel to this, however, is evidence to suggest that authorities wish to develop stricter surveillance and monitoring controls over Internet activities, especially after September 11 US attacks, and the December 13 attack on the Indian Parliament.

The Information Technology Act, 2000 sets rules on cyberlaw including hacking, pornography and digital signatures. Section 67 of the Act states that anyone publishing ‘lascivious’ material or material that ‘appeals to the prurient interest’ may be jailed for up to five years. Persons convicted of hacking can be sentenced to three years imprisonment. Cybercafés and the homes of Internet users can be searched at any time without a warrant if cyber crime is suspected. Individuals can be forced to decrypt materials or face seven years imprisonment.

On 7 July 2003, the Department of Information Technology outlined an official procedure that has been declared as the first serious attempt by the Indian government to censor the Internet. Order No. GSR529(E) permits the blacking out of “websites promoting hate content, slander or defamation of others, promoting gambling, promoting racism, violence and terrorism and other such material, in addition to promoting pornography, including child pornography and violent sex’’.

According to the order, various agencies — including central and state home departments, the courts, CBI, IB, police and the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission — can submit a complaint to the director of Cert-In, a new organisation which has been set up by the government to address IT security issues. This will then be examined by a committee comprising of bureaucrats from Cert-In, the department of information technology and the law or home ministry. The committee will “meet and take on the spot decision on whether the website is to be blocked or not’’. Neither the producers of the website nor those with a contrary point of view are to be given a hearing. Ironically, the order also denies that the blocking is censorship: “‘Blocking of such websites may be equated to balanced flow of information and not censorship.

The Parliament is currently reviewing the Communication Convergence Bill that will supercede the Information Technology Act when it comes into effect. The bill is being developed in order to address the convergence of information and communication technologies and to combine past media-specific regulations into a set of broad-based laws governing the content and transmission of all communications in India.

According to leading Indian cyber law expert, Pavan Duggal, the proposed bill gives immense powers to the new regulatory authority, the Communications Commission of India (CCI), to censor communication content by formulating programme ‘codes’ for content providers (Communication Convergence Bill 2001: 20.2.viii). “The basic question as to what is the fairness and impartiality in presentation of news and other programmes has been left at the subjective discretion of the CCI which has to work mandatorily under directives of the Government”.

India’s insurgency in border regions has prompted the authorities to clamp down on communications in areas such as Kashmir. In July 2003 it was reported that customers living in Kashmir would once again be allowed access to mobile phones services, which had previously been blocked due to “security fears”.

On July 26, 2003, the Indo-Asian News Service reported that India’s state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) had urged the subscribers to go ahead with plans to acquire more than one telephone saying that it was not planning to disclose any data to tax authorities. The finance ministry responded by asking BSNL, the largest fixed-line service provider in the country, to disclose information about consumers having more than one telephone to ensure they file their tax returns. The company has, however, refused to compromise on its commercial policy of non-disclosure.