The Information Technology Amendment Rules of 2023 grant the union government the authority to remove any online content pertaining to its business that it deems to be false or misleading. Under these rules, social media platforms and intermediaries will be deprived of the protection of the safe harbour principle if they fail to comply with government orders. The use of vague and broad wording “in respect of any business” raises concerns over its chilling effect on the right to freedom of speech and expression.
Between Freedom and Unfreedom: The Press in Independent India by V Krishna Ananth, Gurgaon, Haryana, India: The Alcove Publishers, 2020; pp 445, `599 (Paperback).
The takeover of NDTV by the Adani Group points to the lack of regulatory mechanisms regarding media ownership in India. It illustrates that Indian media is rapidly heading towards media concentration. The takeover is a disconcerting marker of the growing infl uence of top business conglomerates on news media for their commercial gains and to serve their political patrons. Equally problematic are the trends of news, media organisations, and journalists turning into brands in the open market. These developments have posed a serious threat to the freedom of speech, a basic feature of modern democracy. Bhupen
Many in India are lamenting the hostile takeover of NDTV by the Adani Group. At one level, this is a desperate attempt to silence the voices that stand out as independent in today’s increasingly controlled media space. But what really will be gained by one more channel singing the official tune? It, of course, controls criticism of the government, but it will also signal that the future of the media may not be in large enterprises that give in or get taken down rather easily.
Viewing tech giants like Facebook and Twitter as principal agents of free speech has far-reaching consequences on the health and functioning of a democracy.
The abolition of the appellate tribunal for film certification has brought into sharper focus the politics of film censorship by the state, which shows continuity in its implications from pre- to post-independence India.
The operation of the contrary forces of diffusion and control in China’s higher education system is critically examined, highlighting the distinctiveness of China’s internationalisation of higher education. The history of internationalisation of higher education in China, including crucial phases from the Deng era, beginning in 1978 to the Xi Jinping regime is described. The ideational regimentation is discussed in detail and its implications brought forth, and important questions that emerge from the dualism in China’s higher education system are considered.
The Writer, the Reader and the State: Literary Censorship in India by Mini Chandran, New Delhi, California, London and Singapore: Sage Publications, 2017; pp xxxv + 191, `695.
The Information Technology Act raises very real concerns. It demonstrates a legislature deeply sceptical of the internet, rooted in the conventions of the past, yet battling with the need for an information technology law in the present-day circumstances. This straddling of the known and the unknown has strange results. In its desperate need to bring in some security for activity on the net, it relies heavily on the executive, little realising that it can result in violation of civil rights particularly, in the light of India's infamous emergency. The absolute control it attempts to achieve over certifying authorities is worrying for the same reason. The act lacks balance.
India's film censorship machinery and its agenda has been criticised for being caught in a colonial past. But in reality, the censorship regime in India presents a problematic engagement between the colonial past and the post-colonial present that supersedes any 'Victorian' legacy. The need is to examine how far the 'present' departs from the 'past' and to what extent the 'past' still resides in the 'present'. While modes of content control characteristic of colonial times still exist, these too are constantly being manipulated in response to emerging modes of address - seeming to create a facade of change.
