Backstory:Â From âPartly Unfreeâ to âFully Unfreeâ? The New IT Rules Could Hasten the Slide
A fortnightly column from The Wire s public editor.
Photo: Athul Cyriac Ajay/Unsplash
Tech13/Mar/2021
The two Union ministers, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar, who had jointly unveiled the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, at a press conference on February 25, are today hard at work trying to defuse the blowback.
Barely had the import of their exertions sunk in within the country, when uncomfortable news flowed in from without. In early March, the US-based Freedom House report lowered Indiaâs rank from a âfreeâ to a âpartly freeâ country followed by Swedenâs V-Dem Institute, that had once ranked India as the âworldâs largest democracyâ, now considering it an âelectoral autocracyâ. The decline in the standards of media freedom in India was a major para
The court shielded Amazon Prime Video India head Aparna Purohit from arrest in connection with a Noida case over the alleged anti-Hindu content of Tandav, a series shown on the streaming service. She was granted the protection on condition she cooperated with the investigation. The other judge on the bench was R Subhash Reddy.