Fuzzy law, unclear jurisprudence, trampled rights
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The legal regime that enables the government to block websites needs urgent reform
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The legal regime that enables the government to block websites needs urgent reform
On February 1, 2021, in the wake of the intensification of the farmers’ protests and reports of violent incidents on January 26 – a number of Twitter accounts became inaccessible in India. These included (among many others) the accounts of
The Caravan magazine, the actor Sushant Singh, and the Kisan Ekta Morcha handle, which was chronicling the protests. In the beginning, it was unclear whether this was Twitter’s decision, based on its belief that the accounts had violated its Terms of Service (the reason for its permanent suspension of Donald Trump from its platform, for example), or whether Twitter had been ordered to do so by the government, or by a court.
Rajya Sabha MP Sukhram Singh Yadav takes up Twitter blocking in Parliament
February 13, 2021
Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Sukhram Singh Yadav took up the issue of his blocking on Twitter in Parliament on Friday. PTI first reported his remarks, which were televised on Rajya Sabha TV. Yadav is perhaps the first Member of Parliament whose Twitter account is withheld, meaning it cannot be seen by Indian users on Twitter. The following is the minute-long exchange between Yadav and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh, per a verbatim transcript prepared by the Parliament:
Deputy Chairman: Mr. Chaudhary Sukhram, you have something to say?
Twitter has an obligation to follow Indian law, but it also has to make its own assessment on whether an account or tweet is indeed breaking Indian law, said Gautam Bhatia, a lawyer and constitutional expert.
<i>I shall not die, these seeds I ve sown will save</i><i> My name and reputation from the grave <br> And men of sense and wisdom will proclaim</i> <i>When I have gone, my praises and my fame!</i> -Persian poet Ferdo.
The Wall: Being the First Book of the Chronicles of Sumer, Gautam Bhatia (HarperCollins India 978-93-5357-835-0, INR399, 386pp, tp) August 2020.
The tale of a society long trapped in enforced stasis but finally destabilized by curious and rebellious youth is one of SF’s core narratives; think of Clarke’s
The City and the Stars, Heinlein’s “Universe”, or even Collins’s
The Hunger Games.
The Wall, Gautam Bhatia’s first venture into fiction (he’s apparently a respected constitutional lawyer in India, as well as a contributor to
Strange Horizons), at first seems intent on reducing this theme to its archetypal core, although Bhatia rather cleverly leaves open a number of SF trapdoors in a narrative that on its surface reads like classic fantasy. The city-state of Sumer has for thousands of years been surrounded by an enormous wall. No one knows what lies beyond it, and nothing enters or leaves the city except for giant birds called garudas, whose origins remai