Indian datacom freed?

[Rishab Aiyer Ghosh <rishab@best.com>]

The Indian Techonomist: bulletin
Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. All rights reserved

Indian datacom freed?
   by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh

February 16: Today, in a "brainstorming" session to discuss
the new datacom policy proposed by The Indian Techonomist,
the Department of Telecommunications indicated its
enthusiasm for a free datacom environment in India. As no
official decision has yet been taken, I cannot make the
details public for the moment. There is one exception: the
Telecom Secretary (and Chairman, Telecom Commission) R K
Takkar has made it quite clear that content providers in
cyberspace will receive all the free-speech protections
available to other media. 

Mr Takkar said that existing laws for obscenity and national 
security were enough for the Internet, and in any case were 
not the concern of the DoT. Mr Takkar said that there was no 
need to licence on-line content providers, and indicated that 
Internet service providers would not be responsible for illegal 
content, apparently implying common carrier status for ISPs.

The other parts of the proposal, relating to low entry
barriers for ISPs and free competition met with a largely
positive response. The full text of the proposal is now
available at http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/newdcom.html

Apart from Mr Takkar and myself, present at the meeting were
Telecom Commission Members P Saran and P Khan, as well as
some other senior DoT staff.

I would like to thank Vinton Cerf and Lawrence Landweber for
the support given by the Internet Society to the proposal.

The Indian Techonomist: bulletin. http://dxm.org/techonomist/
Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab@techonomist.dxm.org)
Tel +91 11 6853410; Fax 6856992; H-34-C Saket New Delhi 110017 INDIA
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