Lok Sabha Question No. 2804 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-05-11
Subject: Digital Colonisation
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: BHOLA SINGH

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2804

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 11.05.2016

## DIGITAL COLONISATION

## 2804.   SHRI BHOLA SINGH:

Will the Minister of Communications & Information Technology be pleased to state: -

- (a)  the details of the concept of Digital Colonisation; and
- (b)  the steps taken to overcome the danger of digital colonisation by the country?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD)

(a):    Digital  colonization  is  a  concept  where  the  life  of  citizens,  culture  and  sovereignty  of  a nation  may  be  unknowingly  traded  off  and  controlled  by  hi-tech  and  information  capturing companies.  Just  like  countries,  which  were  falling  behind  in  industrial  revolution  ended  up colonized, in the same manner, countries which are not bringing digital revolution may end up Digitally Colonised.

(b):  The  Government  of  India  has  undertaken  following  initiatives  to  overcome  the  danger  of digital colonisation of the country:

Net  Neutrality: Telecom  Regulatory  Authority  of  India  (TRAI)  has  released  Regulation  on 'Prohibition  of  Discriminatory  Tariffs  for  Data  Services  Regulations,  2016'  on  8th  Feb  2016 which, inter-alia, has mandated the following:

- (i)  No  service  provider  shall  offer  or  charge  discriminatory  tariffs  for  data  services  on  the basis of content,
- (ii) No service provider shall enter into any arrangement, agreement or contract, by whatever name called, with any person, natural or legal, that has the effect of discriminatory tariffs for data services being offered or charged to the consumer on the basis of content,
- (iii)Any packs, plans or vouchers subscribed by the consumer with unexpired validity at the time of commencement of these regulations are not affected by these regulations subject to maximum period of six months.
- (iv)  Reduced  tariff  for  accessing  or  providing  emergency  services,  or  at  times  of  public emergency has been permitted
- (v) Financial disincentive for contravention of the regulation has also been specified.

National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy-2012: The GoI has notified a policy on data sharing  and  accessibility,  which  aims  to  facilitate  the  access  to  Government  of  India  owned shareable data and information in both human readable and machine readable forms through a network  all  over  the  country  in  a  proactive  and  periodically  updatable  manner,  within  the framework of various related policies, Acts and rules of Government of India, thereby permitting a wider accessibility and use of public data and information. It applies to all data and information created, generated, collected and archived using public funds provided by Government of India directly  or  through  authorized  agencies  by  various  Ministries  /  Departments  /Organizations  / Agencies and Autonomous bodies.

Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India: The GoI has notified policy  on  adoption  of  Open  Source  Software  in  all  e-Governance  systems  implemented  by various  Government  organizations,  as  a  preferred  option  in  comparison  to  Closed  Source Software (CSS). The source code shall be available for the community / adopter / end-user to study  and  modify  the  software  and  to  redistribute  copies  of  either  the  original  or  modified software. Source code shall be free from any royalty.

Indian  Patent  Act  1970: The  India  Patent  Act  1970  as  amended  in  2005  has  excluded 'Computer Software per se' for the subject matter of patentability. Section 3(k) of the patent act describes  that  there  is  no  patent  on  invention  of  any  mathematical  or  business  method  or  a computer program me or algorithms.

Internet Governance: The following initiatives have been undertaken under Internet Governance by the Government of India:

-  Internet Exchange Nodes: The Internet Exchange Nodes have been successful in ensuring peering of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) among themselves for the purpose of routing the domestic traffic within the country, instead of taking abroad.
-  .IN  Registry: Since  2005,  NIXI  also  manages  the  .IN  Registry  (www.registry.in).  At present,  110  Registrars  have  been  accredited  to  offer  .IN  domain  Name  registration worldwide to customers.  This  has  helped proliferation  of  web  hosting  in  the  country and promotion  of  Indian  language  content  on  the Internet.  Over 20 lakhs .IN Domain names have been registered till 7th May 2016.
-  Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs): IDNs are domain names represented in local language  characters.  Such  domain  names  could  contain  letters  or  characters  from  nonASCII scripts.  IDN's  in  Hindi,  Bodo,  Dogri,  Konkani,  Maithili,  Marathi,  Nepali  Sindhi, Bengali,  Gujarati,  Manipuri,  Punjabi,  Tamil,  Telugu  and  Urdu  languages  were  launched during  the  year  2014-15  and  over  6000  IDNs  have  been  registered.  NIXI  has  sought delegation of all remaining languages (Assamese,  Kannada,  Malayalam, Oriya, Sanskrit, Santali in Devanagari Script and Kashmiri & Sindhi in Perso-Arabic Script) from ICANN.
-  Multi-stakeholder  Model: India  has  supported  for  multi-stakeholder  model  of  Internet Governance mechanisms, which would involve all stakeholders and help to preserve  the character of the Internet as a unified, dynamic engine for innovation, and which encourage equity and inclusion. A series of multistakeholder consultations/ roundtable meetings are being organized by Department of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India in collaboration with National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).

********