A Brief BackgroundIn 2009, a defamation case was filed by Visaka Industries Ltd. (the ‘Company’) against a group called Ban Asbestos Network India (‘BANI’), its coordinator Mr. Gopal Krishna and Google India. The Company is involved in the manufacturing and...

In a highly contentious move, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (‘MIB’) issued an order banning the telecast of the Hindi news channel ‘NDTV India’ on 9th November, 2016. The MIB imposed this ‘token penalty’ on NDTV India following the...

With 3141 participants in attendance, ICANN57 (held from 3-9 November 2016) was the largest public meeting in its history. It was also the first meeting to be held after the successful completion of the IANA Transition. The transition greenlit the...

By Dhruv Somayajula[1]IntroductionOn 21st October 2016, multiple cyber-attacks on the Internet infrastructure company Dyn shut down web browsing across America and Europe for hours. Over 100,000 devices were reportedly connected via a malware botnet named Mirai for this attack. The...

Last month, around thirty two lakh debit cards of various banks in India were compromised through a large scale cyber malware attack. As the biggest security breach ever experienced by the financial sector in India, this attack has also been...

In our previous posts, we traced the Indian response to online extremism as well as the alternate regulatory methods adopted worldwide to counter extremist narratives spread via the internet. At the international level, the United Nations has emphasised upon the...

The Telangana IT industry has been facing hostilities recently, with news reports suggesting that over fifty technology companies have been faced with cyberattacks over the past month. This has been subsequent to the surgical strikes carried out near the Pakistan...

IntroductionThis post is a part of a series on online extremism, where we discuss the regulatory and legal issues surrounding the growing problem. This current post focuses counter-speech, which is one of the regulatory techniques.What is Counter Speech?Counter-speech or counter...

by Faiza RahmanLast week, a seven Judge bench of the Supreme Court commenced hearing the much-anticipated appeals to decide the scope of Sections 123 (3)  of the Representation of People Act, 1951 (“RPA”), arising out of the “Hindutva cases”. However,...

Mr. Salman Khurshid, appearing on behalf of one of the Respondents in the first appeal commenced his arguments on the issue surrounding the interpretation of Sections 98 and 99 of the RPA. On the nature of the trial under Section...

The United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in July 2016 highlights the need to counter extremist narratives online. In the recent past, extremist content, usually content aiding terrorist activity has become a global concern. This post examines the methods adopted...

Mr. Desai resumed his arguments from the previous day on the interplay of Sections 98 and 99 of the RPA. His submission has been that proceedings under Sections 98 and 99 are two independent and separate proceedings. According to him,...

Day 4 began with the constitutional bench rejecting a plea filed by an activist Ms Teesta Setalvad who requested the Court to redefine the meaning of ‘Hindutva’ as interpreted in the 1996 Manohar Joshi judgment and also sought a ban...

Introduction Online extremism and hate speech on the internet are growing global concerns. In 2015, the EU signed a code of conduct with social media companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter to effectively regulate hate speech on the internet. The code,...

By Aditi Prakash & Sthavi AsthanaParched is a story of four women: Rani (Tannishtha Chatterjee) is a widow getting her 17 year old son, Gulab married to a young girl, Janaki (Leher Khan), who does not want to marry him....