Rajeev Chandrashekhar flays India's proposal on Net policies

New Delhi: Member of Parliament Rajeev Chandrashekhar in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has criticised India’s proposal in the UN with regard to Internet-related policies. “Not only does it surrenders the future of next generation Internet into the hands of governments, but also ties our hands and aligns us with countries with the worst possible track record of Internet and media censorship, democracy, free speech, freedom of expression and privacy,” Chandrashekhar said.[caption id=“attachment_332082” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Image courtesy rajeev.in”]  [/caption] MP Dushyant Singh, the Indian representative at the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly last year had proposed establishment of a new institutional mechanism Internet-related policies globally. Singh in the statement has clarified that “intent behind proposing a multilateral and multi-stakeholder mechanism is not to ‘control the Internet’ or allow governments to have the last word in regulating Internet. The proposal was “to make sure that the Internet is governed not unilaterally, but in an open, democratic, inclusive and participatory manner, with the participation of all stakeholders, so as to evolve universally acceptable, and globally harmonised policies”. Chandrashekhar said that India has not withdrawn its statement and it “yielded the worst possible results wherein countries with dubious record on human rights and democracy have publicly aligned their positions to that of India during the review of the implementation of the outcome” of a United Nation event in May. PTI