The internet is not the monopoly of a select few says Ravi Shankar Prasad

The internet is one of the finest creations of the human mind and it can’t be the monopoly of a select few, Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister for communications and information technology, said, according to this report. The minister, while delivering his speech at a conference of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) at Morocco, as said that the internet should be open, plural and inclusive and access should be without discrimination. “While fully endorsing the multi-stakeholder model, the issue of security should also remain in focus, where the government has a very important role to play, as safety and security remains the primary responsibility of the government,” he added, says the Business Standard report. He also mentioned that the internet is increasingly being abused by some people to unleash terror and cyber crime, and that needs to be checked. On a similar note, Prasad recently applauded the telecom watchdog TRAI's stand on discriminatory pricing. The minister had said in a statement that differential pricing on data is just not acceptable and the internet must be available without discrimination. Prasad further said the government fully respected the freedom of expression and discourse on social media and Interned adding that “Our government is committed towards digital inclusion.” He said that the government was expanding Digital India into every “nook and corner of the country, and taking extraordinary steps to empower the people through technology, to create a knowledge economy, the very concept,” in order to bring about digital inclusion.