INTERNET

Kerala envisions Internet as a right

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  • The state's budget proposes Internet as a basic civic right. In India it may beradical idea, with the Centre unlikely to go down this route any time soon

Kerala Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac stated in his budget speech recently that the state would work to make access to Internet, a basic citizen's right. A start will be made to empower some 20 lakh families with free Net access while others would need to pay a concessional rate. To make this happen a new fibre optic network called K-Fon would be laid out at a cost of Rs 1000 crore.

If the plan is indeed implemented—a time frame of 18 months was mentioned—it would catapult Kerala, uniquely among Indian states, into a select club of nations which have recognised the Internet as a basic human right. The state's healthcare and literacy statistics already distance it from other states and place it alongside some of the most robust economies world wide. And if the vision painted in the state's budget is carried to fruition, Kerala will join nations like Finland, Spain, France and Greece which have written a right to Internet access into their statutes.

The irony is, Kerala's bold plan is unlikely to be replicated in the near future by other Indian states or for that matter by the government at the Centre.

Consider the global scenario in the last decade or more:

The right to information conveyed by Internet was first mooted by the UN at the first World summit on the Information Society in Geneva in 2003, followed by a second summit in Tunis, two years later.

In 2010, Finland became the first nation to make Internet—with a 1 MBPS connection—a basic right of all her citizens. Other nations, mentioned above followed in varying measure. And in June 2016, over 70 nations, voted to pass a UN Human Rights Council resolution, that declared the Internet to be a basic human right. India and a handful of nations including Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, dissented. This flew in the face of the strong pitch for a Digital India that the current Central government has been making—something that has been lent urgency by demonetization

A handful of nations including India are apprehensive that any declaration of Internet as an unfettered basic right would weaken its ability to govern and would be abused by enough people to make the whole exercise dangerous. It is worth noting that even nations that are always at the top of rankings for personal freedom and a free media—including US and UK and most of the Scandinavian nations—are yet to make an unqualified declaration of the kind that Finland pioneered. Kerala's move is all the more to be applauded as an idea ahead of its time and one which ultimately all democratic nations will emulate.

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Topics : #internet

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