Monday, January 16, 2012

Govt sanctions prosecution of Google, Facebook over objectionable material!On the other hand,Govt to launch Web service for farmers!It reminds DOORDARSHAN Monopoly and News agency Monoply Samachar Bharati days of Emergency. Complete Anesthesia for Co

http://indianliberationnews.com/Govt_sanctions_prosecution_of_Google_Facebook_over_objectionable_material.html

Govt sanctions prosecution of Google, Facebook over objectionable material!On the other hand,Govt to launch Web service for farmers!It reminds DOORDARSHAN Monopoly and News agency Monoply Samachar Bharati days of Emergency. Complete Anesthesia for Complete Mind control!

A day after Delhi high court warned social websites to devise mechanism to check and remove objectionable content or face action like in China, there was more trouble for them. Objectionable content: Govt files reply against FB, Google The government on Friday told a Delhi trial court that there is sufficient material to proceed against 21 social networking sites for offences of promoting enmity between classes and causing prejudice to national integration. 
"The sanctioning authority has personally gone through the entire records and materials produced before him and after considering and examining the same, he is satisfied that there is sufficient material to proceed against the accused persons under section 153-A, 153-B and 295-A of the IPC," the Centre said in its report placed before Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar. 
The list includes Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. 
The matter will now come up for hearing on March 13 and the court has directed the accused to appear in person on the next date. 
The two-page report was placed after the court directed ministry of external affairs (MEA) to get the summons served on over ten foreign-based companies. The summons were issued on December 23 last but they remained unserved. 

The court had on December 23 issued summons to 21 social netorking websites for allegedly committing offences of criminal conspiracy, sale of obscene books and sale of obscene objects to young persons. It had said prima facie the accused companies were liable to be summoned for promoting enemity between classes, causing prejudice to national integration and insulting religion or religious belief of any class, but it could not summon them without having prior sanction of central or state government or the district magistrate. The department of information technology, in its report, granted saction to proceed against the 21 companies for allegedly promoting enmity between classes and causing prejudice to national integration.

The report said, "The documents and contents therein are in the nature to instigate enimity between different groups on the ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language and doing acts prejudicial to the maintainance of harmony...." It said the contents were provocative and were prejudicial to national integration. The report said in view of the documents and confirmation of availability of such contents on the website/ search engines as reported by station house officer of Tughlak Road police station, the sanctioning authority, Government of India, was satisfied that such content was violative of the provisions of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2011. It said after due application of "judicious mind", it was found appropriate to grant sanction under section 196 of CrPC to proceed against the accused persons in the aforesaid complaint keeping in view national harmony, integration and national interest. The report said that they had held four meetings with the representatives of social networking sites and search engines Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft.

"The availability of objectionable content on their websites and their search results through the search engine was brought to their knowledge. The objectionable and defamatory content was also shown to them and they were requested to take appropriate action in the public interest, national harmony and integration....," it said. The report said even in August last year, the availability of similar content on such websites was brought to the notice of the Department of Information Technology. Meanwhile, the court on Friday issued directions to the MEA after the counsel appearing forFacebook India said over ten out of the 21 companies were foreign based and the court would have to issue process to serve the summons to them. The magistrate directed the MEA to get the summons served saying, "Let the process (to serve the summons) to (foreign based) accused be sent through MEA as per the process." The court's order came after advocate Shashi Tripathi, appearing for complainant Vinay Rai, said he would file a fresh list of addresses of these foreign-based sites in the court.

During the hearing, senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, representing Facebook India, sought adjournment for the day saying the matter is pending before the Delhi high court and the case file is also in the high court. He said that one of the accused, who is chairman of the Facebook, is based in California in USA and the court will have to direct the MEA for serving summons on him. The counsel for Google India Pvt Ltd also asked the court to adjourn the matter today. He said that summons issued to accused companies Orkut, Youtube and Blogspot have been mistakenly served at their premises here. Some of the accused companies had also moved the high court against the summons issued to them. The magistrate's December 23 order had come three days after another court in a civil case had restrained these sites including Facebook, Google and Youtube from webcasting any "anti-religious" or "anti-social" content promoting hatred or communal disharmony. In a country where close to 60 percent of the 1.21 billion population still depends on agriculture for a living, the spoken web service can be a boon to farmers in distant areas. The Ministry of Earth Sciences has approached IT giant IBM to design a dedicated agromet (agriculture meteorological) service for farmers. The company has recently launched a similar service for farmers to connect them to Amul Dairy.

The ministry already provides SMS and an Integrated Voice Response System (IVRS) service to farmers, giving them farming information, weather and climatic details to help them meet agricultural targets. The need for the spoken web service was felt to provide information in an interactive mode. "Through SMS and IVRS service, farmers only get updates but through spoken web service they can ask questions and get answers for their queries related to agriculture," Shailesh Nayak, secretary in the ministry, told IANS. Nayak said the ministry has approached IBM for developing the dedicated service for farmers. However, IBM denied any information on the project. Spoken web is a project where people can speak and interact with web information through voice. Farmers can dial a toll-free number and ask questions and get them answered. Specific questions would be recorded and later answered by experts. "Spoken web service will be of great use to illiterate farmers who are not technologically equipped," he said. The SMS and IVRS mode were launched in 2009 covering 5,000 farmers. It now covers 2.8 million growers and by 2017 the method would cover 20 million. While the India Meteorological Department (IMD) dishes out the weather report, the Integrated Agromet Advisory Service -- involving organisations like the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Ministry of Agriculture (Central and State) and State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) -- gives weather-based agro advisories specifically meant for the farming community. 

The SMSs are being sent to farmers in their regional language on their mobile phones. The IVRS was developed keeping in mind illiterate people as they can listen to an automated message and get farming information. The short and timely alerts to farmers about the weather have led to economic benefits worth a whopping Rs.50,000 crore annually. According to a National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) report, roughly 24 percent of farmers in over 550 districts are either aware or using the Agromet services, while two million farmers are availing themselves of the mobile SMS service which started over a year ago. The report says the Rs.50,000 crore figure could rise to Rs.211,000 crore if the entire farming community in the country was to judiciously use the Agromet information and apply it to agricultural activities. 

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