Cyber laws and communications experts feel that Union Minister Kapil Sibal's suggestion of pre-monitoring content of social media websites is a flawed argument, which completely ignores the pre-existing IT-Act in the country, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
The umbrella Science and Technology agreement is part of the series of pacts aimed at bringing the two countries together in areas such as health, space and information technology.
Admitting to difficulties in identifying people using websites to spread communal hatred, the government on Wednesday said it was working with social networking sites to create an institutional mechanism to prevent misuse of technology.
Telecom and IT Minister Kapil Sibal Monday said he was "deeply saddened" by the arrest of two girls over their Facebook post questioning the shutdown in Mumbai for Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray's funeral and said the IT Act should not be used to "throttle dissent".
"We expect 98 per cent rainfall during the June-September monsoon period," the science and technology minister told reporters in New Delhi.
The Union HRD minister stresses the use of technology to spread education to dispossessed areas of the country.
"India is going through a transformation that I haven't seen in my life happens so quickly," said Minister for Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal, who was the chief guest at India's 64th Republic Day celebrations hosted by the Federation of Indo Americans of Northern America on January 27 in Newark, California.
"Why to free the country from Congress? What has the Congress done? And today, I challenge Modi for a debate on any issue on any platform and in any language, be it Hindi, English or Gujarati. I challenge him to decide the day, the subject, place and language so that all is clear," Sibal told media persons.
The proposal was put forward by Telecom and IT Minister Kapil Sibal who is on his four-day visit to Japan to attract investments in the Indian ICT sector.
Rajasthan, Assam, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura among states that will set up an institute each.
Government on Thursday said that it will evolve a consensus on rules for control of internet content after talking to various stakeholders including MPs and industry representatives.
MHRD Minister Kapil Sibal had assured the state government during his last visit to Agartala that one IIIT would come up at Agartala to give a major push to the IT sector in Tripura.
Can Arvind Kejriwal be tried under the Information Technology Act for his allegations against Parliament, political parties and their leaders?
Tablet PC, named Aakash, will cost the government Rs 2,276.
The Ministry of Home Affairs in the past has raised concerns on increasing FDI in telecom sector.
Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal informed the Rajya Sabha that there are only 156 researchers per million of population in India. India also lags behind other nations in its R&D spending. The number of core researchers in India was about 1.5 lakh as compared to China's 8-10 lakh. R&D spending as percentage of GDP in India is only 0.8 per cent as compared to China's 1.23. In India, 80 % R&D is by public sector, while the private sector share is only 20 per cent.
"The book, priced at Rs 370, is a useful guide for travellers and road users. It would be made available at all prominent locations across the country," Sibal added.
The government is optimistic that the Indian pharma industry with a strength of 25,000 companies will be a leading player in the sector in the years to come.
Legal experts say under existing Indian cyber laws, Sibal cannot do much harm to Google, Yahoo, Facebook or the like. They are not so clear on whether it can be done, or to what extent.
The DoT and CAG developments come in the wake of reports of revenue loss and misuse of WiMax licences.
A study shows that Facebook and Twitter could have an influence in at least 160 Lok Sabha seats triggering a debate but two senior Union ministers -- Manish Tewari (information and broadcasting) and Kapil Sibal (information technology and telecom) -- disagree.
The Metereological department could have been able to predict the unprecedented heavy rains that lashed Mumbai last month, if it had a doplar radar, says Union MoS for Science and Technology and Ocean Development, Kapil Sibal.
The government has approved Rs 347.54 crore (Rs 3.47 billion) for the implementation of the technology vision 2020 project, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
The tsunami warning centre, which has taken shape at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services in Hyderabad, will issue alerts for the killer waves within 30 minutes of an earthquake. The centre will generate and give timely advisories to the Ministry of Home Affairs for dissemination to the public for which a satellite-based virtual private network for disaster management support has been established.
I hope those who underestimate Rajeev Chandrasekhar will be proved wrong in this fight for Thiruvananthapuram's future, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
The system will be able to provide information beforehand on the speed of the tsunami when it hits the coast and the regions that will be harmed the most [by the waves], Kapi Sibal said.
In a rare opportunity, former India captain Rahul Dravid will be exchanging his views with some of country's finest investigators at a CBI function to deliberate on corruption in sports in the backdrop of fixing allegations in cricket.
Talking to reporters at the accident site, he said the issue is of electric point machine, a vital device for railway signalling, and electronic interlocking.
Three months on, investigations reveal that 80 per cent of the politicians in power and various government departments continue to use e-mail services such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail which are hosted on US-based servers.
Amid increasing number of cyber attacks and snooping, the government on Tuesday announced the national cyber security policy that aims to protect information and build capabilities to prevent such attacks.
Jaitley said the verdict held that nobody was guilty in the case and investigation agencies would take an appropriate decision, taking facts and history into account.
The hearing on as many as nine petitions, including those filed by the Editors Guild of India and senior journalists seeking independent probe into the alleged Pegasus snooping matter is presently on.
The Supreme Court on Monday extended till September 15 its order asking the Manipur police not to take any coercive steps against four members of the Editors Guild of India (EGI) in connection with two FIRs lodged against them for alleged offences, including promoting enmity between two communities.
The Congress admitted that the Section 66A of cyber law was poorly drafted
Former Telecom Minister A Raja on Tuesday told a Delhi court that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Cabinet members were "completely under confusion" created by "vested interests" about policy and procedure of Department of Telecommunication in allocating the 2G spectrum.
Kapil Sibal said there will be multiple places from where cyber war could take place, it will involve individuals, sections of society, businesses, terrorists, drug dealers and those who want to generate violence.
A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, that if the government re-thinks about filing a detailed affidavit in the case, he can mention the matter before it.
'If they felt that my post was wrong they should have filed a defamation case against me.' 'Why pick up in the night and detain me?' 'I was scared and thought I will be beaten up. I thought anything can happen to me and I can even die.' Abhishek Mishra on his detention.
For the past few weeks, the government has been in an overdrive, pushing stuck projects with the larger aim to improve the country's economic growth, which had fallen to a four-year low of 4.4 per cent in the first quarter of this financial year.
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