Besides representatives of Facebook, the committee has asked representatives of the ministry of electronics and information technology to remain present on September 2 to discuss on the subject of "safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space".
The political slugfest has been going on between the two, which started after Tharoor's announcement that the panel would like to hear from Facebook about the report published in Wall Street Journal claiming that the social media platform ignored applying its hate-speech rules to politicians of the ruling party in India.
The submission was made before Justice Yashwant Varma who was hearing a batch of petitions concerning the suspension and deletion of accounts of several social media users, including Twitter users.
While Facebook said on Tuesday it will publish an interim report on July 2 as mandated by the IT rules, Google will publish its transparency report as required under the new IT Rules in India.
The latest ruling by the Registrar of Companies (RoC) in the LinkedIn Technology Information case for violating significant beneficial ownership (SBO) norms has brought the amended rules into the spotlight. Experts suggest that more entities, particularly multinational companies (MNCs), are expected to face greater scrutiny. "Companies are closely watching this space.
Microblogging site Twitter's explanations to a parliamentary panel on showing Ladakh as part of China are inadequate and the act amounts to criminal offence attracting imprisonment of seven years, committee chairman Meenakshi Lekhi said on Wednesday.
Around $200 million worth of deposits of Indian start-ups have been withdrawn from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which was taken over by US banking regulators last week after it collapsed, and moved to the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) IFSC, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state (MoS) for electronics and information technology said on Thursday. "It turns out that there was over a billion dollars of deposits of Indian start-ups in SVB. "The existential, solvency crisis that was there six-seven days ago has become much more manageable, even the short-term liquidity crisis is being addressed as the bank allows access to deposits," the minister said while speaking at Lenovo's Tech World India Edition event.
India and the US on Friday said they have started talks to put in place a strategic framework for human space flight by year-end as they plan to send an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station in 2024.
Facebook had collected certificates from both the firms in 2016-17 that data collected by them using "thisisyourdigitallife" was accounted for and destroyed.
The proposed new norms include deployment of technology-based automated tools or appropriate mechanisms for proactively identifying and removing or disabling public access to unlawful information or content, minister of state for electronics and IT Sanjay Dhotre said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
Senior advocate Arvind Datar, appearing for Twitter on Monday online, argued the company was following the rules laid out in the Information Technology Act.
India is headed for general elections early next year, and the DIA is expected to be legislated only after the 2024 polls and the formation of the government.
Asked about action taken against those spreading fake news, and publishers of anti-national material, he said more than 60 accounts have been blocked including those on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Home-grown companies, including electronics manufacturing services (EMS) firm Dixon Technologies and mobile device maker Lava International, have started exploratory talks with Chinese sub-assemblies and component players for setting up joint ventures (JVs) in the country. Sources in the industry say many domestic companies have also had preliminary discussions with original design manufacturers (ODMs) in China to look at a JV model for manufacturing smartphones. Key ODM players in mobile devices in China include Longcheer, Huaqin, and Wingtech, which has already set up a plant in Tirupati.
In a communication to the ministry of electronics and information technology, the messaging service said it was committed to protecting the privacy of its over 400 million users in India.
The Centre has appointed senior IAS officers Vumlunmang Vualnam and Neeraj Mittal as new secretaries in the ministry of civil aviation and the department of telecommunications respectively in a major secretary-level bureaucratic reshuffle, a government order stated.
The US tech major is planning to begin local production of its upcoming iPhone 12 by next April - within six months of its launch.
Indian cricket fraternity has also come out in support of the young pacer who had dropped a crucial catch in the 18th over of the match.
It started out as a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme to make India an export hub. But after many a twist and turns, the latest 2.0 PLI for IT hardware, for which the 40 eligible candidates have applied till its deadline, is now focused on 'import substitution'. The scheme will help in reducing India's over-dependence on imports (80 per cent of laptops are imported), especially from China which include laptops, tablets and servers.
The Delhi high court on Tuesday closed proceedings in a petition alleging non-compliance of new IT Rules by Twitter, saying that 'nothing remained' in view of the central government being satisfied with the micro-blogging platform appointing a chief compliance officer (CCO), resident grievance officer (RGO) and nodal contact person.
The Delhi high court on Tuesday sought the Centre's response on a plea challenging the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which seeks to regulate digital news media.
Sources in the Special Cell said that now arrests are likely to follow across the country.
The Customs clearance required for moving equipment like laptops, desktops, etc out of SEZ units was delaying things as the clearance had to be taken in person after a first level of approval online.
Meta is working closely with the Election Commission. This enables the Commission to flag unlawful content.
Govt had asked ISPs to block 500 websites but this could not be done due to technical issues.
The salient features of the new OTT/social media policy announced by the Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar on February 25, 2021.
A government panel said policymakers and regulators should have an open mind regarding the introduction of an official digital currency in India.
In total, 17 people, including Telangana Chief Minister and Congress leader Revanth Reddy, have been issued notices to appear before the Delhi police's investigation officer (in connection with the case. Sources, however, said Reddy is "unlikely" to join the probe and may send his representative.
Representatives of Facebook India have been asked to appear on Friday before the Joint Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Meenakshi Lekhi, while Twitter officials are required to appear before the panel on October 28, as per the notice issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
Google's chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, has warned policymakers that frequent and large-scale sharing of citizen data, even if anonymized, can damage users' privacy. Pointing to research that shows data sets lose their anonymity if shared consistently over time, he said: "I would encourage policymakers and companies to be extremely circumspect while proceeding in that direction." Anonymization is a technique that removes or modifies personally identifiable information, resulting in data that cannot be associated with any one individual.
Micron plans an assembly testing, marking and packaging project of $1 billion, and talks are on to set up a memory chip plant for captive requirements.
A Twitter spokesperson said they remain committed to working with the Government of India and that they respect the sensitivities involved, duly acknowledging the letter.
Senior bureaucrat Pradip Kumar Tripathi has been appointed as secretary (coordination) in the Cabinet Secretariat as part of a major bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre on Monday.
Kumar was on Friday sent to 14-day judicial custody.
While asserting that the CoWIN portal is completely safe with adequate safeguards for data privacy, it said an internal exercise has been initiated to review the existing security measures of CoWIN.
Overall mobile phone production was about 68 million in 2014, increased to 100 million in 2015 and 350-400 million in July 2016.
Aadhaar architect Nandan Nilekani on Friday India is well-placed on the government and businesses fronts to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) in unique ways to solve challenges and tap into opportunities. Nilekani noted that over the last few years, the government has focussed on how to make transactions more efficient and effective, which has driven digitisation across the board. He added that as a byproduct of this, huge data now across systems has been generated and that the time is right to apply AI across the board to India's most challenging issues across areas like healthcare and education.
