Dheeraj Kalgutkar

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI's) much awaited Prohibition of  Discriminatory  Tariffs for Data Services Regulation, 2016, is being hailed for its support of Net Neutrality. In fact, some have gone on to christen it as the law that is all powerful than what the FCC passed in the US. The order comes nearly two months after TRAI floated a paper asking whether differential tariffs should be allowed for data services linked to specific content. This paper was linked to one of the key principles of Net Neutrality - that all data should be treated equally, with no preference in speed of pricing to any particular set of contact. But does it achieve all that, and is it really that strong a law as few want us to believe it to be? First and foremost, sorry, hold your horses, it is just an order not law and in the absence of law the aggrieved parties (read telcos) can question the order in High Court under section 227 of the Constitution. And for...

Is it really the philanthropy to connect the not connected or just a clever idea to expand its customer base? Internet! Meet your new gatekeeper – Internet.org is here to dive you into a world of Facebook and other sites which are necessarily approved by Facebook itself in the veil of free internet, wait there’s more to the story, you’ll be warned that they’ll incur extra charges  in case you try to explore outside of the bubble served by Internet.org. So no clicks on links, no twitter, and no googling, all you do is Bing! For starters who don’t know what the writer is talking about in above lines, Internet.org in their own terms is a Facebook-led initiative bringing together technology leaders, nonprofits and local communities to connect the two thirds of the world that doesn't have internet access. They say their motive is to make Internet affordable to the masses, essentially the first time users who have not yet experienced what it means to browse ...