India tops list of global internet shut-offs: Report

Since 2016, India has accounted for approximately 58 per cent of all documented shutdowns globally, the report, titled ‘Weapons of control, shields of impunity: Internet shutdowns in 2022,’ said.

Currently, internet shutdown orders are governed under the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules, 2017. The rules framed by the DoT say temporary suspensions can be “due to public emergency or public safety”, and gives senior bureaucrats from the Home Ministry at the central and state levels the power to order shutdowns.

“Last year, India shut down the internet more than any other country on earth — 84 times… That’s 84 attacks on fundamental rights across the world’s biggest democracy,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, senior international counsel and Asia Pacific policy director at Access Now.

The Ministry of Communications did not respond to an immediate request for comment.

In their previous report, Access Now and the KeepItOn coalition had said that authorities imposed 107 internet shutdowns in India, meaning that the number of shutdowns in 2022 was lower than it was in 2021. However, they

While 2022 was the first time when they counted fewer than 100 shutdowns in India since 2017, Access Now and the KeepItOn coalition noted, “Legal challenges against shutdowns, fewer mass protests in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the sustained and increasing crackdown on dissent may have increased administrative friction or reduced the incentives for authorities to impose shutdowns”.

The report comes weeks after the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology expressed concern over frequent internet shutdowns without any empirical study and pulled up the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for not maintaining the record of incidents and inaction on several of its recommendations.

In its action taken report tabled in Parliament earlier this month, the committee directed the DoT to lay down a clear cut principle of proportionality and procedure for lifting of internet shutdowns in coordination with the home ministry to prevent any misuse of the suspension rules.

“The committee feel that a centralised database of all internet shutdowns by the states can be maintained either by DoT or MHA on similar lines as maintained by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in the MHA which is collecting information on certain aspects of crime regularly of which communal riots is one of them,” it said.

Telecom operators have also raised the issue of business disruption owing to Internet shutdowns. “Internet shutdowns also impact telcos’ business. People migrate to other services during shutdowns. There needs to be a fixed revenue model so that these losses can be compensated,” SP Kochhar, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India, which represents the three telcos, had told The Indian Express in an interview last year.