The world is flat, but when it comes to Indian government’s vision, its more flatter (and flutter). After Blackberry gave-in, Indian government is planning to send notices to Google and Skype to setup servers in India.
“There will be no discrimination. All networks operating in India will have to give access to their services to law enforcement agencies. They will have to set up a server in India. We will soon send a communication to them,” a senior government official said
For the government, giving lawful access equtes to setting up of servers in India.
This ain’t the first time that Indian government has asked Google and Skype to setup servers in India (Govt. earlier asked Google/Yahoo/Microsoft to Host Indian Email accounts ending with .in, servers in India).But the momentum has pick up, now that Blackberry has given in to Indian government’s demand.
Anti Globalization Drive?
Government has all the rights to ensure the security of the country, but not at the cost of crossing the thin line of being called anti-globalization economy. We need not become another Chinese clone, without the Chinese leverage, i.e. of an awesomely grown home market.
Why would companies like Facebook/Twitter/Foursquare etc go after Indian users when they all know that the technology challenged government will ask them to setup servers in India (and increase cost/maintenance/capex)? Will India become a scary market for small companies (like Twitter of 2009, Facebook of 2007)?
Note to Indian Government
How about giving a serious thought to terrorism (which is beyond technology)? How about justifying the spend of Rs. 33 Crores (+ lot more) Crores on Kasab and still not doing anything about the case. Most importantly, how about building case studies to show your tough face to terrorists?
Is technology access really the answer to control terrorism? The bigger question to government is – what if you had the information? Are we even prepared to handle any further attacks?
I agree that these are security measures, but they shouldn’t come at the cost of economic loss to the citizens.
Too early for Indian technology industry to take such measure. Maybe, government can work with smaller players in security space to take care of such measures.
Recommended Read:
- Govt, officials asked to avoid using Yahoo/Gmail and Hotmail
- No Social networking/Picture sharing sites for Indian diplomats
