Expert panel to explore possibilities of limited internet
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, June 28 2023:
Following an earlier directive of the High Court of Manipur, the Department of Information and Technology (DIT) of the state government has formed a 12-member expert committee to explore possibilities of providing limited internet services by blocking social media networks/websites.
The information was submitted during the hearing of a petition filed at the High Court to lift ban on internet shutdown in the state.
As per affidavit submitted by the counsel of the government, the committee will be headed by joint director of DIT G Robert as chairman and informatics officer of DIT L Martha as the convenor.
The members are NIC joint director (IT) Priyokumar Naorem, one representative from the depart ment of telecommunication, BSNL DGM (Operation) Salam Priyokumar, Reliance/Jio DGM Qazi Imran, Airtel GMs (Net-
work) Ashish Bansal & Jashan Sadana, Vodafone Idea Ltd GM (Regional System Engineer Data Core) Mrinal Kanti Sarkar, DIT informatics officer K Vivek, and consultant (SeMT) Naobisana.
The object and purpose of constituting the committee is to entrust to them the task of finding a solution to provide limited internet services to the public by blocking the social media network/websites.
The court asked the members of the Committee to have a joint meeting to discuss and find a solution with regard to exploring feasibility to provide limited internet services to the public by blocking social media websites/platforms to mitigate the hardship faced by the public on account of the total ban imposed by the state government on providing internet services in the state; possibility to block third party Virtual Private Network (VPN) servers to ensure provision and solution to limited internet services to the public by blocking social media websites/ platforms.
Taking into consideration the public interest involved, the chief secretary was directed to facilitate a joint meeting of the members of the committee as soon as possible.
The committee members were directed to submit a detail report in terms of the issues indicated on or before the next date without fail.
Further all the members were also asked to be present before the Court to assist in the next hearing of the cases on July 6 .
In the meantime, the petitioners were directed to submit representation to the secretary (Home), by giving the names of the institutions/centres where computer based examinations like NEET, CUET are held so that the state government can arrange for providing internet services in those institutions/ centres to facilitate the students in the ongoing admission process.