Medianama Daily: A Digital India without free internet access?

🥇If There’s One Story To Read Today Going gaga over Digital India, but who’s talking about internet shutdowns? India witnessed the highest number of internet shutdowns in 2022, for the fifth time. In 2023, reports of the internet being suspended in Rajasthan, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh are already sweeping headlines. The more the issues with these arbitrary shutdowns are being discussed, the more the government is conveniently ignoring them. When a Parliament Standing Committee took charge to check what’s going on with these suspensions, the government turned a blind eye to their recommendations as well. In their report, the telecom department has been called out for their “nonchalant” and lazy replies to some critical observations. There’s a lot of blame game too in there. Where’s the national record of internet shutdown orders? Are there functional committees to review these orders? Were these shutdowns effective enough? What was their impact? The Indian government had no solid answers for any of these. But the Committee surely has amusing takes on their comments. Read on. [8 minutes] 🗓 Your Tech Policy Agenda All things AI with Nvidia: Nvidia is conducting its GTC conference from March 20-23, 2023 which you can attend online. The focus is on AI and apart from developers, there are sessions on generative AI and how it is being used by creative professionals, a status check on the ‘Metaverse’, and lots more. Check out the details here Web Policy Learning: Impact and Policy Research Institute is conducting a 4-week online…