Protests To Review IT Act

AICTE removes the mandatory clause from the notice on implementing Office­365.

Submitted by admin on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 17:14

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A delegation from the Free Software Movement of India and other groups have submitted a representation demanding the revision of the decision of the AICTE making the usage of Office-365 mandatory on the 30th of April 2013.

FSMI representation to AICTE against the deal with Microsoft.

FSMI delegation gave a representation to the AICTE appealing for a  revision of AICTE - Microsoft deal by enforcing the usage of Office 365 in all engineering colleges.  This decision is in contrary to the Government of India's policies and against the interest of the Nation. 

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The concerns are :

1. As a publicly funded body, AICTE cannot reach a private agreement with a particular company and make it mandatory for all its institutions to partner such a program. This would promote vendor lock-in and would be against all government policies.

2. AICTE as a public body, is required to follow certain norms for any agreement to partner or choose any particular services or software. We are anaware of any such open and transparent policy that AICTE has followed in choosing Microsoft as its partner.

3. Indian government has already adopted an open standards policy vide National Information Technology Policy 2012, which explicitly seeks to promote open standards and promote Free, open source and open technologies. The AICTE decision to use Microsoft Office 365 is in violation of this policy.

4. Similarly, the government has also adopted Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance, which has mandated what are the characteristics of open standards. Office 365 does not meet this standard.

Press Release: Condemn the disruption of the Protest by Hooligans..in Pune

Submitted by admin on Mon, 12/03/2012 - 21:02

FSMI Condemns the detention of the activists campaigning for Internet Democracy,  protesting for the ammendment of IT act and against the misuse of 66A. The role of the security guards of a company and the company officials who threatened the protestors in a public area which is not of their concern or jurisdiction is something that is condemned by any democratic minded citizen of our country.

Response to the call reflects the Ire on the IT act.....

Protests against the govt. to review the IT act have sparked off on the 02-Dec in three places in the country with 600+ participants that include Bangalore and Guntur along with Hyderabad. In the coming fortnight there would be protests in 20 odd cities across the country.

Press notes on Protests Demanding Review of IT ACT

Submitted by admin on Sun, 12/02/2012 - 20:08

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Protests against the govt. to review the IT act have sparked off on the 02-Dec in three places in the country today that include Bangalore and Guntur along with Hyderabad that saw a particiaption of 600+ together. In the coming fortnight there would be protests in 20 odd cities across the country. Responding to the call of Free Software Movement of India, Swecha’s protest against the IT Act, has seen  a participation of 300+ people from all walks of life, predominant among them were Swecha activists, IT Professionals, Students, academicians and school kids broadly the generation today and the future generation the Fugen.

Call for protests demanding review of IT act

Submitted by admin on Mon, 11/26/2012 - 16:57

FSMI calls for protests demanding the review of certain sections of IT act including 66A. The text of the message is as follows:

Free Software Movement of India condemns the misuse of 66A and calls for protests across the country from 1st December 2012 to 7th December 2012 demanding the Government of India to review the sections of the IT act including 66A (which deals with punishment for sending offensive messages through communication services etc.), as a minimum it should come out with clear Rules under the Act clearly limiting the scope of Section 66 A and others to be in conformity with the freedom of expression guaranteed under the Article 19 of the Indian Constitution.

Call for protest demanding review of IT act

Submitted by admin on Mon, 11/26/2012 - 16:14 
A call is being given by FSMI demanding the review of certain sections of IT act including 66 A. The text of the message is as follows :

There is an attack on Internet Freedom from many quarters . A repeated misuse of section 66 A of the IT act raises the doubts of whether we are living in a democratic country governed by rule of law or in a dictatorship where every dissenting view is crushed through such terror? Before one could forget the illegal arrest of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, came the shocker of arrest of two young women from Palghar. The issue of AI crew members being arrested under the 66A in ruthless manner came in to light. This instance asserts the possibility of more such cases exist where 66 A has been misused.

Free Software Movement of India condemns the misuse of 66 A and calls for protests accross the country in the first week of Decemeber demanding the Government of India to review the sections of the IT act including 66 A (which deals with punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service etc.), as a minimum it should come out with clear Rules under the Act clearly limiting the scope of Section 66 A and others to be in conformity with the freedom of expression guaranteed under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution.

FSMI shall co-ordinate and work with all groups and individuals and urges the democratic minded citizens of this country to come forward in demanding the government to review the section 66A .

Immediately drop the charges for posting messages on FB..

Submitted by admin on Tue, 11/20/2012 - 12:57

The illegal arrest of two girls in Mumbai for posting a message on Facebook comes as a shock to all the concerned citizens. The girls apparently posted a status message opposing the shutdown of Mumbai and asking to remember patriots like Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev.

A repeated misuse of section 66 A of the IT act raises the doubts of whether we are living in a democratic country governed by rule of law or in a dictatorship where every dissenting view is crushed through such terror? Before one could forget the illegal arrest of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, comes this shocker. Article 19 of Indian Constitution clearly grants every citizen the right to freedom of expression with reasonable restrictions. Slapping Section 505(2) of the Indian Penal Code on the girls for making "statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes" is patently illegal.

Seminar on "Deployment of IT in Governance & Education: A sustainable self reliant model for Kerala"

"Democratic Alliance for Knowledge Freedom" (DAKF) will be conducting a seminar on " Deployment of IT in Governance & Education : A sustainable self reliant model for kerala" on July 22nd sunday at Press club hall in Trivandrum.

Kerala has some examples of implentation of IT using free software applications. Years back C-Dit developed imaging and IT products for the krarala government which were develop entirely in house. Kerala state electricity board has successfully deployed comprehensive billing application ORUMA using free software model, which has entirly free software model. It is to be noted at this application widely used in the state has been developed by engineers and workers of the kerala state electricty board. It was in the back drop of these examples theat the government in 2007 through its IT policy declared its commitment to support and promote free software in governance and education.

Press Release on Kerala Govt - Microsoft tie up

The newspaper reports appeared in Mathrubhoomi on 3rd July 2012 reveal that Govt. of Kerala proposes to make the Microsoft, the proprietary software giant its partner in e-governance, education and rural development sectors in the state of Kerala. This shall create ever lasting dependency on the proprietary vendor and deny the software freedom availed so far by Kerala society in its it@school project and e-govenance initiatives. Source code of proprietary software is kept secret by the Microsoft to earn premium profit by way of license fee from the customers. As updation of earlier versions are required over period and the updated versions are charged afresh, these proprietary software continue to be proprietary for ever.

     The initiatives of Free Software in Kerala are unique of its kind in India with a success story. The it@school project under education department, with its hundred and odd master trainers, hundreds of district level and thousands of school level resource persons is a very good pool of free software know how which won accolades world over. There is the Kerala state IT Mission, CdiT, Keltron etc within and under the Govt who have experience in the use of free software. ICFOSS has been planned to take up pioneering research in Free Software.

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