Celebrating Freedom Of Speech Online: Your Top India Headlines For Wednesday

You now can’t be arrested for what you post online. In a landmark ruling, India’s Supreme Court knocked down Sec 66A of the IT Act, a contentious loophole that allowed the government to arrest anyone for sending offensive messages through electronic media. Nothing wrong on paper, but there were occasions when the law was used as a means to suppress anti-government messages, galling for the world’s largest democracy.
As always, there is a voice of caution as well. The section also provided relief against bullying and threats online, which also has been struck down. Meanwhile, here are the stars of the hour: Law student Shreya Singhal and Judge Nariman, who were responsible for the strike down.

Ola, Uber got rapped on their knuckles by the New Delhi government. After a much publicized rape by an Uber cab driver caused a crackdown on all radio taxi services in the capital, the government had banned the radio taxi services for operating without a license. It has now asked Uber and Ola to halt operations in Delhi until their request for licenses has been processed, failing which the requests will be rejected. The government is also seeking to block the cab apps.

Here’s some good news on the U.S. work visa front. President Barack Obama has announced that the government will ease the process for providing L1-B visas, a temporary work visa for foreign companies with U.S. subsidiaries. This is expected to encourage more Indian companies to set up U.S. units and give a boost to the IT industry, especially as the large-scale rejection of L1-B visas was the biggest deterrent for companies looking to do business in the U.S. However, nothing changes for the H1-B visas, which U.S. companies need to hire foreign workers.

The murky Sahara story seems to be reaching a logical conclusion: The mysterious Indian conglomerate has now been given three months to raise $1.6 billion bail for founder Subrato Roy, who has been in prison for the past year. The court has also allowed the company to sell nearly 10 properties to raise the money, failing which the court will appoint a receiver to auction them off. The group has has to repay an estimated $4 billion to depositors, mostly poor residents in the small towns and villages. It has been the focus of regulators who declared that its deposit plans were illegal and are questioning its spending power and operations.

After IMF, it’s the turn of the Asian Development Bank: The Manila-based bank has projected India’s economic growth in the year beginning April 1 at 7.8 percent, higher than its 7.2 percent estimate for China. Both development banks are less optimistic than the government, which is predicting a growth rate of 8.1-8.5 percent. Concerns over high government deficits and lack of progress in fixing them, however, continue. We’ll wait and see how the government initiatives to boost revenue and growth pan out and let the actual numbers speak for themselves.

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