India gets internet, takes it away

Sep 29, 2015 9:35 pm
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The march of broadband all over the world continues forward, but it is a battle of wins and losses. Let's take India in the past week, for example. Google announced a plan last week to bring Wi-Fi signals to 10 million rail passengers a day there. The broadband will be free at first, and available in 400 train stations across India. But while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Google in California for that announcement, he was being criticized back home for cutting off the internet. Radio Survivor reports that India has been blocking Internet service in Jammu and Kashmir and New Delhi Television quotes Kashmir’s Inspector General of Police calling the ban on Internet services a “precautionary measure” in light of “communal tensions.” That internet jamming comes as Radio Maej Kasheer, a Kashmiri radio station, launched its online webstream.