Internet Shutdowns

In Meerut, the internet services will be unavailable till noon today, unless further orders are issued. Meerut District Magistrate Anil Dhingra told ANI that internet services have been suspended in the district from 12 pm of December 15 to 12 pm of December 16 in view of law and order maintenance. In Aligarh, Internet was suspended from 15th December, 10PM to 16th December 10PM

Internet has been shutdown in Aligarh till 5PM on 13th December 2019 because of protests regarding the Citizenship amendment bill.

Internet has been shutdown in Aligarh till 5PM on 13th December 2019 because of protests regarding the Citizenship amendment bill.

Mobile internet services have been suspended across Meghalaya for the next 48 hours, officials said. The development comes in the wake of the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Parliament. CVD Diengdoh, additional secretary to the government of Meghalaya (home police) department on Thursday said that mobile Internet and messaging were suspended for 48 hours from 5pm on Thursday in entire Meghalaya to prevent potential threat to public safety through SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

After the passing of Citizenship(Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha, mass protests have been taking place in Tripura. Additional secretary to the Government of Tripura has prohibited SMS services as well as Mobile Internet for a period of 48 hours starting from 2PM on 10th December 2019.

After the passing of Citizenship(Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha, mass protests have been taking place in Tripura. Additional secretary to the Government of Tripura has prohibited SMS services as well as Mobile Internet for a period of 48 hours starting from 2PM on 10th December 2019.

On November 16, 2019, the Iranian government shut down the Internet following deadly protests over fuel price hikes. The five-day blackout derailed daily life, and resulted in widespread disruption of online services, rendering access to healthcare and online education sources unavailable for millions of citizens. While Iranians are no strangers to shutdowns, this one was different to previous incidents, and far more sophistocated. Rather than throttling (slowing of connectivity) and blocking access to certain websites, services and apps, the entire country was taken completely offline, making it difficult use circumvention techniques. "Iran’s ability to shutdown the Internet is the culmination of policies, technological developments and centralised control", says Mahsa Alimardani, one of the authors of the Article19 research and an academic at the Oxford Internet Institute. “A lot of the incentive to shut down the Internet was to shut down communication channels that were seen to be facilitating a lot of this mobilisation,” Alimardani says (source: Wired). Internet shutdowns during protests or civil unrest impact the ability of citizens to get accurate information from government sources when they need it most. It also becomes harder for citizens to contact family members and friends in other parts of the country, or in other countries.

This shutdown was imposed because public wanted to carry out processions on occasion of Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi despite not getting permissions from the authorities. Permissions of all kinds for rallies and processions have been denied in the State by District authorities till November 30th.

As the judgement in the sensitive Ayodhya title suit was delivered, internet was suspended in many parts of the country. The divisional commissioners of Agra and Aligarh announced that internet will be suspended for 24 hours starting 6 am on November 9. This would include the suspension of mobile internet services in addition to the suspension of social media services including WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter. Similarly, internet services have also been suspended in parts of Rajasthan including Jaipur, Alwar, Sikar and Dausa starting 10 am on Saturday in anticipation of the verdict and to prevent the spread of messages that could spark violence given the sensitivity of the Ayodhya issue.