Prime Minister "gifted away" India's digital markets to Google, Facebook, Microsoft just for few hours of "glory"

By A Representative
A senior science activist has alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his meetings with the top brass of Facebook, Google and Microsoft, gifted away digital oceans for "a few hours of glory". Associated with the Delhi Science Forum, Prabir Purkayastha has said, Modi will be providing "last mile connectivity" to these giants, and the “bulk of expenditure in providing Internet backbone will be done by the government”.
An engineer and an expert in power, telecom and software sectors, Purkayastha says, all three giants will be allowed a “free ride on India’s Internet infrastructure”. Wanting it to be Internet to be a public utility, the Modi government, he adds, has decided for spend Rs 70,000 crore on National Optical Fibre network “for developing an internet backbone for the country on top of the existing infrastructure that BSNL and others."
“Google will use RailTel – a fibre optic network that Indian Railways has built -- for its wifi installations in the railway stations, giving it access to this very large, existing fibre optic infrastructure, for its own use as well”, Purkayastha says.
Insisting that this is what India would have to pay, Purkayastha says, “It was a huge ‘success’ for PM Modi”, but “what was missed is that Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are all interested in grabbing India's digital market.”
Purkayastha insists, it is time one knew what Edward Snowden, former CIA employee has revealed – “that Facebook, Google, Microsoft have been fully a part of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Five-Eyes (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) global spying network.”
“All these companies, along with telecom MNCs such as AT&T and Verizon, act as agents of the US intelligence agencies”, says Purkayastha, adding, “ They provide access to all their data, to be searched, sorted, and stored in data banks for the next 50 years, by the NSA of the US, the shadowy agency that Snowden outed.”
“So giving the US MNC's our data, is not only giving them a very important economic resource, it is also helping the US to monitor intimately all the current and future decision makers in the country”, the senior expert contends
Contrasting this with China, Purkayastha says, the Chinese “have kept Google, Facebook and others out of their market”, and the only three companies among the top 10 global IT companies that it has hired are are not from the US.”
He says, “China has done this by protecting their huge internal digital market, creating internet and mobile based businesses that rival, if not are more advanced, than their US counterparts. They are now expanding globally, particularly in those markets that are much more based on mobile based access to the internet.”
Commenting to Modi's visits Facebook headquarters, Purkayastha says, “By doing so, he also implicitly gave his seal of approval to Facebook, which reciprocated by allowing people to endorse Digital India on Facebook and change the colour of their Facebook page.”
Calling internet.org Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's “truncated Internet supervised by Facebook”, Purkayastha wonders, if Modi, by such high profile visit, was not vitiating the regulatory process, when “Facebook's internet.org is being examined by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the Department of Telecom and the Competition Commission of India for possibly violating India's telecom rules.”
Says Purkayastha, “Zuckerberg claims that he wants to connect the poor to the internet to lift them out of poverty. What Facebook's internet.org is proposing is that out of the nearly 1 billion websites in the world, the poor need to see only a few; and Facebook will decide what the poor should see.”

Comments

Anonymous said…

The ideas of author seems skewed.

October 07, 2015

Grueling summer ahead: Cuttack’s alarming health trends and what they mean for Odisha

By Sudhansu R Das The preparation to face the summer should begin early in Odisha. People in the state endure long, grueling summer months starting from mid-February and extending until the end of October. This prolonged heat adversely affects productivity, causes deaths and diseases, and impacts agriculture, tourism and the unorganized sector. The social, economic and cultural life of the state remains severely disrupted during the peak heat months.

Stronger India–Russia partnership highlights a missed energy breakthrough

By N.S. Venkataraman* The recent visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India was widely publicized across several countries and has attracted significant global attention. The warmth with which Mr. Putin was received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was particularly noted, prompting policy planners worldwide to examine the implications of this cordial relationship for the global economy and political climate. India–Russia relations have stood on a strong foundation for decades and have consistently withstood geopolitical shifts. This is in marked contrast to India’s ties with the United States, which have experienced fluctuations under different U.S. administrations.

From natural farming to fair prices: Young entrepreneurs show a new path

By Bharat Dogra There have been frequent debates on agro-business companies not showing adequate concern for the livelihoods of small farmers. Farmers’ unions have often protested—generally with good reason—that while they do not receive fair returns despite high risks and hard work, corporate interests that merely process the crops produced by farmers earn disproportionately high profits. Hence, there is a growing demand for alternative models of agro-business development that demonstrate genuine commitment to protecting farmer livelihoods.

The Vande Mataram debate and the politics of manufactured controversy

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The recent Vande Mataram debate in Parliament was never meant to foster genuine dialogue. Each political party spoke past the other, addressing its own constituency, ensuring that clips went viral rather than contributing to meaningful deliberation. The objective was clear: to construct a Hindutva narrative ahead of the Bengal elections. Predictably, the Lok Sabha will likely expunge the opposition’s “controversial” remarks while retaining blatant inaccuracies voiced by ministers and ruling-party members. The BJP has mastered the art of inserting distortions into parliamentary records to provide them with a veneer of historical legitimacy.

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

The cost of being Indian: How inequality and market logic redefine rights

By Vikas Gupta We, the people of India, are engaged in a daily tryst—read: struggle—for basic human rights. For the seemingly well-to-do, the wish list includes constant water supply, clean air, safe roads, punctual public transportation, and crime-free neighbourhoods. For those further down the ladder, the struggle is starker: food that fills the stomach, water that doesn’t sicken, medicines that don’t kill, houses that don’t flood, habitats at safe distances from polluted streams or garbage piles, and exploitation-free environments in the public institutions they are compelled to navigate.

Why India must urgently strengthen its policies for an ageing population

By Bharat Dogra A quiet but far-reaching demographic transformation is reshaping much of the world. As life expectancy rises and birth rates fall, societies are witnessing a rapid increase in the proportion of older people. This shift has profound implications for public policy, and the need to strengthen frameworks for healthy and secure ageing has never been more urgent. India is among the countries where these pressures will intensify most sharply in the coming decades.

Thota Sitaramaiah: An internal pillar of an underground organisation

By Harsh Thakor* Thota Sitaramaiah was regarded within his circles as an example of the many individuals whose work in various underground movements remained largely unknown to the wider public. While some leaders become visible through organisational roles or media attention, many others contribute quietly, without public recognition. Sitaramaiah was considered one such figure. He passed away on December 8, 2025, at the age of 65.

Proposals for Babri Masjid, Ram Temple spark fears of polarisation before West Bengal polls

By A Representative A political debate has emerged in West Bengal following recent announcements about plans for new religious structures in Murshidabad district, including a proposed mosque to be named Babri Masjid and a separate announcement by a BJP leader regarding the construction of a Ram temple in another location within Behrampur.

Search This Blog