Internet Governance Priorities and Practices: India

Internet use in the Asia-Pacific region has grown in leaps and bounds over the last decade. Between 2000 and 2003 alone the Internet population in the region grew by an annual average of 38 percent to 250 million users, making the Asia-Pacific region the world's largest Internet community. Estimates put this number today at over 300 million and predict further strong growth. These impressive numbers notwithstanding, overall penetration rates are still very low in most countries...

A product of the Open Regional Dialogue on Internet Governance (ORDIG) project, this 26-page report shares results from a year-long process of various online and in-person consultation as well as research activities on internet governance priorities for the Asia-Pacific region. Overall, more than 3,000 individuals from over 37 countries in the region participated in some way in this initiative, which is implemented by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP) in collaboration with the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre with support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.

Specifically, the report draws on an online survey of 156 individuals from all stakeholder groups in India. Highlights of the many specific findings detailed here:

• India has made considerable progress in establishing more open policies with regard to internet service providers (ISPs) obtaining licenses for international gateways. For operating international satellite links alone, 24 such licenses were in use in 2004, thereby expanding to the international link the dynamics of the domestic ISP market in India, which boasts almost 400 licensed ISPs, 200 of which are active.
• In India, virus attacks and online fraud are on the rise and are becoming ever more sophisticated; spam volume is continuously rising.
• With regard to infrastructure policies, India has made significant strides towards a dynamic market for bandwidth and internet service provision, and appears to be bound for leveraging wireless technologies and internet telephony through progressive policies. However, persistent discontent with internet access, affordability, speed and interconnection arrangements indicate that there is still ample room for policy improvement.
• Issues of online cultural diversity, such as the availability of local language software and local content, are very pressing concerns for the internet community in India, a country with more than 400 living languages. Over two-thirds of the respondents express their dissatisfaction about the availability of local content, a significantly stronger degree of dissatisfaction than in most other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.