Net neutrality: Youth Congress, NSUI hold 'Save the Internet March'

Amid a raging debate over 'net neutrality', Youth Congress and National Students Union of India (NSUI) on Thursday demanded the government to treat all data on Internet equally. The frontal organisations of Congress took out a "Save the Internet March" demanding 'net neutrality' and free Internet access to all.

A delegation, led by Youth Congress president Raja Brar and NSUI president Roji John, also met Union Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and submitted a memorandum, said NSUI spokesman Amrish Ranjan Pandey.

"We demand that TRAI and telecom industry avoid favour of any kind of content or media over the other on the Internet, which is the very anti-thesis of net neutrality," he said.

"We believe that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) and the government should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging deferentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment or mode of communication," the memorandum said.

An intense debate, including on social media platforms, began on the issue of 'net neutrality' after some telecom firms announced services that are being billed as going against the concept of maintaining equal Internet access for all.

These platforms claim to allow users to access a variety of mobile and Internet applications for free, but the critics allege that these services restrict the 'free' access to a select group of websites and apps and therefore sabotage the entire concept of keeping the Internet free.