With the growing salience of internet in its economy and national security spawning new narratives of national resurgence, India has made a robust pitch for democratising internet governance and to keep cyberspace open, dynamic and secure amid competing models and vested interests.
The importance of Internet for India is all too obvious as the country looks set to cross half-a-billion mark of internet users in the coming years. Currently, there are over 200 million Internet users and over 900 million mobile telephone subscribers.
Against this backdrop of a thriving and robust Internet ecosystem, India is well poised and willing to play an important and constructive role in evolving the global Internet Governance ecosystem and in the process make it more credible, said Mr Vinay Kwatra, India’s representative at the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance (NETmundial) in Sao Paulo. Officials from around 80 countries are participating in the April 23-24 NETmundial global meet, hosted by Brazil, to forge a trans-national consensus on core principles that should drive internet governance while upholding national sovereignty.
Underlining India’s approach towards cyber governance, Mr Kwatra said: “The elements of India’s approach on Internet Governance respond to its growing complexity and rests in supporting the dynamism, security and openness of a single and un-fragmented cyberspace.” He also stressed on India’s support for innovation, and robust private sector investments to augment Internet’s continuing growth and evolution.
“For India, Internet has been a catalyst of change, propelling economic growth, enabling extended governance outreach, positively influencing the lives of its people and building new narratives of India and its society. Indeed, Internet has been transformative for India.”
In pursuit of a more democratic, transparent and accountable internet governance system, India’s representative at the global meet pointed out challenges and issues that need to be confronted to evolve a global consensus on this increasingly important issue. These challenges, according to the Indian official, include:
(i) Lack of truly representative and democratic nature of the existing systems of internet governance, including the management of critical internet resources, leading to “trust deficit” in the system.
ii) Need for the Internet Governance ecosystem to be sensitive to the cultures and national interests of all nations, not just of a select set of stakeholders.
(iii) Apparent inability of the current structures of Internet Governance to respond to some of the core and strategic concerns of the Member States.
(iv)Need to broad-base and internationalize the institutions that are invested with authority to manage or regulate the Internet.
(v) Need to ensure security of the cyberspace and institutionalize safeguards against misuse for the protection of Internet users, and at the same time also ensure the free flow and access to information essential to a democratic society.
Multi-stakeholder approach
Multi-stakeholderism is the core principle that underpins India’s thrust to make the Internet Governance system more representative and democratic. Against this backdrop, New Delhi has stressed that “rather than being managed by a few, with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society and international organizations.”
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We recognize the important role that various stakeholders play in the cyber domain, and welcome involvement of all legitimate stakeholders in the deliberative and decision making process.”
“Given its profound importance, there is also a need for various facets of the internet governance, including the core internet infrastructure, to be anchored in appropriate international legal framework,” said Mr Kwatra.
India has espoused the sovereign right of governments to frame their national cyber policies. India’s multi-stakeholder approach is backed by other countries like Brazil. “Internet governance should be multipartite, transparent and open to all,” said Brazil’s President Dilma Roussef said in her opening speech at the global meet. “The participation of governments should occur with equality so that no country has more weight than others,” she said.
Currently, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the principal organisation that manages the web’s domain name system and is contractually affiliated to the US Department of Commerce.
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