Anshuman Sahoo

As a recent Washington Post article suggests, the Internet shutdown in Kashmir valley has crossed a landmark of more than 140 days – the longest ever internet shutdown to be imposed in any democracy. With the winter vacations in Supreme Court going on it’s well predictable to go beyond 160 days at least, unless the government lifts the ban on its own. Meanwhile, Internet shutdowns have been rampant throughout the country for the last few days in the wake of popular protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. The Internet continues to be shut down in majority parts of the north-eastern state Assam and some regions of the National Capital Delhi also have faced internet shutdown in the past few days. Interestingly, a Chinese media cites Indian Internet Shutdowns as an example to justify Chinese authoritarian shutdowns - which is quite ironic given the fact that India and China are the largest democracy and authoritarian regime, respectively! Amid such shutdowns, q