The Indian government is reportedly studying the feasibility of giving value-added service (VAS) providers access to information related to the location of a cellphone as a part of the National Telecom Policy 2011. According toSilicon India, the service potentially has the ability to locate lost cellphones and track people anywhere in the country, by simply feeding the mobile number into a web application even if the handset is not GPS enabled....

Hot on the heels ofgivingan ultimatum to RIM over data access to its BlackBerry services, the Indian government has now sought access to Gmail and Skype data, citing security reasons. WSJreports that Indian authorities cannot keep a track of these services since they are heavily encrypted. Hence they fear that Gmail and Skype could be easily misused by terrorists and criminals. Stating this at an industry event, Sachin Pilot, the state union minister for communications and IT said:...

After refusing Research In Motion’s limited data access offer earlier this year and approaching the Canadian governmentfor a pactseeking access to BlackBerry services, the Indian government has now issued an ultimatum to the company to share its interception keys before August 15, 2011 or else face suspension of its services. A highly ranked official who was privy to these talks toldEconomic Timesthat this ultimatum was issued since RIM had already missed its earlier deadline of May 15, 2011....

As wenotedearlier, the Indian communications space is getting interesting. Whether they were involved in thespectrum scandalor not, somehow every company linked to the telecom sector is facing a tough time. And this has nothing to do with the economic climate or poor revenues. From the Interior Ministry to the Intelligence agencies, Government involvement is getting more and more felt by operators and mobile vendors alike. To the dismay of these companies, the Government involvement is justified in the name of national security....

The Indian government has said that Twitter has lost its intermediary status, and in turn its ‘safe harbor’ in the country as it has failed to comply with the latestsocial media policing rules. The authorities argued in Delhi High court that the social network has lost its immunity as per India’s IT rules. Twitter hasfailed to appoint local officers including a chief compliance officer, a grievance officer, and a nodal officer to handle requests from law enforcement round the clock....