RITWIK DONDE

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2006 12:00:32 AM]
 
MUMBAI: When cyber cafés began mushrooming across Indian cities they were considered a window to the world, a source of knowledge and information. Parents and teachers were a happy lot, expecting the youth to make full use of the new technology.

But, having coming under constant security scanner and being touted as shady joints promoting vices, the industry seems to be in the doldrums, with a majority of small players exiting the business.

The Economic Times, TIMES NEWS NETWORK

K YATISH RAJAWAT AND RITWIK DONDE

MUMBAI: The Mumbai police’s decision to regulate internet cafes as public amusement places through a gazette notification has boiled over into a national issue. Nasscom, along with other national bodies, is trying to get the IT Act amended to regulate the cafes. The objective is to prevent state government and state police from coming up with their own norms to regulate the cafes.

The move to put in place a centralised legislation gained momentum after ET first reported (in issue dated September 22, ’06) the Mumbai Police’s initiative to regulate the cyber cafes in the city.

K YATISH RAJAWAT AND RITWIK DONDE in Ecomomic Times report

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2006 03:24:28 AM]

MUMBAI: This time round, they don’t want to be left limping in the chase. The 7/11 blasts have spooked the Mumbai police into tightening the noose around cyber crime. With terrorists using internet-based communication to manage their sleeper cells and plan operations, the Mumbai police wants to monitor the city’s cyber cafes.

The police wants to licence all internet cafes in the city, classifying them under the public amusement category. Each internet cafe owner will have to shell out a licensing fee of Rs 500 per computer for registration.

Afternoon Daily, Mumbai STAFF REPORTER made a survey of various Mumbai city cyber cafes & is happy to note a wide compliance of the recent Mumbai police order on maintaining the registers although not everybody visiting a cyber café wants to share personal information to use the facility.

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Cyber cafes in the city have started keeping logbooks and recording all the details of the visitors who visit them. The Mumbai police had issued a notification on August 15, for a 15-day trail, asking cyber cafes to maintain such a logbook in addition to asking for photo identity cards of visitors before allowing them to use the cyber cafe. Another similar notification was issued on August 31, and cyber café owners put these up at their cafes. In it, Police Commissioner A. N. Roy had said that anti-social elements may take advantage of cyber cafes in Mumbai and there are chances of breach of peace and disturbance of public tranquillity, and there was grave danger to human lives as well as loss to the public property. On the condition of anonymity, a cyber café owner at Churchgate said, “Many of our visitors have understood the issue and are cooperating with us. In the initial stage some hesitated, but later they also started cooperating. As far as identifying any person who is involved in criminal activity, it should be very simple for us as their population in society is only one per cent and they should be able to be identified by their face only!” He added, “This order has brought our businesses down by about 15-20 per cent as some visitors argue and then go in search of other cafes where they might be allowed to use the facilities without identity cards. The police’s notification has become unaffordable for us as we have to keep one employee just to fill up the logbook. But this order is not followed by all cyber cafes in Mumbai as they do not want to lose their customers by inconveniencing them with personal details.” Khalique Batliwala of Cyberzone in Flora Fountain said, “After implementation of this rule you can be sure that terrorists will opt for something else, they will never use the same method for their plans. But as far as the checking is concerned, we have been doing this from earlier also, and in the initial stages visitors were not happy. But now that they understand why we have to do this, they started cooperating with us.” He further said, “As the Internet has become an important part of our lives, we get a lot of regular visitors and are familiar with them, but whenever we find anyone suspicious then we ask for identity cards or deny them entry.” Deputy Commissioner of Police R. N. Tadvi (Operations), said, “After the order most cyber café owners have started maintaining logbooks and are also allowing only those to enter who have valid identity cards. We are getting a good response from the cyber café owners as they understand our situation. As far as continuation of this order is concerned, until or unless the dust of security threats doesn’t settle down, this order will continue.”

The Statseman, Kolkotta reports about the Asansol station, for the first time in the history of Eastern Railways, will have a cyber cafe with 2 mpbs Internet broadband and audio-video conferencing

 BHOPAL: "Mumbai blasts were to avenge the desecration of Meena Tai's statue." The source of this claim, sent via e-mail to a local Hindi daily turned out to be a 22-year-old errant youth, who meant this as a prank and had no connection with 7/11.

Bhopal SP Anant Singh received a call from the daily in the early hours of Wednesday, informing him of the contents of the e-mail which claimed responsibility for Mumbai blasts.

Expressindia.com reports:
A FORTNIGHT after the daughter of Punjab DGP S S Virk’s relative eloped with a youth, the police tracked her down in Bangalore. The couple have been handed over to their parents.

Despite their efforts, the policemen could not trace the couple. Then, about three-four days back, the girl sent an e-mail to her maternal aunt in the USA asking for money.

The UT Police contacted various Internet operators and scanned the source of the email. After finding that the IP number was of Satyam, they procured the address of the cyber cafe from where she had sent the email.

Economic Times  MUMBAI reports : Online commerce is projected to jump more than four times to about Rs 2,300 crore in ‘06-07 as a rapid growth in cyber cafes across the nation spur a craze for internet shopping.

Internet users did online business worth about Rs 570 crore in ‘04-05. The figure is expected to grow to Rs 2,300 crore by ‘06-07, according to a report titled ‘Online activities and e-commerce from cyber cafes’ conducted by the Internet and Mobile Association of India.

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