CHENNAI, India -- India is planning to launch a national Internet forum to help the country ensure it can play a key role in global meetings and deliberations linked to Internet governance.
The decision to form such a body was prompted by a recent meeting, held here, of Internet users from academia, industry, and government to discuss the marginal representation of large nations -- such as India and China -– in overseeing the Internet.
While India and China have nearly a third of the world's population, representatives of both nations said they are under represented in international standards bodies such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and Portable Network Graphics (PNG) that decide the fate of the global Internet economy.
For India's part, officials claim the poor penetration of the Internet in the country until recently, and also worldwide imbalances in economic power, have kept them from having their say.
Due to be launched by September 2000, the forum plans to "systematically follow" all the global developments of bearing to India, and propose apt responses to ensure that national interests are properly taken care of.
Tamil Nadu State Council For Higher Education Vice-chairman Dr. Anandakrishnan, said inadequate awareness of global developments threatens to leave India far behind in this strategic race.
Other participants in the meeting complained of the very limited access to the Internet in India. There were also complaints that the Indian procedure for domain name registration is cumbersome, costly, and time-consuming.
Internet power-users at the summit also felt strongly about the "absence of adequate tools and technologies for Indian language use on the Net, including standardization at various levels." International bandwidth is also still very expensive in India.
"This independent forum will allow for free discussion of all important aspects, to aid in the formulation and implementation of correct plans and policies at all levels -- bringing out all dimensions involved in an issue," said Madras Institute of Technology design engineer M.K. Saravanan.
