CURRENT AFFAIRS

Detailed explanation-1: -Chile. On 13 June 2010, the National Congress of Chile amended the country’s telecommunications law in order to preserve network neutrality, becoming the first country in the world to do so.

Detailed explanation-2: -In the early 2000s, legal scholars such as Tim Wu and Lawrence Lessig raised the issue of neutrality in a series of academic papers addressing regulatory frameworks for packet networks. Wu is credited with introducing the term “network neutrality” in his 2003 paper “Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination".

Detailed explanation-3: -DoT constituted a six member committee on Net Neutrality in Jan, 2015 to recommend overall policy, regulatory and technical responses. Adopting assimilative, analytical and participative approach to address related issues, the recommendations of the Committee were placed in public domain for inputs of stakeholders.

Detailed explanation-4: -The idea of Net Neutrality started flowing in December 2014 in India, after telecom operator Bharti Airtel (Airtel) decided to charge extra for making Internet calls. This led to widespread protests, which forced Airtel to roll-back its plan.