Dishit Shah

Dear Elon @elonmusk You hv certainly stirred up plenty of reaction with ur posts. But this needs a response from me, as did ur “Electronic Voting machines can be hacked” post from some time ago. As someone who knows a little bit abt Telecom as someone who played a decent-ish role in building Indias wireless sector as an Entrepreneur and then as a policy maker , let me share my thoughts. It is true that Indias Telecom was a sector beset with opaqueness and corruption for several decades - where cronies ruled under the benevolent love and the politics of ur latest fan (name not withheld - @RahulGandhi ) But under PM @narendramodi , 3 principles govern the tech (including Telecom/Internet) sector. Open, Safe & Trusted and Accountable. #OSTA ✅ Open - Free from any monopoly-duopoly. Free and fair competition. ✅ #SafeAndTrusted - Infra, Network , Platforms must be safe and trusted. ✅ Accountable - Every participant should be legally accountable for safety and trust. I was a MP first and then part of PM @narendramodi jis team when this framework was developed. I have more than a little experience of fighting years of political and bureaucratic opaqueness and corruption, which shaped these principles. so todays India is not that old crony driven India. I am not in govt anymore and certainly dont speak for it. But it seems to me that Govt has made it clear: all three satcom licensees are at broadly the same stage of ensuring security clearance by verifying its safety and trust first, then spectrum. Satellite IP services have many security implications. More so in a country like India which has faced years of Terror and insurgency supported by inmical state actors in our neighbourhood. From 26/11 terror attacks to recent ones in Pahalgam, satcom has been preferred comm for Terrorists. Satellite VOIP and encryption creates more challenges security wise. Not insurmountable but new capabilities and capacity hv to be built to ensure Safety and Trust. I hv used @Starlink and I think its awesome technology - and represents a new era in mobility innovation. No doubt. But a country has to plan for itself and its interests before every new choice. Thats what India is doing. Patience is unavoidable and in this case is a necessity.

This is an outright lie by @jack - perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history Facts and truth @twitter undr Dorsey n his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with law repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 and it was only June 2022 when they finally complied. No one went to jail nor was twitter "shutdown". Dorseys Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law. It behaved as if the laws of India did not apply to it. India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India. During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake. GoI was obligated to remove misinformation from the platform because it had the potential to further inflame the situation based on fake news. Such was the level of partisan behaviour on Twitter under Jack regime, that they had a problem removing misinformation from the platform in India, when they did it themselves when similar events took place in the USA. To set the record straight, no one was raided or sent to jail. Our focus was only on ensuring the compliance of Indian laws. There is ample evidence now in public domain abt Jacks twitter's arbitrary, blatantly partisan n discriminatory conduct and misuse of its power on its platform during that period. Twitter under Dorsey was not just violating Indian law, but was partisan in how it was using "deamplify" n deplatforming of some arbitrarily in violation of Art 14,19 of our constitution and also assisting in weaponising of misinformation. Our govts policies remain clear for all Intermediaries operating in India - compliance with laws to ensure Internet is Safe&Trusted, Accountable . #SafeTrustedInternet