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The original was posted on /r/worldnews by /u/eldojk on 2023-10-19 17:42:44.
India uses widespread internet blackouts to mask domestic turmoil
Submitted 2 years ago by bot@lemmit.online [bot] to worldnews@lemmit.online
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/18/india-internet-blackouts/?
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 2 years ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On more than 680 occasions during that period, state and local officials in India issued legal orders requiring the country’s handful of telecommunication companies to suspend mobile data transmission from cell towers and freeze wired broadband connections.
In three visits to the remote, lushly forested state bordering Myanmar, Washington Post journalists saw how severing the internet — considered a modern necessity, almost a basic right by many — upended daily lives and livelihoods practically overnight.
To maintain their grip on political power and advance their Hindu nationalist agenda, Modi and his ideological allies have often used their control of technology and social media to stifle dissent, promote divisive propaganda — or, in the case of Manipur, pull the digital plug altogether.
The activist — a former call center manager with a bubbly laugh and quiet intensity named Jhmar — belonged to the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF), a pro-Kuki organization, as a volunteer in its “media cell.” Her job, she said, was to find and confirm reports about atrocities, then spread the word to the outside world, a challenge given the internet ban.
The longest recorded instance came in August 2019, when the Modi government revoked the semiautonomous status of the northern Jammu and Kashmir region and brought this restive Muslim-majority area directly under New Delhi’s control, sparking protests and an Indian army crackdown that included waves of detentions.
After weeks of negotiations, an eye-watering payment exceeding $1,000 and a flick of a router switch one day in late May, Vualzong turned the media cell office in Churachandpur into an oasis of WiFi, with slow, finicky, but unfettered internet piped in from a neighboring state.
The original article contains 2,969 words, the summary contains 275 words. Saved 91%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!