Odisha Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik, joined the fight for net neutrality on Thursday, with a strongly worded letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
“I have been closely following the net-neutrality debate since the past week,” Patnaik said in his letter to TRAI chairman Rahul Khullar.
His letter, titled, “An appeal to safeguard the basic principles of Net Neutrality”, discusses the “IT revolution in this country” and the impact the Internet has on the country. He also stressed that the Internet is not only for the elite, and therefore this matter is equally important for the poor.
“While the under-privileged deserve much more than what is available, nobody should decide what exactly are their requirements. But if you dictate what the poor should get, you take away their rights to choose what they think is best for them.
Below is the full letter.
Patnaik is the latest to join this debate, a number of organisations such as Cleartrip.com, NDTV, Newshunt and the Times Group have joined the fight. Flipkart which had intended to join the Airtel Zero programme, pulled out of the deal and supported the protests for net neutrality. Recently, MP Rajeev Chandrashekhar also wrote a letter to TRAI urging them to reconsider their stance on the subject.
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