Sunday, June 05, 2011

Internet Access as a Human Right

When I say Egypt all I can remember is not the revolution but the country switched off internet connection after political unrest. But this is going to be no more. 

Yeah!!!!!!!!!! It's true  that United Nations Organisation has declared Internet Access as a human right. But what it has to do with political unrest??????????  The report of the United Nations says no state shall switch off  Internet even if there is political unrest.

Yes, on 03-06-2011, United Nations Organization has declared Internet access as a human right and guaranteed this under right to freedom of opinion and expression. I came to know this good news through Spicy IP. And before declaring it as a human right, I presented  a  paper in the seminar on this topic in our University for World Intellectual Property Day ( April 26 ). It was known that UNO was being pushed to declare it as a human right. Finally, this has been declared. I am elated and very happy about it.

While searching for a topic to present for the World IP Day, I was browsing and ended up to find that Estonia (European country) was the first country to declare Internet access as human right in the year 2000. Yeah, that's a decade back, and it took almost 11 years for  UNO to declare  now only. Later, we have decided to prepare on this topic and presented it. When my friends and one of our professor asked us that ,"what  are you  going to present for Intellectual Property Day seminar?" . I replied that, "Internet access as a human right"............. Every one gazed  and some even laughed :) at me. Also, my professor laughed at the  first instance and asked me to drop this topic. But, we some how convinced her and informed  that it's true and it has  been declared  and existed in 5 countries.That is Costa Rica,Estonia,Finland,France,Greece.

Also, we never wanted to step down from this topic even after she said "NO"to us, because, we had worked very hard and prepared  this paper for more than 10 days and it was quite interesting topic for us . After 2 days our professor asked us," how is your article going on?" I replied that it's going on well. Which means she had researched about it, i think so :). Thereafter I presented the topic , "Internet Access as a Human Right" with a issue of balancing the free flow of information on one side and protecting copyright owners on other side :)

But today I am very happy that at last, finally the day has come where we can access internet without any censor, political unrest, and disconnection for infringing intellectual property  provided it has passed three part test mentioned in the report.What else,,,,,,, the day kick started for me with a boost from UN's declaration and happy environment day. Lets try to provide internet access to the whole world and bring out a wireless world :) :)