FREE BASICS IN INDIA: THINGS TO BE KNOWN

For the past somedays, every time I was opening the Facebook Application on my cellphone, I was finding notifications loaded with informations about people signing petition in support of Free Basics addressed to TRAI. I was curious and excited "woohoo...my friends are signing the petition and so I must also"; I opened the letter of petition but suddenly a thought stopped me. Should I sign it or not without knowing the idea behind it. Loads of questions flooded my brain like,' What this Free Basics is all about?' ' Is it the same thing called the net-neutrality?' 'Why do Facebook is asking to sign a petition in support?'
Then, I decided I will try to fetch out the right answers to all my doubts. So, if anyone of you has ever felt the same like me and have doubts in their mind regarding the basic concept of 'Free Basics' ,'its positives' and 'the reason behind the outrage against it in India'; here are the answers:

WHAT IS FREE BASICS:

Free Basics ia a platform provided by Facebook which provides free access to free basic internet services to billions of people around the world. Free Basics facility is available through the domain internet.org, where any producer may upon some conditions and considerations broadcast their services and websites freely to the internet users.
I was launched two years ago in the year 2013 globally in partnership with Samsung, MediaTek, Ericsson, Nokia, Opera and Qualcomm with the name 'internet.org' which was later substituted with the term 'Free Basics' earlier this year.

DOES FREE BASICS WORK ON 'ZERO-RATING' PRINCIPLE ON WHICH EARLIER AIRTEL HAD OFFERED A SIMILAR PLATFORM NAMED 'AIRTEL-ZERO':

Yes, Free Basics works o 'Zero-rating' Principle. Zero-Rating is a principle where Internet Service Providers(ISPs) donot charge customers for selected applications they use.

WHAT FACEBOOK SAYS ABOUT 'FREE-BASICS IN INDIA' AND ITS POSITIVES:

Facebook says that 'Free Basics' will help the Indian developers and businesses to provide their services and websites free of cost to all the internet users and will be able to reach larger masses. Thus, it will help grow the business of India worldwide and thus will strengthen the 'Make in India'.Free Basics is an open platform and is available to all.

WHY DO FACEBOOK IS MAKING THE USERS SIGN THE PETITION  TO TRAI:

TRAI in December this year had put a stop on the proposal of Facebook. It said that it wanted to examine the details and intrinsics of the offer first. Reasons for this rejection may be the opposition by the Net-Neutrality Supporters  and Security issues to India, as the Facebook provides all its infos and data to National Security Agency of US.

WHAT ARE THE REASONS WHICH THE NET-NEUTRALITY SUPPORTERS ARE CONTENDING IN SUPPORT OF NOT SIGNING THE PETITION:

According to an organisation 'savetheinternet.org' which supports net-neutrality, allowing the 'Free Basics' platform to work in India may be very dangerous to the concept of net-neutrality and sovereignty of India.
It raised the following oppositions against Free Basics:

1. By allowing 'Free Basics' Facebook must not be given a competitive advantage as there are other other much better options available to provide free internet access.
2. The whole burden of the internet cost will be on telecom operators. Facebook by providing free basics will lead to increase in data costs for paid internet access.
3. Free Basics is the violation of the concept of net-neutrality as it discriminate between the providers.
4. It is not completely an open platform. Facebook has defined the technical and participation guidelines and has reserved the rights to change it.
5. Facebook gets access to all the usages and data of all websites and provides the information to NSA of US and thus a grave security issue to India.

SO ITS TIME FOR YOU TO DECIDE:

Every side of the debate has their strong points to contend. On the one had Net-neutrality supporters completely opposes it and consider it a grave threat to net-neutrality and security of the nation; while on the other hand Mark Zuckerberg contends that  completely free access to internet is not feasible practically. So, its up to us to decide whether to sign it or not.