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India Internet Governance Forum (IGF) -2021
Part of: GS Prelims and GS-II – Governance
In news India will host the first Internet Governance Forum in the country.
About IIG forum-
- The CEO of National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) announced the launch of India IIGF -2021.
- IIGF- 2021 will be planned for three days, starting from 20th October, 2021.
- Theme: Inclusive Internet for Digital India.
- The forum is an Internet Governance policy discussion platform to bring representatives together from various groups, considering all at par to discuss public policy issues related to the Internet.
- This Multi Stakeholder concept is adopted by IGF under United Nations and by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
- Significance: As India is the second-largest broadband subscription country in the world and also has the highest data consumption per user per month, with IIGF, the aspirations of the Indians would be reflected in International policy formation and stakeholder discussion.
About the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) under United Nations
- IGF is a multistakeholder governance group for policy dialogue on issues of Internet governance.
- The convening of the IGF was announced by the Secretary-General of UN in 2006 and has held an annual meeting since then.
- Various stakeholder groups come together to exchange information and share good policies and practices relating to the Internet and technologies.
- It facilitates common understandings and knowledge exchange of how to maximize Internet opportunities and address risks and challenges.
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
- To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer – a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn’t have one global Internet.
- ICANN is an internationally organized, non-profit corporation, HQ in Los Angeles, California, that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic and country code Top-Level Domain Name System (such as .com, .info, etc.) management, and root server system management functions.
- ICANN doesn’t control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn’t deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet’s naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet.
- As a private-public partnership of people from all over the world , ICANN is dedicated
- To preserving the operational stability of the Internet
- To promoting competition;
- To achieving broad representation of global Internet communities;
- To developing policy appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes
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