The row over a parliamentary panel dropping from its agenda a discussion on the ban on high-speed Internet in Kashmir is refusing to die down. Shashi Tharoor, who heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, has apparently written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, saying that the committee is at liberty to discuss the issue of telecom and Internet connection in Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier, the issue was excluded from the agenda of debate as there was a perception that the matter was sub-judice. Following the Speaker’s intervention, the agenda of the Standing Committee on Information Technology was limited to Bihar and Delhi on August 28. On August 16, 4G Internet service was restored on a trial basis in Ganderbal district of North Kashmir and in Udhampur in the Jammu region.

Source: The Hindu August 30, 2020 11:03 UTC