Last week, few students of DPS RKPURAM, namely Pushpak Raj Gautam (12-F), Abhay Mehta (12-F), Mudit Chaudhary (12-I) and Tanay Rohatgi (12-J) organized the “Save The Internet Campaign”, to fight against the telecom operators on Net-Neutrality. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had recently put up a 118 page questionnaire on their website asking Internet users of their views on whether Internet Service Providers should be allowed to prioritize certain websites through downloading and uploading speeds. These students conveyed the importance of the concept of Net Neutrality and promoted the savetheinternet.in website (a lucid way of responding to the 118 page questionnaire) through various online and offline platforms. Social Media- Facebook, Whatsapp and Gmail were their biggest arsenals, as they sent over 250 e-mails to various people (including local MP- Meenakshi Lekhi and local MLA- Parmila Tokas) and shared their self-made video on various Whatsapp and Facebook groups (especially among DU students) urging Internet users to respond to the “Save The Internet” Campaign. To make the movement more prominent, they took to the streets of New Delhi, mainly in the South Extension region, R.K.Puram area and in a few colleges of Delhi University (Hans Raj College, Shyam Lal College, Vivekananda College, Satyawati College, SGTB Khalsa College) . They distributed pamphlets to random people on the streets, put up posters on auto- rickshaws, buses, et al., and shared their plans with Internet Cafe managers- urging them to spread the message among their customers. In the school, they urged various teachers (especially Comp. Science) to inform students about this campaign. Their “Save the Internet” video was uploaded on the school’s official Youtube channel and was shown in the Audio Visual Hall during Assemblies. They voluntarily provided over 100 students with the Internet to respond to the questionnaire. They are also planning to write an open letter to the TRAI expressing their concern over this issue. Net Neutrality is an idea which says that all the Internet users must be charged on the basis of Internet data consumption, and no discrimination can be made against particular websites on the grounds of speed and bandwidth allocation.
With this, DPS RKPURAM becomes the first school to organize such a campaign.
