THE Manipur government rules to regulate cafe rules are unworkable, according to the newly- floated Manipur Internet Promoters Association (MIPA). Shyamsunder Haobam, President, MIPA said:“Cyber cafes in Manipur are run by educated unemployed youth. Imposition of certain rules would drastically reduce the number of visitors to the cafes.” There are around 60 cyber café in and around Imphal.

The State science and technology department in the recent past planned to introduce a system to avoid misuse of internet as most of the students spend their time and money chatting and visiting porn sites, in café cabins. The draft rules ban entry of minors inside cyber cafes without a guardian or a senior. However the cyber café owners in Imphal felt that legal implication regarding internet pornography vary from country to country. The IT bill drafted by the Centre, according to them, does not mention about ‘internet pornography’.

“Manipur being a sensitive state, cyber cafe owners try their best to discourage surfing porn sites. Moreover it should not be the responsibility of cyber cafes if any users are found visiting such sites,” Shyamsunder said. “If visiting porn sites is to be a crime, BSNL should block the porn sites, instead of blaming the café owners.”

MIPA is planning to submit a memorandum to the state science and technology Director urging the authority to execute section 80 clause 2 of the IT Act when the necessity arises. The association however wondered why 33 community information centres in Manipur were left out while implementing the proposed rules as both CICs and cyber cafes are internet kiosks.

Regarding the maintenance of log books as per the new rules, cyber cafe owners argue that the log books may not always be true even if these are kept at the cyber cafes. While Manipur is battling the cyber prone threat, Tripura police quietly went ahead and booked a Agartala Cyber café owner for ‘popularising’ porn sites. Mind you Tripura has no cyber law to boot.

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