The Department of Telecommunications across the country is on their toes to track down IP addresses which are being used to 'view' or 'download' files from the Torrent websites.
If a user is found guilty, he/she may end up in prison for three years or have to pay a hefty penalty of ₹3 lakh.
However, in a country like India where even a Skype call or a Whatsapp conversation is interrupted by connectivity glitches, this move only seems to be adding to the misery of already troubled internet users.
If the counter-argument to this is that people should start using the official platforms like Netflix, Hotstar - we need to understand why it is nearly impossible in India.
A millennial who is a resident of cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai or Delhi may not completely understand the problem with their internet connections running at an average speed of 30-40 Mbps throughout the month.
On the other hand, if one takes a few steps towards the smaller cities, where the majority of the Indian population resides, the picture gets more complicated.
Even now, a tier-two city gets a maximum internet speed of 2 Mbps, and this is at the beginning of the month—once the maximum data limit is exhausted it comes down to 512 kbps.
Now, how good is the suggestion of using Hotstar to watch a live cricket match with this crawling internet?
The government isn’t ready to answer the big question yet. The reach of internet in India until last year was as low as 27 percent. Also, out of this 27 percent, the majority of the nation runs on the poorest possible internet speed and connectivity.
Now, what would the people do, if not download movies from Torrent websites—even if it takes two to three cycles of their clock to have the movie ready to watch?
Banning Torrent sites may sound ethically correct; however, the most important question to be asked from the Department of Telecommunications of India is: What does the government have to offer in place of it? A speedy internet or some other legal downloading platform?