The Press Information Bureau, PIB, has launched a mobile version of its website to make its content easily accessible to mobile users. The website is pib.gov.in/mobile. The mobile site has been customized in a way to display the latest press releases on the home screen and offers links to other matter available on it. When an alert is issued by PIB regarding an event like press conference to be held soon, this supersedes all content. 

The site, however, does not display heavy content like photographs and videos on its homepage so that it can be instantly opened in places where internet connectivity is poor. AIR correspondent reports, the regular website of PIB -- www.pib.nic.in -- is highly content rich, including content in text, graphic and audio-visual formats. This makes the site a bit heavy for mobile phones and computers with poor internet connectivity.

 All Gram Panchayats in the country will be connected through the Optic Fibre Cable in single phase and in two years. This information was given by the Minister of State of the Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Milind Deora in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today. He said, the government had approved the scheme for creation of National Optical Fibre Network last year for providing broadband connectivity to 2.5 lakh village panchayats through optical fibre cable.

Assuring that government does not plan to censor internet and social media, Law Minister Salman

Khurshid today said adequate provisions are already in place and IT Ministry is also holding consultations with various stakeholders to address concerns on objectionable content.

Addressing a gathering of 'Editors Guild of India' in New Delhi Mr Khurshid said his colleague and IT Minister Kapil Sibal does not endorse the view of internet censorship in the country and stakeholders have shown willingness to discuss all issues, including how any viral material can be removed.

On the issue of regulating social media websites, he said adequate provisions are available in this regard.

Major internet service providers, networking equipment manufacturers and web companies around the world are migrating to a new version of Internet Protocol address from today onwards.

On the occasion of the world IPV6 launch Day across the globe, the Telecommunication Secretary Mr. R. Chandrasekhar said the transition will be complete in a phased and time bound manner in the country by 2020 to accommodate more consumers for different services. 

AIR correspondent reports that all the government websites will be new technology compliant by the end of the year. 

The traditional communication networks run on Internet Protocol which provides the addresses of the equipment. The current version of the Internet Protocol is IPV 4. 

The biggest limitation of this 27 year old protocol is its 32-bit addressing space resulting in 4.3 billion addresses. With exponential growth of telecom services in several products, most of the addresses have been consumed.

The new IPV 6 improves on the addressing capacities of old system by using 128 bits.

This makes an infinite pool of IP addresses besides providing more security, autoconfiguration, host mobility and innovative applications. India has at present 35 million IPV4 addresses against 360 million data users. 

In addition, government is planning to have a target of 160 million by 2017 and 600 million by 2020.

The Railways have got the much-awaited clearance from space agency ISRO for using the satellite for surfing the Internet in trains without using data card. A senior Railway Ministry official said, the Indian Space Research Organisation, ISRO has given the clearance for using the frequency from KU band for using the satellite for Internet. It will be for the first time that Internet will be operational in moving trains through satellite.

Though Railways had proposed two years back to provide Internet in trains, the project could not take off for the want of ISRO clearance. As per the proposal, three rakes of Howrah Rajdhani will be uplinked with satellite for facilitating Internet in coaches on a piloti bass. Since it is a pilot project, the Internet service will not be charged from the passengers.

Railways have sanctioned 6.30 crore rupees for providing Internet facility in Howrah Rajdhani. Now custom-made antenna will be installed on the locomotives of the train and coaches will be linked through Wi-Fi connectivity. 

To make the Internet operational, the passenger will get a password in his mobile phone after dialling a number given by the TTE.

In China, two major microblogging sites have suspended comment functions after they were punished for allowing rumors to spread. Chinese authorities have closed 16 websites and detained six people responsible for fabricating or disseminating online rumors. 

The State Internet Information Office and Beijing police yesterday said that those websites were closed for spreading rumors of military vehicles entering Beijing and something wrong going on in Beijing, which were fabricated by some lawless people recently.