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kadal writes:

The debate about net neutrality in India has been heating up as the suspiciously tight April 24 deadline nears for comments on a consultation paper released on March 27 by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the country's telecom regulator. As detailed in this article, things began last Christmas.

On December 25, 2014, Airtel, the country's largest mobile operator with over 200 million active subscribers, dropped a bombshell: it wanted to charge customers extra for using services like Skype, Viber and Google Hangouts even though they had already paid for Internet access. If customers wanted to use a service that used Internet data to make voice calls — something known as VoIP — they would need to subscribe to an additional VoIP pack, the company said. Airtel was double-dipping and customers were furious. The tweets flew thick and fast. In less than four days, Airtel backtracked on its plans. It would wait, it said, for a consultation paper about net neutrality that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) would publish soon.

Once that consultation paper came out, Airtel then decided to adopt the Internet.org approach by creating 'Airtel Zero':

[Continued after the break.]

... an open marketing platform that will allow customers to access mobile applications at zero data charges. Akin to the established concept of toll-free voice calling, ‘Airtel Zero’ will allow everyone from big marketers to small-time application developers to make parts or their entire mobile app free for customers — thus reviving interest of dormant customers, attracting new potential users and increasing retention.

Essentially, they wanted companies to subsidize data used by their apps, an approach that has been soundly criticized by a senior advisor at the Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority in a blogpost

The Norwegian guidelines on net neutrality state quite clearly that "Internet users are entitled to an Internet connection that is free of discrimination with regard to type of application, service or content or based on sender or receiver address." This means that in the Norwegian market zero-rating would constitute a violation of the guidelines. At first glance it may appear that all traffic is handled equally in this charging model, but the fact is that once you have used your quota, the traffic that is exempted will be allowed to continue, while all other traffic will be throttled or blocked. This is clearly a case of discrimination between different types of traffic.

Funnily, the TRAI's consultation paper indicates that services like WhatsApp, Skype etc. are in violation of the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885 by not holding a valid telecom license. Much of the resistance is organizing around netneutrality.in and /r/india with twitter campaigns, bad app reviews for companies that join "Airtel Zero" and humorous, informational videos flying everywhere. The most recent reaction has been to create savetheinternet.in which lets visitors send a pre-written reply to the 20 questions TRAI sought answers to.