In the name of national security, India has been targeting RIM, Google, and Skype to set up local servers so that its government and law enforcement agencies can more easily monitor network data. The government is in upheaval over RIM’s refusal to allow access to encrypted communications, but many critics argue this is a violation of democratic rights.

The United Arab Emirates pulled a similar stunt in October 2010, when it decided to lift the ban on RIM. Now India, which originally threatened to turn off BlackBerry services at the end of August, but at the last minute decided to give RIM a 30-day reprieve, has spared the Canadian company once again from being shut out from the country entirely.

In response to India’s cancellation of the ban, RIM promised that it would offer a final solution by January 31, 2011, to give the government continued access.

India released an official response, stating: “Following continuing discussion of M/S RIM with Government of India on the issue of providing access for lawful interception, RIM has set up an interim arrangement for lawful interception of BBM services. RIM has assured the Government of India that they will provide the final solution for the lawful interception of BBM services by 31.01.2011. Accordingly, the BBM services will continue to be available.”

The creators call this a “a collaborative citizen-driven election monitoring platform” and explain:

…users contribute direct SMS, email, and web reports on violations of the Election Commission’s Model Code of Conduct (PDF). The platform will then aggregate these direct reports with news reports, blog posts, photos, videos and tweets related to the elections from all relevant sources, in one place, on an interactive map.

The site is powered by two open source projects that focus on crowdsourcing information during crisis. One is Ushahidi, the other Swift, both of which I will write more about on another day.