Longest Internet Shutdown In History :

New Delhi : Each morning at 8:15 a.m., a train pulls out of the station in the Kashmiri capital of Srinagar. Hundreds of passengers cram the cars for the 70-mile journey, packed so tightly they can barely move. Nearly all will return the same day.

Kashmiris call the train the Internet Express. It shuttles people out of the Kashmir Valley — where India has shut down access to the Internet for more than four months — to the nearest town where they can get online.

On a recent foggy morning, it was full of people hoping to renew driver’s licenses, apply for passports, fill out admissions forms and check email. They included 16-year-old Khushboo Yaqoob, who was rushing to register for a medical school exam. “If I had any other option, I wouldn’t be here,” she said.

The shutdown, which entered its 134th day Monday, is now the longest ever imposed in a democracy, according to Access Now, an international advocacy group that tracks Internet suspensions. Only authoritarian regimes such as China and Myanmar have cut off the Internet for longer.