NEW DELHI: Facebook’s billionaire cofounder Mark Zuckerberg is pulling all stops to swing opinion in India in favour of Internet.org , even as he explores alternatives to subsidise access to certain Internet services including Facebook Zuckerberg in recent weeks initiated dialogues with key people in India’s startup and technology world to convince them of the virtue of Internet.org, a partnership stitched by the social networking giant that allows certain services including Facebook to be provided free of data charge to users.Earlier in May, Sharad Sharma, former Yahoo India research head, angel investor and software product activist, got a call from Zuckerberg that lasted nearly an hour. Sharma declined to comment on the conversation but a person briefed on the discussion said, “Facebook is worried that the backlash in India could affect Internet.org in other markets like Brazil and Indonesia .”Internet.org came in for severe criticism in India with internet activists claiming it violated the principle of net neutrality , or the notion that all Internet traffic should be treated as equal by internet service providers. As the debate drew global attention, Zuckerberg publicly defended the initiative.But even as Zuckerberg began his latest initiative to assuage experts in India, the social networking giant started talks with the Union government on a proposal to subsidise data access for Indian consumers. It is willing to foot as much as one- third of the cost, the person cited above said.Facebook did not respond to an email sent by ET."Now that there is global criticism of Internet.org, they need India to allow it to go through. India is ground zero for zero rating," said Nikhil Pahwa , one of the people leading the Savetheinternet campaign in the country.Zero rating, or the practice of allowing certain services to be accessed free of charge, is at the crux of the net neutrality debate in India. Proponents of net neutrality argue that allowing companies to zero rate their applications or services will create an uneven Internet ecosystem where smaller competitors will be edged out by companies with more money."Coming from (Zuckerberg), it’s going to carry a lot more weight but people need to remember that they do their own reading and form their own opinion," Pahwa said.Through Internet.org, a partnership between Facebook and several telecom operators including Reliance Communications in India, users can access certain websites and services free of data charges. Facebook doesn’t pay the telecom operators but these firms see this as a way to get more people to consume data services as they experience the Internet and move out of free or subsidised plans."I’m glad that Mark Zuckerberg is reaching out and sorting this out," said Vijay Shekhar Sharma , founder and chief executive of mobile-commerce firm Paytm "Internet.org should be more transparent about the partners they choose because arbitrarily selecting them doesn’t make it neutral," he said.The practice of selecting services that can be part of Internet.org has been widely questioned in India. Nearly 40 service providers signed up on Internet.org when it was launched in India in partnership with Reliance Communications in October. Last month, however, many services pulled out of the programme as the net neutrality debate heated up and companies were forced to take a stand.