Skip to main content

Order blocking porn sites a Modi "ruse" to create a government controlled web filter in India?, wonders NYT

By A Representative
In a stinging article, the “New York Times” (NYT) has accused the Government of India (GoI) of “blocking” India’s 857 porn sites “without warning or explanation”, in defiance of a Supreme Court “decision.” Quoting Nikhil Pahwa, editor and publisher of MediaNama, which monitors digital policy, NYT says, this has sent fears that the GoI is “using pornography as ‘a ruse’ to create a government-controlled web filter for India.”
“This one is a clear attempt by this government to control the Internet in India,” the top American daily quotes the expert as saying. “It’s not just one incident. There are numerous battles, all linked to one another, for free speech and Internet freedom that are being fought in the country right now”.
Interestingly, the Modi government has followed footsteps of Pakistan, where the government similarly blocked 1,000 sites in 2011, with the decision to add "more" to the list. The Pak decision also led to internet service providers saying there was a list of "over 170,000 websites", and it was "not feasible for any operator" to block all of them.
Qualifying the Modi government decision as the single most important incident of banning so many number of websites at one time, David Barstow, writing in NYT says, the Government of India just followed the list provided by “an anti-pornography activist.” And no sooner the blocking was effective, there was a rush to see whether particular sites had been blocked.
“Within hours, social media platforms in India lit up with complaints from people trying to visit pornography sites only to find either a blank screen or a cryptic message saying the site had been blocked ‘per instructions’ from India’s Department of Telecommunications”, NYT says.
“Because the government made no official announcement about why it was censoring so many websites, much remained unclear about its intentions, including how it chose which sites to block. According to Internet service providers in India, thousands of other pornography websites were unaffected by the order”, it adds.
The top daily underlines, “Adding to the confusion, the government acted just weeks after India’s Supreme Court declined a request to block access to online pornography. In rejecting the request, India’s chief justice, HL Dattu, said adults had a fundamental right to watch pornography within the privacy of their own homes.”
The man who whose list the Government of India acted is Kamlesh Vaswani, a lawyer who failed to persuade the Supreme Court to block online pornography. NYT notes, now, after the blocking instructions went out to internet service providers, he thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “taking a step that the Supreme Court would not.”
Vaswani, 43, is a private lawyer from Madhya Pradesh “decided” to begin a legal crusade against online pornography in response to the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on a New Delhi bus in 2012. With help from a college engineering professor, Vaswani “analyzed” traffic data for pornography websites and came up with a list of the most popular sites. This list of 857 websites is what he asked the Supreme Court to block.
“After the Supreme Court rejected his petition, Vaswani gave his list of 857 websites to Pinky Anand, once a top lawyer for Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and now a top lawyer for Mr. Modi’s government. It was Ms. Anand, he said, who delivered his list to the Department of Telecommunications”, NYT notes.
The letter asking internet service providers to block pornographic sites did not give any reason, NYT says, quoting Dinesh Chandran of the Asianet Satellite Communication Ltd. “It is a simple letter with instructions to block the aforesaid websites The government gives no explanation for why it wants a website blocked, and internet service providers have little choice but to comply. For us, the Department of Telecommunications is the government.”
As for government officials, they too have no explanation. While one official, quoted by NYT, says, the decision to block the sites was taken because they were “found to be spreading antisocial activities as hyperlinks”, another said, “the ban was temporary, in place only until the government adopted new regulations to block child pornography.”

Comments

Post a Comment

TRENDING

Manufacturing, services: India's low-skill, middle-skill labour remains underemployed

By Francis Kuriakose* The Indian economy was in a state of deceleration well before Covid-19 made its impact in early 2020. This can be inferred from the declining trends of four important macroeconomic variables that indicate the health of the economy in the last quarter of 2019.
Post a Comment
»

Incarceration of Prof Saibaba 'revives' the question: What is crime, who is criminal?

By Kunal Pant* In 2016, a Supreme Court Judge asked the state of Maharashtra, “Do you want to extract a pound of flesh?” The statement was directed against the state for contesting the bail plea of Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba. Saibaba was arrested in 2014, a justification for which was to prevent him from committing what the police called “anti-national activities.”
Post a Comment
»

Food security? Gujarat govt puts more than 5 lakh ration cards in the 'silent' category

By Pankti Jog* A new statistical report uploaded by the Gujarat government on the national food security portal shows that ensuring food security for the marginalized community is still not a priority of the state. The statistical report, uploaded on December 24, highlights many weaknesses in implementing the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in state.
Post a Comment
»

Why Indo-Pak relations have been on 'knife’s edge' , hostilities may remain for long

By Utkarsh Bajpai*  The past few decades have seen strides being made in all aspects of life – from sticks and stones to weaponry. The extreme case of this phenomenon has been nuclear weapons. The menace caused by nuclear weapons in the past is unforgettable. Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from 1945 come to mind, after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the cities.
Post a Comment
»

The soundtrack of resistance: How 'Sada Sada Ya Nabi' is fueling the Iran war

​ By Syed Ali Mujtaba*  ​The Persian track “ Sada Sada Ya Nabi ye ” by Hossein Sotoodeh has taken the world by storm. This viral media has cut across linguistic barriers to achieve cult status, reaching over 10 million views. The electrifying music and passionate rendition by the Iranian singer have resonated across the globe, particularly as the high-intensity military conflict involving Iran entered its second month in March 2026.
Post a Comment
»

Modi’s Israel visit strengthened Pakistan’s hand in US–Iran truce: Ex-Indian diplomat

By Jag Jivan   M. K. Bhadrakumar , a career diplomat with three decades of service in postings across the former Soviet Union, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, and Turkey, has warned that the current truce in the US–Iran war is “fragile and ridden with contradictions.” Writing in his blog India Punchline , Bhadrakumar argues that while Pakistan has emerged as a surprising broker of dialogue, the durability of the ceasefire remains uncertain.
Post a Comment
»

Lata Mangeshkar, a Dalit from Devdasi family, 'refused to sing a song' about Ambedkar

By Pramod Ranjan*  An artist is known and respected for her art. But she is equally, or even more so known and respected for her social concerns. An artist's social concerns or in other words, her worldview, give a direction and purpose to her art. History remembers only such artists whose social concerns are deep, reasoned and of durable importance. Lata Mangeshkar (28 September 1929 – 6 February 2022) was a celebrated playback singer of the Hindi film industry. She was the uncrowned queen of Indian music for over seven decades. Her popularity was unmatched. Her songs were heard and admired not only in India but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh and many other South Asian countries. In this article, we will focus on her social concerns. Lata lived for 92 long years. Music ran in her blood. Her father also belonged to the world of music. Her two sisters, Asha Bhonsle and Usha Mangeshkar, are well-known singers. Lata might have been born in Indore but the blood of a famous Devdasi family...
2 comments
»

'Batteries now cheap enough for solar to meet India's 90% demand': Expert quotes Ember study

By A Representative   Shankar Sharma, Power & Climate Policy Analyst, has urged India’s top policymakers to reconsider the financial and ecological implications of the country’s energy transition strategy in light of recent global developments. In a letter dated April 10, 2026, addressed to the Union Ministers of Finance, Power, New & Renewable Energy, Environment, Forest & Climate Change, and the Vice Chair of NITI Aayog, with a copy to the Prime Minister, Sharma highlighted concerns over India’s ambitious plans for coal gasification and the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR).
Post a Comment
»

Labour unrest in Manesar trigger tensions: Recently enacted labour codes blamed

By A Representative   A civil rights coalition has expressed concern over recent developments in the industrial hub of Manesar in Haryana, where a series of labour actions and police responses have drawn attention. A statement, released by the Campaign Against State Repression (CASR), said it stood in solidarity with workers in IMT Manesar and other parts of the country, while also alleging instances of police excess during ongoing unrest.
Post a Comment
»