I&B now sets sights on online news

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New Delhi, Oct 3: After lording it over television broadcasts and radio channels, the information & broadcasting ministry now seeks to control the Internet. In a move that has been widely criticised as “impractical”, “regressive” and even “undemocratic” by experts and online operators, the I&B ministry wants to bring under its jurisdiction all online news and current affairs, including international websites.

This effectively means that online editions of foreign papers like The Washington Post, The Guardian or The Times would first need to register in India, like domestic newspapers do with RNI, before being legally available, or else face a blackout.

According to official sources, the exercise is being taken up by the I&B ministry as part of efforts to overhaul the archaic Press & Registration of Books Act of 1867 “to make it contemporary and attune it to present day realities and situation”. Sources told FE that the ministry has already prepared a draft proposal, though a Bill on the subject may not be out any time soon.

Nasscom president Kiran Karnik termed any such move a “regressive step” and added that the government should stay out such areas. “The Internet worldwide is a free medium. On possible violations, I believe we broadly have laws to take care of any such deviations,” he said.

Cyber law expert Pavan Duggal said it was “neither practical, feasible nor prudent” to mandate registration for online newspapers. “You are not living in a country like China. We are a democracy and should go by its spirit,” he said. Duggal said unlike newspapers, which had a physical form, the Internet was an altogether different paradigm. “You can’t compare the two.”