India: No plan to censor internet, Telecom Secretary

New Delhi, Jan 20 (PTI) Amid growing unease among global website and social media companies, a top official of India's Ministry of Communications and IT has said the country has no plans to censor the internet. "We don't believe in censorship of any kind. All over the world, every company has to operate in accordance with the law. Any company wishing to operate in a country has to follow the law of the land," IT and Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar told reporters here Thrusday on the sidelines of an Internet and Mobile Association of India event. He added that everyone is aware of technology and there is a need to develop some mechanism to abide by the law. Recently, the Indian government had filed a report in a Delhi court saying there was sufficient material to proceed against 21 websites, including Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, for alleged offences of promoting enmity between classes and causing prejudice to national integration. Advocate N K Kaul, appearing for Google India, has argued that "the issue relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression and suppressing it was not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China". However, the Delhi High Court judge hearing the case, Justice Suresh Kait, warned Google India and social networking site Facebook India that websites can be "blocked" like in China if they fail to devise a mechanism to check and remove objectionable material from their web pages. PTI