After 'temporarily' banning porn in India, the Modi government is planning to appoint an ombudsman to keep a check on pornography and other objectionable content on the Internet.
"The government must be away from this whole process (blocking of porn sites). On the issue of national security, terrorism, extremism, communalism, government will have the final say...beyond that the social media divide comes into operation, let there be an ombudsman to take a call, like the TV ombudsman is there," PTI quoted an official as saying.
The ombudsman could either be a retired Supreme Court judge or someone from the civil society.
The Modi government recently issued a direction to all the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) asking them to block 857 porn websites. Most of the ISPs have blocked the porn websites, including Pornhub, YouPorn and Redtube.
The Department of Telecommunications later released a list of adult websites that have been banned.
The government said that its directive was in response to a Supreme Court order asking about measures being taken to deal with pornography, especially child pornography, PTI reports.
The court's direction to the Centre came in response to a PIL filed by an advocate Kamlesh Vashwani to block porn websites in India. The next hearing in the case will be on 10 August when NGOs, civil society members, parents, child councillors, ISPs and government will also be heard.
The government's move has attracted flak from the public, which compared the Modi government to Taliban. They said that the government was taking away their personal liberty granted by the Constitution of India.
