In an apparent crackdown on pornography websites access to as many as 857 websites were reportedly restricted following government orders. The news has met with widespread outrage on the Indian Internet.
There has always been ambiguity about the reasons and processes behind blocking of websites in India since the infamous 2003 blocking of a Yahoo! group, 'Kyunhun,' for being linked to the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council, a Meghalaya based militant outfit and Internet service providers ended up making all forums on Yahoo! Groups inaccessible.
The Centre of Internet & Society (CIS) in an April 2015 report found that the procedure for blocking online content in India remains opaque and that there is an urgent need of transparency measures.
The powers of the Central government to block access to website is derived from Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2008 and the government doesn't usually issue any public statement about which websites have been blocked the reasons behind that. "While the state has the power of blocking content, doing so in secrecy and without judicial scrutiny, mark deficiencies that remain in the procedure outlined under the provisions of the blocking rules," says the CIS report.
However the latest block has been done under section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act according to a leaked copy of a Department of Telecommunications order accessed by CIS.
CIS has also produced a poster (a portion of which is reproduced below), detailing the process through which websites are blocked in India.
(Click/tap on image for a larger view)
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