Minister of Communication and IT Ravi Shankar Parsad recently stated in the parliament that ISPs have been facing difficulty in blocking websites that carry sensitive information.
The Minister of Communication and IT Ravi Shankar Parsad was recently asked whether the government is aware that due to "certain technological shortcomings ISPs are finding it difficult to block certain websites having sensitive contents".
The minister stated in a written reply to Lok Sabha, "Difficulties have been reported to block the websites when the parameters relating to identification of such websites is encrypted with 'https'/secured protocols." He stated that ISP's have limited resources in terms of capacity of infrastructure deployed. "The government is in regular touch with ISPs to address the difficulties," he added.'
The government has a right to block any information transmitted, received or stored on any computer in the interest of integrity of India, under Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000. Other issues that can lead to blocking of websites are security of the state, defence of India and friendly relations with foreign states.
Recently Department of Telecom (DoT) through a Court order blocked multiple BitTorrent sites including The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, KickAssTorrents, etc. The move was made by the ISP's to stop piracy and illegal file sharing. It was a part of a court order by Delhi high court that blocked 450 sites in a case filed by Sony with regards to illegal file sharing. Last month over 104 Indian illegal music sharing sites were blocked by an order passed by Calcutta High Court. Reliance Communications ISP, Zylog Wi5 ISP and Airtel were among the first to implement the new policies.
Source: Outlook