Even as the ministry of communication and information technology (MoCIT), which slyly ordered the ban of 857 pornography sites a few days ago, may still be scratching its head on how to handle the whole issue, the Rajya Sabha committee on petitions submitted a report on Thursday suggesting the ministry should consider the proposal of locating servers of porn sites in India to make it easier to block them, along with other recommendations.
The committee, chaired by Bhubaneshwar Kalita, was set up in 2013 following a petition of Jainacharya Vijay Ratnasundersuri and three others to put a check on cyber pornography by amending the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000.
Even though the petition panel has not been able to come up with a conclusive solution for tackling the menace of pornography on the Internet after its extensive deliberations with various ministries, government departments, authorities and agencies, it has made some suggestions to chalk the way forward for curbing online pornography.
"The committee recommends that all the concerned ministries/agencies should work in a cohesive and coordinated manner to collectively bring forth a mechanism to enable strong and effective actions on Internet pornography and especially child pornography," states the report.
Acknowledging the hindrance faced by the government in blocking or banning of these porn sites due to their servers being based abroad, it asked ministries to have their servers in the country.
"The committee finds merit in the suggestion and recommends that the concerned ministries may give due consideration to this proposal, which may provide effective technological means to curb cyber pornography," recommends the panel.
The report further states that distribution of free filters by government and involvement of the NGOs for keeping a tab on objectionable material being put on the Internet, as was being done in many countries, should also be taken up seriously.
"In this direction, the committee recommends that the government should evolve a provision for distribution of free Internet filters, which can restrict free access to online pornography. The committee also feels that besides legal and technological means, mass public awareness campaign needs to be undertaken to make people aware of the negative impact of cyber pornography on the society," says the report.
The panel has also "strongly" recommended the constitution of ombudsman to decide on "complaints of transmission of obscene and objectionable pornography material and accordingly take steps towards blocking them".
It welcomed the initiatives taken by the government to block porn sites "with the specific intent to dissuade transmission of child pornography".
Meanwhile, the internet service providers (ISPs) have not yet unblocked many of the porn sites even after the government directive that left it to them to not disable porn sites with no child pornography.
Nikhil Pahwa, editor of Medianama, said the ISPs did not have the wherewithal to do the tedious scanning of the 857 porn sites for child porn.
"The government should have just removed the entire ban. The way it (the government order) is worded, the ISPs have chosen to do nothing about it," he said.
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