India Relents, Permits Access to Non-Child Porn Websites

NEW DELHI, India—Just two days after putting an extensive ban on "immoral and indecent" adult-related websites into place, the Indian government's Department of Communications has listened to the outcry from many sectors of the population and reinstated access to whichever of the 857 banned sites can demonstrate that they do not deal in sexual imagery of minors. "A new notification will be issued shortly. The ban will be partially withdrawn. Sites that do not promote child porn will be unbanned," Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told India Today TV. With the Indian population currently weighing in as the second-largest group of online users in the world, at roughly 350 million, it is expected that by 2017 about a third of its 1.2 billion people will join that community—and that would be a hell of a big hole for adult content providers to replace if the country continued to ban all such material. But as AVN reported yesterday, opposition to the ban is widespread, with creators across the arts spectrum, from movies to books to television, tweeting their support for internet sexual freedom. "Banning porn is an age-old trick that many countries have tried," said filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt. "It will always find many supporters." The ban apparently came in response to an Indian Supreme Court decision which denied the court's power to nix the explicit material, calling such bans the job of the parliament. It is still unclear whether the Department of Communications had overstepped its bounds in ordering the ban. But at least fans of adult material will once again be able to wank to their favorite stars in peace—activity which is still protected in the largely Hindu nation.