As reported by Rishi Raj for the Financial Express on August 19, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has decided to withdraw the contentious Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill. Though it has been reported that the Bill is being withdrawn because the government feels that existing laws are sufficient to address any issues that may arise, the Bill was extensively criticised for muffling free speech in the country and imposing excessive checks on online content creators and social media influencers. Though I wasn’t able to find the final draft of the bill, as reported in the financial express, the bill proposed these creators and influencers to “pre-certify” their content through a special evaluation committee once their viewership crosses a certain threshold. Apart from this, the bill also proposed that the OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video etc. should intimate the government within one month from the date of notification of the proposed Act about their operations and number of subscribers.
Apart from taking the bill back, it is reported in the above link that the I&B Minister has also pulled up the officers concerned over the manner in which the bill was prepared.
Interested readers can learn more about this bill here and can checkout our previous posts on broadcasting laws and their implications here.