Will Govt Allow More Ministries to Demand Content Takedowns Under Sec 69A?; Modi Speaks to UAE President Amid Silence From India-Led BRICS; Mahmudabad Case: SC Should Have Rebuked Lawbreakers in Power
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March 18, 2026
Sidharth Bhatia
Currently only the IT and electronics ministry can issue content takedown orders under section 69A of the IT Act but the Indian government under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi – which has no qualms about using the law to remove satirical and otherwise critical posts – is considering bringing the home, external affairs, defence and information and broadcasting ministries within the ambit of this subsection, the Indian Express‘s Soumyarendra Barik reports citing official sources. The move, these sources said, was ‘necessitated due to the proliferation of AI-generated misleading content’ and section 69A is creating a “bottleneck at the IT ministry”. But the newspaper notes that if the idea is greenlit “platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube … may start receiving blocking orders from a wide range of government agencies”. Notably the IT ministry last month reduced the time in which takedown notices must be acted upon from 24-36 hours to a mere three hours.
Section 69A criminalises content harmful to India’s “sovereignty and integrity”, “defence”, “friendly relations with foreign states”, “public order” and the incitement of cognisable offences in the aforesaid categories. While only the IT ministry can issue takedown orders under it, the Modi government has had another avenue to remove content, namely section 79(3)(b) of the same Act and the associated Sahyog portal, using which various government agencies and the police can issue content takedown notices to intermediaries including social media platforms.
Although the governmental fact-checking unit meant to identify “fake or false or misleading” content pertaining to itself is in stasis due to a 2024 Bombay high court judgment, the Press Information Bureau has its own FCU (which is known to make dubious ‘fact checks’). In its latest report the parliamentary standing committee on communications and IT, which is led by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, has recommended strengthening the PIB’s FCU by enhancing its outreach and by improving its coordination with social media platforms “to facilitate faster identification and removal of misleading content”, Sravasti Dasgupta reports.
Speaking of expanding state power and tightening the screws on free speech, the Noida Police under Yogi Adityanath picked up YouTuber Shyam Meera Singh on Wednesday – only to release him hours later – in what appears to be yet another use of preventive detention laws to silence inconvenient voices. While the specific reasons for the move remain unclear, sources Newslaundry spoke to indicate he was held under Section 170 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), a provision typically used for preventive detention to maintain public order.
Modi spoke to UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan yesterday for the second time since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran began and affirmed that their countries would “continue to work together for the early restoration of peace, security and stability in the region”. His phone call comes as India as BRICS chair has failed to coordinate a joint statement on the conflict. The Modi government has implicitly acknowledged that both Iran and the UAE’s presence in the bloc has been an impediment (Tehran has launched numerous attacks on the Emirates). Still, the external affairs ministry said yesterday that India “remain[s] … engaged with all the stakeholders”.
Amid the cascading fallout of policy failures and global shocks, the effects of the war are already being felt on the ground. In Gujarat’s Morbi,
