I&B Ministry
Four FDI media proposals await govt. nod
NEW DELHI: A total of 99 proposals including four relating to the information and broadcasting sector for foreign direct investment are pending before various ministries, the Parliament has been informed.
This follows the decision to entrust the work of granting government approval for FDI investment in eleven notified sectors/activities requiring government approval to the concerned ministries/departments.
Commerce and industries minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the decisions would be taken under the extant FDI Policy and Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA),
The government, through the erstwhile Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), had already been considering and taking decisions on FDI proposals in the sectors on approval route.
Consequently, the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for processing FDI proposals was issued on 29 June, 2017.
According to the SOP, once the proposal is complete in all respects, which should not be later than six weeks/eight weeks (in cases where comments of the home ministry have been sought from security clearance point of view) from the receipt of the proposal, the competent authority will, within the next two weeks, process the proposal for decision and convey the same to the applicant.
In respect of proposals where the competent authority proposes to reject the proposals or in cases where conditions for approval are stipulated in addition to the conditions laid down in the FDI policy or sectoral laws/regulations, concurrence of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion will compulsorily be sought within 8-10 weeks weeks (in cases where comments of the home ministry have been sought from security clearance point of view) from the receipt of the proposal.
The 99 FDI proposals pending in various ministries/departments are:
|
Name of Ministry/Department |
No. of Proposals |
|---|---|
|
Department of Economic Affairs |
13 |
|
Department of Pharmaceuticals |
14 |
|
Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion |
48 |
|
Department of Telecommunications |
8 |
|
Department of Defence Production |
4 |
|
Ministry of Home Affairs |
5 |
|
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting |
4 |
|
Department of Space |
2 |
|
Department of Financial Services |
1 |
|
Total |
99 |
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I&B Ministry
India turns up the heat on piracy, orders Telegram to axe 3,142 channels and blocks 800 websites
New legal teeth, nodal officers and notices to intermediaries signal that the government is done playing nice with copyright thieves
NEW DELHI: India’s war on film piracy just got significantly more aggressive. The government has ordered Telegram to remove 3,142 channels distributing pirated content, blocked access to around 800 websites through internet service providers, and put the full weight of freshly sharpened legislation behind the crackdown. The message from New Delhi is unambiguous: the free ride for copyright thieves is over.
Minister of state for information and broadcasting L. Murugan spelled out the legal architecture to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The Cinematograph (Amendment) Act, 2023, he said, now contains specific provisions designed to make piracy a genuinely painful proposition. Sections 6AA and 6AB prohibit unauthorised recording and transmission of films, with violations attracting a minimum of three months’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 3 lakh. At the upper end, offenders face three years behind bars and fines of up to 5 per cent of a film’s audited gross production cost — a figure that, for a big-budget production, could run into crores.
The legislation also gives the government powers to act against intermediaries hosting infringing content, by notifying them under Section 79(3) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and compelling takedowns and blocking actions. Under Section 79(3)(b), intermediaries are legally required to remove or disable access to unlawful content upon receiving government notice or court orders. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, add a further layer of obligation, requiring platforms to ensure their services are not used to host or distribute content that violates copyright or proprietary rights.
To put enforcement into practice, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has established a dedicated institutional mechanism, complete with nodal officers to receive complaints. Copyright holders, authorised representatives or individuals can report piracy through a prescribed format, after which the government issues notices to intermediaries to disable access to infringing links.
The most headline-grabbing action came on 11 March 2026, when Telegram was formally notified under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act and directed to remove and disable 3,142 channels found to be distributing unauthorised content belonging to OTT platforms, content owners and producers. The complaints that triggered the action came from OTT platforms including JioCinema and Amazon Prime Video, which alleged that copyrighted films, web series and other material were being shared on the platform on a massive scale. Telegram’s architecture, with its large file-sharing limits and capacity for user anonymity, has made it a favoured vehicle for exactly this kind of large-scale piracy.
The Telegram action sits within a broader pattern of escalating enforcement. Just days before the Lok Sabha statement, the ministry banned five OTT platforms for streaming obscene content: MoodXVIP, Koyal Playpro, Digi Movieplex, Feel and Jugnu. In July 2025, the Centre ordered the blocking of 25 OTT platforms accused of streaming obscene, vulgar or pornographic material, a list that included ALTT, ULLU, Big Shots App, Desiflix, Boomex, Navarasa Lite, Gulab App, Kangan App, Bull App, Jalva App, ShowHit, Wow Entertainment, Look Entertainment, Hitprime, Feneo, ShowX, Sol Talkies, Adda TV, HotX VIP, Hulchul App, MoodX, NeonX VIP, Fugi, Mojflix and Triflicks.
Rule 3(1)(b) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, provides the regulatory hook for those actions, prohibiting platforms from hosting content that is obscene, pornographic, invasive of privacy, gender-harassing, racially or ethnically objectionable, or that promotes hatred and violence.
For an industry that loses billions of rupees annually to piracy, the direction of travel is welcome. The question, as always, is not whether the laws exist, but whether the enforcement machinery can keep pace with the ingenuity of those determined to circumvent it. Three thousand channels down, and the pirates are already busy opening three thousand more.
