I&B Ministry
Online film certification starts, 33% rise in ‘shoot’ permission
NEW DELHI: A total of 41 shooting Permissions were given for foreign films/projects in 2016 which was approximately 33% increase over 2015. Stating this, the information and broadcasting minister M Venkaiah Naidu said his Ministry has been proactively taking initiatives to promote Ease of Doing Business in the Media & Entertainment Sector.
The Film Facilitation Office (FFO) established by the Ministry in November 2015 provided a Single window clearance to facilitate film shootings by foreign film makers in India.
The Annual Renewal process for existing TV channels has been simplified and permitted broadcasters can continue their operations by paying annual fee up to 60 days before the due date for continuation of the channel for a further period of one year. The payment can now be made online through Bharat Kosh Portal since 1 January 2017.
Launching the Online Film Certification System of the Central Board of Film Certification e-cinepramaan here, Naidu said it would facilitate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Ease of Doing Business and Digital India. The complete automation of the Film Certification Process would enable Good Governance making the entire process transparent and efficient. The objective is to eliminate the need for human interface to the extent possible.
The new system would be an important step in making the CBFC Office paperless and would enable effective monitoring and real time progress tracking for both CBFC Officials and the applicant (Producers).
More online initiatives would be introduced in the Ministry as part of the roadmap for transparent Governance.
Emphasizing on the need to keep pace with paradigm change in technology and current industry trends, Naidu said the Film Industry in India has been growing at a significant pace with a noticeable increase in the number of films getting released every year. The changes in the current processes of CBFC would ensure better facilitation and technological upgradation to match-up with the pace of Indian cinema.
On the issues of Film Certification, Naidu said the recommendations of the Shyam Benegal and Mudgal Committees were under consideration of the Ministry. Consultations with former Ministers had been held to elicit their views on critical issues of certification. It was also proposed to have further consultations with stakeholders in the film and media sector. Thereafter, necessary changes would be brought about in the certification process.
Film Certificate Appellate Tribunal Chairman Justice Manmohan Sarin gave an overview of the functioning of FCAT and the measures being taken by the body for facilitating the appeals.Minister of State for I and B Rajyavardhan Rathore, Ministry Secretary Ajay Mittal, CBFC CEO Anurag Srivastava and senior officials from the Ministry were also present on the occasion.
The online system has integrated the payments made by the producers towards certification fees with the Bharatkosh portal, a Government of India system for all Non-tax revenue receipts. It would be the First Software to fully integrate with the Bharatkosh.
The Salient features of the online film certification system are as follows:
· In the e-cinepramaan, the status of each application would be visible online in the dashboard of the producer/concerned CBFC official.
· In case of short films/promos/trailers less than 10 minutes, even for Examination purposes also, the producer need not visit the Office/Theatre. They can merely submit their creations online.
· For films longer than 10 minutes, the applicant will only have to show the film at the Examining theatre and will not have to visit the CBFC Offices at all except to collect their certificates.
· The producer/applicant would be informed by SMS/e-mail of the status of their application and any action needed, beginning from the receipt of application to the certificate collection.
· The transparency in the system and elimination of middle men would mitigate chances of any corruption and would also avoid allegations of jumping the queue or rigging up of Examination committees.
· The implementation of QR code on the certificates would eliminate chances of fraudulent certificates.
· The system envisages a robust MIS system for performance tracking and efficient reporting.
· The system has inbuilt alerts depending on the pendency of the application to ensure that time limits prescribed by the Rules are not violated.
· Simultaneously, a new CBFC Website has also been developed bringing in new user friendly features and important information at the click of a button.
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.
