Secretary – Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) S. Krishnan (file photo)
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ANI/PIB Photo gallery
Topics like social media fall within national jurisdiction and any related ban must be examined for legislative competence, said S. Krishnan, Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, addressing queries on the potential social media in states.
Speaking on the sidelines of the 85th Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Community Forum, Krishnan said, “We have not yet seen what the legislation is. We will have to see whether it falls within the competence of the respective state government and we will have to see whether it comes within how exactly the legislative competence works.”
The Secretary spoke in response to media queries regarding the proposed ban for children under 16 years, aired by the state government during its Budget session. Around the same time, the Andhra Pradesh government also talked about a social media ban for children under 13 years of age. During the India AI Summit, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has talked about an age-based social media restriction.
Data protection compliance
When asked whether the government will shorten the timeline for India’s data protection compliance from 18 months to 12 months, Krishnan said the government is waiting for inputs from stakeholders.
“We have been consulting with the industry on this aspect. We have held some consultations. We are awaiting their inputs and once we get them, we will take a final call,” he said.
Stressing that India must get involved in internet governance, Krishnan spoke about challenges such as malicious traffic on the internet, attempts to change domain names and intellectual property. He called for universal acceptance of domain names in regional languages like .Bharat and .in, which has crossed over 4 million registered users, as per NIXI, national internet exchange of India.
Published on March 9, 2026
