This circular comes at a time when Indian government establishments, including its critical infrastructure such as telecom, banking and other sectors have been routinely targeted by cyber attackers
The legislation is meant to protect and benefit the consumers, Union telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had stressed during its drafting stage. Here s a look at how this bill intends to achieve the objective.
Telecommunications Bill: The new telecom bill allows the government to temporarily take control of telecom services in case of any public emergency or in the interest of public safety
BIF President T V Ramachandran said the Indian Telecommunications Bill 2023 will serve as a strong enabler for the larger digital ecosystem and, in particular, the innovative OTT apps and satellite sectors in the country. It seeks to address several inhibiting issues and would lead to tremendous boost to investor confidence, thereby causing a quantum jump in the growth of the sector, he said.
In the previous version of the bill, the ambit of the regulation also included over the top services such as WhatsApp or a Signal. However, in the bill that was tabled in the Parliament on October 18, OTT has not been included.