The Indian government has told a policy maker, seeking to make tech giants pay publishers for content, a la Australia, that at present no such regulation was being contemplated.

“Presently there is no such proposal for enactment of a law by the Government in this regard,” Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar informed his party colleague and member of Rajya Sabha (Upper House) Sushil Modi who had asked whether the government would “consider to enact a law on the lines of Australian law to protect news industry in India”.

Javadekar, however, admitted that the Australian Parliament had in February 2021 enacted a law, called the News Media and Digital Platform Mandatory Bargaining Code, requiring global digital companies to pay for local news contents.

The minister also said that according to media reports, news publishers have requested Google to pay for content carried by the platform.

Sushil Modi, former deputy chief minister of Indian northern state of Bihar, last week in Rajya Sabha had given a clarion call to bring in legislation to make tech giants such as Facebook and Google pay Indian publishers of news content.

Raising the issue through a Zero Hour mention in Rajya Sabha or the Upper House of Parliament, the  BJP leader had said, “The government must make Google, Facebook and YouTube pay print and news channels for the news content they are using freely.”

“I would urge the government of India that the way they have notified Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code to regulate social media and OTT platforms, they should enact a law on the pattern of Australian Code so that we can compel Google to share its revenue with traditional media,” Modi was quoted as saying in a PTI report.

Rajya Sabha Chairman and India’s Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu had remarked that the suggestion was “worth considering”.