MUMBAI, Oct 16 (Reuters) – An influential right-wing Hindu organization linked to India’s ruling party has asked for checks on streaming platforms and cryptocurrencies, saying control was fundamental.
“There is a need to regularise these things for the greater good of the community,” stated Mohan Bhagwat, leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological progenitor of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
OTT platforms like Netflix (NFLX.O) and Amazon’s Prime Video (AMZN.O) have faced trials and police probes, mostly in BJP-ruled provinces, for content considered inflammatory and aggressive to the country’s majority Hindu community.
Netflix, Amazon, and Walt Disney Co (DIS.N), another influential OTT platform in India, did not directly respond to calls for comment. Bitcoin and India’s Association of Blockchain & Crypto Entrepreneurs could not directly be reached.
“A currency like bitcoin – I don’t know which country regulates it or which rules dictate it,” Bhagwat said in a talk to followers marking the Hindu celebration of Dussehra on Friday. “The state should do it. It has to do it.”
Modi’s administration often looks to the Hindu organization for policy supervision but has refrained from controlling streaming platforms. Movies and TV shows, however, must go through a censor board.
The party prepared but did not present a bill to parliament earlier this year that would have halted trading and owning cryptocurrencies.
Local media has proclaimed the state was looking to tax cryptocurrency trades and the exchanges, traders, and advocates that support them in the nation.
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