It's Musk vs. Modi in India. The legal fight by Musk's X in India target the entire basis for tightened internet censorship in India. @Reuters reviewed 2,500 pages of non-public legal filings and interviewed government sources to piece together a behind-the-scenes account.🧵

RT @adityakalra: 🚀 Best of the Week: Top Reuters Business Stories from India: Inside Musk vs Modi battle on censorship, Trump tariffs threa….

Linking the full story here, which has much more details. A team effort with @arpanc_, @adityakalra, and David Crawshaw.

In January, the cybercrime unit asked X to remove three posts containing what officials said were fabricated images that portrayed Amit Shah's son, International Cricket Council chairman Jay Shah, "in a derogatory manner" alongside a bikini-clad woman. The posts "dishonour.

India's home ministry has filed before court a 92-page report drafted by its cybercrime unit to show X is "hosting illegal content". The unit analysed nearly 300 posts it deemed unlawful, including misinformation, hoaxes, and child sexual-abuse material. X serves as a vehicle.

Court filings contain examples of around 1,400 posts ordered for removal by govt agencies between March 2024 and June 2025. Among them are:.A cartoon showing Modi with a dinosaur. Mamata Banerjee in an astronaut suit. NDTV’s stampede coverage — all ordered to be removed.

X argues India's actions are illegal and unconstitutional, and that they trample free speech by empowering scores of government agencies and thousands of police to suppress legitimate criticism of public officials. India govt disagrees. Officials contend in court documents that.

In October 2024, government also launched a website called Sahyog to "facilitate" the issuance of takedown notices, and asked social media firms to get on board. The court filings show that X for months refused to join the portal, before eventually taking it to court.

What changed?. IT ministry in 2023 empowered all federal and state agencies to issue takedown notices for "any information which is prohibited under any law". They could do so under existing legal provisions, the govt memo said, citing the need for "effective" content removal

Two years ago, police inspectors like Shahane could not have asked X for such a takedown. The rules were much stringent. Only India's IT and Information & Broadcasting ministries could order content removal, and only on six narrow grounds including threats to national security.

An example:.In January, a 2023 X post became a concern for police inspector Jitendra Shahane in Maharashtra's Satara. An account with 400 followers had described the now-CM Fadnavis as "useless". Shahane sent a content-removal notice to X marked "CONFIDENTIAL", writing:

What we found reveals: . * The workings of a takedown system shrouded in secrecy.* Indian officials' ire over "illegal" material on X .* The broad spectrum of content that police and other agencies have sought to censor

UPDATE:. X accounts of @Reuters and @reutersworld have been restored in India, after nearly a day of geoblock.

A federal govt spox said there was no requirement from any agency in the government of India to "withhold the Reuters handle. We are continuously working with X to resolve the problem". Story W @adityakalra n @aftabahmed00 .

X lawyer said it received a notice from Indian Railways to remove a video in which a car was being driven on a railway track. Says: "This is the danger, My Lord, that is done now, if every Tom, Dick, and Harry officer is authorised," to remove content .

USA in May received 98% of all Made-in-India iPhone exports by Foxconn. That's a big change from earlier when the western nation received as little as 22% of the total shipment from India, as recently as November. interactive graphic basis customs data:

Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn from India went to the United States between March and May, customs data showed, far above the 2024 average of 50% and a clear sign of Apple's efforts to bypass high U.S. tariffs imposed on China.

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Yet another Apple business win for Tata. Now, Tata group has been enlisted by the US tech giant to handle repairs for iPhones and MacBook devices in Indian market, sources say. Details:.

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