Every inch of Arunachal Pradesh belongs to India: Sachin Pilot

New Delhi, Jan.15 (ANI): Minister of State for Communication Sachin Pilot on Friday asserted that every inch of Arunachal Pradesh belonged to India and an erroneous depiction by any company would not be tolerated by the Government in any way.

Reacting over the recent incident of Google, the search engine, company showing Arunachal Pradesh as part of China, Sachin Pilot said: "Let make it very clear whether it is Google or any some other website of search engine or Internet company that depicts the Indian political boundaries in the wrong fashion, whether it relates to the state of Arunachal Pradesh or Jammu and Kashmir; the government will not accept any of that. I want to reiterate that every single inch of Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India and will remain so irrespective of how A or B company depicts those maps. These are issues which are very clear as far as the government is concerned and we will not tolerate any of this."Sachin asked the Internet Companies to be extra careful while showing any country's political boundaries.

"Our political boundaries should be depicted in right manner and that is the official stand of the government. I also believe that Internet companies should be more mindful and sensitive as to how to go about depicting the political boundaries of the country,"

Sachin said that India has a fair and transparent way of functioning and it feels proud to have one of the most open- minded Media. There is no censorship.

"I think not only Google but almost all the large IT companies and Internet companies have presence in India. I don't want to comment on what Google will or will not do in China, but all I can say that India is a country that has a very free, fair and transparent way of functioning. We are proud to have one of the most open- minded Media. There is no censorship of any sort at all. I think everyone is free to add their views...in this country a sense of stability our judiciary is very transparent in functioning...I think all these factors that large companies not just IT and Internet based companies but a lot of corporations look at that when they have a long term view of a country," the minister said.

Speaking on the censorship in India by the Government, Sachin said: "The Indian companies in last 15-years have only banned 20-22 websites in all and that also has been done only when there are certain contents or websites that really harm our national interests, our sovereignty or are bound to cause some public disorder, etc. Only in the rare of the rarest case would the government decide to shut down or censor a particular website, it is very far and few...we have a policy that is very fair, we have a policy forbearance. We don't interfere in what the netizens do, what a company want to say, etc. It is a very free open society and we are very proud of that. In fact I think it is one of the biggest strengths we have that you are going to air your views and say about what you want. As long as it doesn't harm our national interest, our sovereignty or is single-mindedly focussed on creating a public disorder, I think that perhaps if you agree is not acceptable.""We have just amended our cyber laws three and a half months back and this new law I think is very comprehensive. I should really inspire confidence in our global customers because IT companies deal with global customers. They must get a sense of security about their personal data, about their privacy issues and certainly all the viruses and the cyber terrorism that one can be attacked with.... We are taking all the measure and the government is fully aware... we have now cert, a 24X7 agency working to protect our cyber space to make sure that no attack took place and if the attack does take place to quickly respond in the quickest possible time," Sachin added. By Naveen Kapoor (ANI)