MoS IT Chandrasekhar warns WhatsApp on incorrect map of India

While highlighting India on the globe, the map excluded Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and some Indian territories claimed by China.

New Delhi, Dec 31: The minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Saturday warned messaging platform WhatsApp for using an incorrect map of India on Twitter.

The IT minister added that the platforms doing business in India must use a correct map of the country.

A video tweeted by WhatsApp's official handle, informing followers on 24-hour New Year's Eve live stream had a distorted map of India in which, it excluded Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and some Indian territories claimed by China. The tweet drew sharp criticism from Chandrasekhar and several others.

Tagging WhatsApp, the minister wrote that "Dear @WhatsApp - Request that you please fix the India map error asap. All platforms that do business in India and/or want to continue to do business in India, must use correct maps."

Whatsapp has retracted the tweet with the wrong map and has apologised on Twitter.

"Thank you Minister for pointing out the unintended error; we have promptly removed the stream, apologies. We will be mindful in the future, the company wrote on Twitter."

Chandrasekhar, earlier this week, warned Zoom CEO Eric Yuan over an incorrect map of India. Later, Yuan later took down the tweet and wrote, "I recently took down a tweet that many of you had pointed out had issues with the map. Thank you for the feedback!!"

In June 2021, micro-blogging platform Twitter itself came under heavy criticism for displaying a distorted map of India. Twitter removed the wrong map after it faced online backlash.

Big social media platforms have drawn flak in the past over hate speech, misinformation and fake news circulating on their platforms.

The government, last year, introduced stringent rules for social media platforms to make them more accountable to end-users in one of the world's largest internet markets.