Dhaka, April 10 -- The Indian government has proposed amendments to existing IT rules targeting a wider range of online news voices, including influencers and podcasters on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and X, drawing sharp criticism from digital rights activists and independent news creators.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) suggested the changes to the rules, which govern digital media content, last week, according to the BBC.

The amendments will strengthen existing IT rules and curb fake news, hate speech and deepfakes, the government said, inviting public feedback by Apr 14.

The legislation is dubbed as the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Second Amen...