The Indian Supreme Court has accused Google, Yahoo and Microsoft of sharing advertisements relating to prenatal tests allowing embryo selection, when this is forbidden by Indian law.
In fact, prenatal genderselection has been prohibited and subject to criminal proceedings in India since 1994. However, almost 500,000 female foetuses are aborted every year according to UNICEF, mainly for cultural reasons. India has one of the highest female foetus infanticide rates in the world, and this has created an imbalance. In 1991, there were 945 girls to every 1,000 boys in the country. By2011, this number had fallen to 918.
Judges, believing that the law has been breached, have called on the Government to “come up with a plan to block these advertisements”. The Supreme Court has instructed the Indian Government and search engine proprietors to find a solution within 10 days.
As far back as 2015, the Supreme Court issued similar warnings to these three companies. The order imposed upon the latter was a form of censorship regarding the dissemination of information.
The Hans india (Sonam Joshi) 06/07/2016