OTTs like Netflix must follow India’s Constitution, respect cultural context: Vaishnaw

New Delhi: Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday said global OTT platforms such as Netflix must “modulate according to” India’s cultural context and “work by the Constitution and the legal framework” of the country.

Vaishnaw’s comments come in the backdrop of the ‘Ghooskhor Pandat’ row, where last week Netflix India informed the Delhi High Court that the Manoj Bajpayee-starrer film will be renamed after objections to the title.

The platform also said promotional material had been taken down, following petitions and complaints alleging the title was offensive and defamatory.

The row triggered social media backlash and legal action, including an FIR in Lucknow, with complainants alleging the title amounted to stereotyping and collective defamation.

Vaishnaw made the remarks during a conversation with Charles H Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, at FICCI and MPA’s summit ‘Rewarding our Creative Future in the Age of AI’, a satellite event of the AI Impact Summit 2026.

“A quick point here. When you mentioned the OTT world, my request is that, in the digital world, there are no physical boundaries. In that scenario, it’s very easy for the OTT platforms to kind of forget the cultural context,” Vaishnaw said.

“Cultural context is very important. What is normal in one society may not be normal in another society,” he added.

“Global platforms like Netflix must make sure that the cultural context of the countries in which they are operating is fully respected. They should modulate according to that cultural context and work by the Constitution and the legal framework of that country, rather than the framework of the parent countries,” he said.

Vaishnaw also linked the wider debate on content responsibility to manipulated media. “Misinformation, disinformation and deepfakes are attacking the foundation of our society,” he said, adding, “The foundation of our society is the trust between institutions which society has created over centuries.”

He said the rapid spread of synthetic content can weaken institutions such as family, social identities and governance. “Social media platforms, AI models, the creators, all of us will have to take the responsibility for making sure that the new technology is strengthening the trust rather than reducing it,” Vaishnaw said.

He also linked the issue to how speech should be treated in an AI-amplified ecosystem. “The construct of freedom of speech has to be with responsibility on the person who’s speaking,” he said. 

Vaishnaw said he has discussed these issues with ministers from more than 20 countries, including liberal democracies, and indicated there is growing recognition that free speech frameworks must evolve with AI’s scale and speed.

Child safety, Vaishnaw said, must be a hard red line. “This should be non-negotiable for the entire country. This should be non-negotiable for the entire human society,” he said, calling for “very strict legal as well as technical measures” to prevent misuse of AI-generated content involving minors. 

He said voluntary codes will not be enough, and argued for “techno-legal” solutions that combine regulation with embedded technical safeguards.

Rivkin, responding to the minister, drew a distinction between user-generated content and studio programming. “There’s a big difference between user-generated content, something that’s uploaded and unregulated and uncontrolled, and curated content where we’ve already put a tremendous amount of thought into what’s being seen,” he said, referring to ratings and parental controls used in the US.

The conversation also covered creator rights. Vaishnaw reiterated India’s stance on intellectual property. “We as a country believe in IP rights. We believe in the creators and the value that the creators have brought in through their content and storytelling,” he said.

He said AI and copyright will throw up complex questions, but argued that human creativity must remain central. “Human creativity is the most important thing that we have in our entire civilisation. We must protect it. There shouldn’t be a dilutive effect. There should be more of a complementing effect on human creativity.”