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Govt bans sex calls

Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited has, in the public interest, blocked access to a series of international numbers being used to provide sex calls, Communications Minister Sushma Swaraj announced today.

These services, operated under various acronyms such as ''funline'', ''girls call'', ''boys call'', ''dateline'' and ''party line'' were being used to host obnoxious and sexually explicit material and unacceptable language, ''amounting to cultural invasion of our country,'' the minister told the media.

The minister said the widespread offering of such calls had brought a number of complaints.

In many cases, she said the victims of these calls were children calling or customers whose lines were misused. ''In such cases the customer could run up enormous bills, which are to be paid in foreign exchange,'' the minister said.

VSNL has recently restricted more than one hundred such call centres. These centres operated out of the United States, Hong Kong and Australia among other countries.

The minister said VSNL had been keeping a special watch on long duration calls lasting an hour or more. ''Most such calls were invariably identified to be fraudulent calls or party line calls. India pays for such calls to other countries in foreign currency.''

Under provisions of the licence granted to VSNL, the government can ask for blocking of calls to undesirable numbers. VSNL's solicitors were consulted before taking the decision to block poronographic calls, Swaraj said.

UNI

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