John Oliver pokes fun at India's porn ban

The government on August 4 gave in to a massive outrage over its decision to ban 857 pornographic websites and said it will lift the blockade while continuing to censor sites that promote child pornography.

"A new notification will be issued shortly. The ban will be partially withdrawn. Sites that do not promote child porn will be unbanned," information and technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told India Today TV.

The ministry of communications and information technology, in its order of July 31 under section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act 2000, banned the 857 websites terming their content "immoral and indecent".

In July, the Supreme Court had said banning adult websites was not its job, but was an issue for the government. That followed an order from the court last year that suggested the government needed to monitor access to pornography.

Many Indians had accused the government of moral policing and infringing on personal freedoms. "Don't ban porn. Ban men ogling, leering, brushing past, groping, molesting, abusing, humiliating and raping women. Ban non-consent. Not sex," author Chetan Bhagat said on Twitter. "Porn ban is anti-freedom, impractical, not enforceable. Politically not very smart too. Avoidable. Let's not manage people's private lives," he added.