Important that India’s regulations provide legal and innovation certainty to firms, Google CEO says

India is going through an important period of time as it drafts several key regulations and asserts that it stands to benefit from open and connected internet, according to the chief executive of the search engine giant.

India, which legalized several amendments to the nation's IT rules, is in the process of shaping and shipping several other key regulatory frameworks that seek to bring a series of major changes to how telecom services, on-demand video players and firms are provided.

At the company's annual India event, the CEO sat with India's IT minister to discuss a wide range of subjects.

There are a number of bills that reflect the country's realities.

The prime minister wants us to create a comprehensive regulatory framework. The telecom bill is the first horizontal that we created. The second bill is the digital protection bill. The Digital India bill is the one that will look at practically everything else that is required to be seen.

American internet giants seek changes to India’s proposed new IT rules

Some of the proposed bills have been changed by tech giants. MoneyControl reported that in a recent meeting with Meta executives, the Indian government asked the company to speed up the process of removing content.

Pichai was asked what he thought about India's proposed rules.

“If you look at the scale at which tech is working and touching so many lives around the world, to me it makes sense that tech needs responsible regulation. I think it’s important for countries to think about how to best safeguard their citizens. We are engaging constructively.

India has a leadership role to play here. It’s important to make sure you’re balancing the safeguards you’re putting for people and creating innovative frameworks so that companies can innovate on top of certainty in the legal framework.

So I think it’s an important moment in time. But through it all, hopefully, India can also be a voice for … India will also be a big export economy and benefit from open and connected internet. Getting that balance right will be, I think, important.”

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