BLUE WHALE: SC ROPES IN CENTRE

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday said the Blue Whale Challenge game is dangerous to life and such games are a national problem. It also said that this problem must be contained. A bench of the SC has accordingly directed the Union government to make a 10minute educational TV clip on the perils of the game within a week and air it on Doordarshan and all private channels on prime time. "How you (Centre) will do it, we are not concerned. But you must do it," the Bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak said, adding that "lonely" and "depressed" children are usually attracted towards such dangerous games. It also asked the Centre to take steps to ensure that no such deaths occur. Additional Solicitor General P S Narasimha, appearing for the Centre, said around 28 cases relating to such games have been reported so far and the agencies are probing them. He sought three weeks’ time to file a reply. The law officer said the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has set up a committee to deal with the issue and information was being sought from various service providers and steps would be taken to ensure that such incidents do not recur. The bench was hearing a PIL filed by lawyer Sneha Kalita, seeking framing of guidelines to regulate and monitor virtual and online games like Blue Whale. Earlier, the court had asked the government to set up a panel of experts to block such virtual dare games which have allegedly led to several suicidal deaths. It had also sought the response on the plea seeking to firewall such life threatening and violent games existing in the cyber world like 'Choking game', 'Salt and Ice Challenge', 'Fire Challenge', 'Cutting challenge', 'Eyeball challenge' and 'Human Embroidery game'. Firewall is a system designed to prevent unauthorised access to or from a private network by controlling incoming and outgoing network traffic.