Madras HC seeks Central, State govts response on banned video games being widely available

Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], October 13 : Expressing anguish over the negative impact of mobile video game addiction, the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court initiated a suo motu Public Interest Litigation on the matter.
The High court sought responses from the Central and Tamil Nadu governments and social media platforms in regulating such games and the means to access them.
Justices Mahadevan and Sathya Narayana Prasad mentioned how banned video games and mobile apps were accessible for use, despite the ban imposed on them.
Specifically naming 'PUBG' and 'GarenaFreeFire', the judges said it was causing addiction and having a negative impact on the youngsters.
"Such addiction on the part of the younger generation results in constant conflicts with their parents or sibling and affects peaceful home environment. In some cases, it leads to marital conflict, as parents blame each other for giving access to mobile phones or money to children for playing such online games," the Court observed.
The court said that those who fail to score the coveted rank in such online games, develop feelings of worthless and even some of them go to the extent of committing suicide.
"There is an emergent need to curb the menace of these types of online games. We should sensitize the youth and more particularly, the students. The police and the social activists got a definite role to play in this matter. The parents have a primary responsibility to watch as to what their children are doing with their smart phones and computers. Those who are playing online games, must be given counselling and they should be made to uninstall the games," the court said.
The court observed that the future of the nation is in the hands of the younger generation and they are the backbone for the development of our country in all fields, for which, they should be fit physically, psychologically, economically and socially, but by virtue of wasting their precious teenagers in playing such online games, watching filth, chit chatting and sticking to social media, they are deviating from the productive means like, academics and healthy.
The court said there is an emergent need to curb the menace of these types of online games adding that parents have a primary responsibility to watch as to what their children are doing with their smart phones and computers.
"We should sensitize the youth and more particularly, the students. The police and the social activists got a definite role to play in this matter. The parents have a primary responsibility to watch as to what their children are doing with their smart phones and computers. Those who are playing online games, must be given counselling and they should be made to uninstall the games," it said.
The Madurai Bench added that educational institutions must conduct awareness programmes to discourage students from accessing and playing games that are banned by the government.
The PIL also talked of regulating YouTube channels and social media videos that showed tutorials on accessing banned games. It was said that the use of VPN (Virtual Private Network) services should be regulated.