Even as the prime minister and 19 ministers of the new cabinet will be sworn in at the Rashrtapati Bhawan this evening, The Times of India reports that the government has taken its first concrete steps towards regulating news content online—a move that has been in the works for long.

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“The controversial draft rules released this month empower a designated Central government officer to block public access to any information on the Net for wide-ranging reasons of security and national interest,” the story said, adding that under these regulations, offenders do not even get a hearing to defend themselves, despite the offense attracting a steep punishment of imprisonment upto seven years.

The new rules are being drafted under the Information Technology Amendment Act 2008, which has already received parliamentary and presidential assent and will come into effect once the various rules are finalized, the story says. 

The government made abortive attempts to gag news channels after their coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks.