Wed Jun 25 15:24:01 UTC 2025: Here’s a news article summarizing the provided text, focusing on the Indian perspective and potential censorship concerns:

**News Article:**

**India’s Censor Board Obscures Film Cuts, Raising Censorship Concerns**

**NEW DELHI -** The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), India’s film censor board, has implemented a change to its online portal, making it significantly more difficult for the public to access lists of cuts made to films before release. This move is raising concerns about transparency and potential censorship within the Indian film industry.

The CBFC’s e-Cinepramaan portal, used by filmmakers to submit films for certification, previously allowed for relatively easy access to “cut lists” – detailed records of scenes, dialogue, or content removed or altered by the board before a film was approved for release. These lists were accessible via a predictable numerical identifier in the web address associated with each film’s certificate.

However, in late May, the CBFC changed this system, replacing the numerical identifier with a non-sequential alphanumeric token, effectively breaking existing QR codes on film certificates and preventing researchers and journalists from easily tracking censorship decisions. The move appears to be retrospective and as of this month affects film certificates issued in the last eight years.

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap called the change “scary,” emphasizing the importance of public access to information about film censorship. He stated that the board seems “more [focused on] taking information from the person tracking it than giving information, which should anyways be public.”

A Bengaluru-based developer, Aman Bhargava, had been working on a project to create a searchable database of censorship records, cataloging over 100,000 individual cuts made to approximately 20,000 films. The changes to the e-Cinepramaan portal have effectively halted this project. Bhargava expressed his disappointment.

The Cinematograph Act of 1952 requires the CBFC to publish film certificates in the Gazette of India. However, The Hindu confirmed that the CBFC does not publish film certificates in the Gazette of India. The CBFC did not comment on its compliance with this mandate.

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