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A new report released by Google says that there has been a sharp rise of 49 percent in online content censorship from India. The report also states that the trend of blockage was increasing from governments round the world, more surprisingly from Western democracies.

Google said it had received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world in the second half of last year to take down items such as YouTube videos and search listings, and it complied with them more than half the time.

The internet giant said political comments were a prime target as the number of requests for the company to remove content from the reach of internet users jumped manifold. According to Google officials, government agencies were increasingly asking the search giant to remove political content that the users had posted.

Requests for content removal from India were 49% higher in the second half of last year than in the first six months. But the requests made by New Delhi were not released in the company’s transparency report made public.

Google reported that it went along slightly more than half of the approximately 1,000 requests it received to remove material or links. The Google report does not provide insights from countries such as China, where tight Internet controls allow blocking of content.

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