Telangana Cabinet approves draft hate speech, parents support bills

Hyderabad: The Telangana government has approved the Telangana Hate Speech and Hate Crime Prevention Bill, 2026, to curb inflammatory hate speech and social media posts which could disturb communal harmony and incite violence and clashes.

The decision was taken during a Cabinet meeting held at the Assembly on Monday, March 23.

This comes after Karnataka, under the Congress governance, passed the Hate Speech and Hate Crimes (Prevention) Bill on December 18 last year, the first such law in India. The Bill is not yet an Act as the state Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot has reserved it for the President of India’s review, citing concerns over its constitutional validity.

The Hate Speech Bill is a non-bailable offence criminalising speeches made orally, on social media or in print aimed at causing communal unrest.

Parents Support Bill

The Cabinet has also approved the draft Parents Support Bill, which enables deduction of Rs 10,000 or 15 percent of the salary of government and private employees who neglect their parents. The amount will be given to their parents.

The Cabinet has also decided to form a sub-committee to work out the modalities of the Rohith Vemula Bill. It will be chaired by Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, with ministers Damodar Raja Narasimha, D Sridhar Babu and Ponnam Prabhakar as members.

This is again an emulation of the Rohith Vemula (Prevention of Exclusion or Injustice ) Act passed by the Karnataka government.

The legislation, when passed, will be aimed at preventing caste-based discrimination and harassment in higher education institutions.

Telangana Gig Workers Bill and other decisions

The Cabinet also approved the Telangana Platform and Gig Workers Bill, in addition to a bill aimed at protecting the advocates.

It decided to speed up the process of taking over the Hyderabad Metro Rail Ltd from L&T, by giving HMRL as the nodal authority to perform all monetary transactions related to the Hyderabad Metro.

The Cabinet approved the report of Justice B Sudarshan Reddy on the caste census done in Telangana.