IN the absence of an international law for cybercrimes and internet pornography, local governments can exercise legal jurisdictions on cases which 'do not abide by the law of the land', international media law expert Prof Monroe E. Price said.

Price, who is on a tour to India, told PTI in an interview that national and local governments can sue anyone who 'they think does not abide by the law of the land".

"It might be a cybercrime, too," he said when asked if the West Bengal government could take legal action on Samit Khemka for allegedly making 'obscene remarks against the Bengali community' on an internet site.

"It is important for a nation and even local bodies to form cyberpolicies and strictly define 'crimes' therein", the Dancinger professor of law at Yeshica University in New York said.

Citing the suing of several 'holocaust denial sites' in Canada and another case of cyberspeech in Germany, Price said it was possible for local authorities to take up matters purely on their criminal nature.

Founder of the Oxford programme in comparative media law and policy of the Oxform University, Price said India should emulate the Singapore an experience of creating a family oriented internet sites which screen out unwarranted material from the web.