India on Monday launched its first internet hotline to encourage people to report online child pornography and curb a surge in photographs and videos on the internet showing children being sexually exploited, the founders of the initiative said.

Siddharth Pillai, co-director of Indian anti-trafficking charity Prerana's Aarambh Initiative that will run the hotline said it would be the first step to removing online images.

"First report, then block, and then take down," Pillai told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.