Twitter has announced that it can now selectively censor tweets on a country-by-country basis, a move which may augur well for India which reportedly urged social media websites to remove offensive contents.

In its blog post, titled 'Tweets Must Flow', the San Fransico-based micro-blogging company has said that it could "reactively withhold content from users in a specific country" if legally required to do so.

The proposed move came amid reports of a legal clash between India and global Internet giants, including Google, Yahoo, Twitter and Facebook, over pre-screening user contents and removal of offensive materials from their websites.

A Delhi court had last month asked 21 social networking websites to remove derogatory content by February 6 this year.

In its blog, citing France or Germany which ban pro-Nazi content as examples, Twitter said yesterday: "As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression.

"Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country -- while keeping it available in the rest of the world.

"We haven't yet used this ability, but if and when we are required to withhold a tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld."

However, the micro-blogging service with over 100 million active users, said the removed content would be available to the rest of the world. Earlier when it used to delete a tweet, it would disappear worldwide, media reports said.

Along with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, which is currently banned in China, is said to have played a pivotal role in uprisings that swept West Asia, particularly in countries like Egypt and Tunisia.

MUMBAI: The rupee touched a two-and-a-half month high on Friday, aided by firm local shares, as demand for riskier assets was spurred by hopes Greece will soon reach an agreement on restructuring its debt.

At 10:15 a.m. (0445 GMT), the rupee was at 49.72/73 to the dollar, after touching 49.65, its highest since Nov 9, and firmer than 50.09/10 at close on Wednesday. The market was closed on Thursday for a local holiday.

"I expect the bullishness in euro as well as in stocks to continue for some time, and rupee can test 49.00/05 level," said Hari Chandramgathan, a forex dealer with Federal Bank in Mumbai.

The euro held onto most recent hefty gains against the dollar on Friday, after hitting a five-week high, as the Fed's pledge to keep rates near zero for the next three years encouraged carry trades funded in dollars.

Indian shares rose 1 percent in early trades, extending gains to a sixth consecutive session, on rising foreign fund investments.

Foreign institutional investors have bought Indian shares worth $1.56 billion so far in January, and invested $3.39 billion in debt.

Traders said developments in Greece would provide directional cues and influence dollar inflows into India.

Greece and its private creditors made progress on Thursday in talks on restructuring its debt, both sides said, and they will continue negotiating on Friday with the aim of sealing an agreement within a few days.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday the U.S. central bank was ready to offer the economy additional stimulus after it announced it would likely keep interest rates near zero until at least late 2014.

One-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were at 50.10, indicating some weakness in the short term in the onshore spot rate.

In the currency futures market, the most-traded near-month dollar-rupee contracts on the National Stock Exchange, the MCX-SX and the United Stock Exchange were all around 49.7, on total volumes of $1.8 billion.