India Blocks Blogs
I can understand China blocking blogs. I can understand North Korea blocking blogs. To a certain degree, I can understand some middle eastern countries blocking some blogs. But India? Give me a break.
Anil Saxena of Spectranet confirmed that the list sent by the DoT [Department of Telecommunications] contained names of particular blogs, but added that Blogspot as a whole had not been blocked. This is contrary to the experience of customers like Dwivedi, who are still unable to view sites hosted on Blogspot, in addition to those on Typepad and Yahoo!’s Geocities. “The list is confidential and I can’t make it public,” said Saxena.
Under the Information Technology Act, 2000, a body called the Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-IN, was created along the lines of similar authorities the world over. Although its main task is in the domain of Internet security, it also oversees Internet censorship under a clause that seeks to ensure ‘balanced flow of information.’ Any government department seeking a block on any web site has to approach CERT-IN, which then instructs the DoT to block the site after confirming the authenticity of the complaint.
Web sites can be blocked if they contain pornography, speeches of hate, contempt, slander or defamation, or if they promote gambling, racism, violence or terrorism. – Source Rediff
Please correct the spelling of my name in the link. Thanks!
Some twenty sites are blocked in India and people started making nonsense by saying blah.. blah.. blah.., comparing India with China, with countries of Middle-East and even with North Korea too. This is as kike as most of the stupid ‘breaking-news’ come every hour on news channel containing no valuable content.
As working as the fifth pillar of Indian Democracy, we should be more cautious while reacting on the decision of the government. Comparing Indian democracy with autocratic countries is an extreme step. We should completely avoid these kinds of blogging. People are in a hurry to react and taking no time to literally abusing the step taken by the government, which yet not be released officially.
On the other hand, the government should take cautious steps to block some websites, and it should release the proofs or basis of blocking. In spite of giving directives to ISPs, they might ask Google to do that.
Anyway, I am requesting the respected bloggers to stop criticizing the government move so harshly and try to find out the major cause behind that. We should provide some suggestive measures in front of the government to have an eye before taking such kind of step.
I must say that India looks quite foolish today.
It got me to wondering: are countries like India poor because they are run by petty bureaucrats, or do poor countries like India merely breed incompetence as a by-product of poverty.
Either way, India’s worldwide reputation has been completely changed, I used to think of India as dirty, poor, and with some potential as it was in some ways democratic. No longer.
Some of my customers have called me about changing their IT plans re India they are concerned that the country is not stable.
Blocking the blogs are the most foolish thing…..India Govt. did…..We should have thought of some alternatives……making our security system strong enough…..to prevent insurgency by terrorrists….preventing the flow of communication is defenitely against rights…….
This is bad news and hope everyone will join in on the Amnesty International Irrepressible.info campaign [http://irrepressible.info/?fragment=17] to preserve Internet freedom.