Is India the new China?

July 18, 2006

Indian ISP’s are blocking Blogger and TypePad…so much for a free and open democracy.

In General

9 responses to Is India the new China?

Mike July 18, 2006 at 7:03 am

It was interesting that when I was in China, I couldn’t view my blog hosted on blogger, but I could update it. I was always half expecting the PSB to come knocking on my hotel door at sometime during the night.
Pratyush Ranjan July 18, 2006 at 6:11 pm

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 ?É¬¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?ã?ìbreaking-news?É¬¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?¢‚Äû¬¢ 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.
duncan July 19, 2006 at 8:26 am

To be fair Pratyush, my understanding is that some ISP’s have blocked all sites from some hosts (such as Blogger) and not just a handful, whether this was the intent of the Government or not I’m not qualified to answer on. However what has impressed me is the level of coverage this has actually had in the Indian media itself, which is naturally quite the opposite of China…indeed free speech is still alive in India, but censorship of any form is a slippery slope…first it was a few sites..then there were more….the risks are there.
Pratyush Ranjan July 19, 2006 at 12:18 pm

I am agree with you. I am again saying as i said earlier that if this could be one of the means used by the government to protect national security, this is okay. But the government should come out with the proof.

However, the show of in-competency from the government is the history in India. This time it is happening with media.

Firstly, the broadcasting bill and now blog-blocking, the government should come out with a proof and issue the notice to the wrongdoing sites. If it does not do this then it will feel hard the storm.

This may be understood as the demonstration of rising government anxiety about how to control this new and mushrooming medium.
Ankit July 19, 2006 at 12:20 pm

Few of the sites which were blocked were supporting and spreading Jihad, terrorism. To ban or censor any site promoting hate, racism, child pornography, terrorism etc.. is not any threat to democracy.

And comparing to China is ridiculous.
duncan July 19, 2006 at 12:39 pm

Im not so sure that it is Ankit, because where does it stop.

But on your key point, my understanding of the situation is that ISP’s haven’t just blocked a few sites on the Indian Governments orders, they’ve blocked whole domains such as Typepad, Blogger and Geocities…are these all terrorist sites?
duncan July 19, 2006 at 12:41 pm

Ive just read this report here indicating that even Indian public service blogs have been blocked….is the Indian public service spreading Jihad and terrorism?
Ankit July 21, 2006 at 1:07 pm

We have incompetent ISPs in India, who weren`t able to ban subdomains of few sites, but blocked whole domains like typepad etc.

This has nothing to do with government policies. I just wished you had analyzed the whole story first before giving your vedict that India is the new China.