Our great indian Govt has banned blog sites like blogger, rediff etc from 13th of this month.
They say they have banned this for security reasons and they are linking them to the mumbai blasts (probably). (this article details http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/world/asia/18cnd-india.html)
I really wonder how can blogs cause security threats such as RDX explosion :S
Ok even if we agree that there are some illegal blogs somewhere, then only those blogs should be banned, why should they be banning the entire blogspot site?
The reason for thise is that the people at the Govt are totally ignorant about information technology and also the usefullness of blogs.
They just do no realise that blogs are the main source of information these days and by blocking blogs they are actually amputing knowlegde and information growth across the country.
One good and recent example of this is the blog http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com
which was playing an important service during the Mumbai blasts.
Even if they want to block there is a way of doing it. They cannot just like that go and block all the blogs. It's really crazy.
I am still not able to understand how can blocking all the blogs help in avoiding RDX blasts. To avoid these kind of blasts they should tighten the security at the mumbai sea shore from where most of these things would have been shipped.
And one more thing that the Govt is not realizing is that blocking the blogss can no way prevent the terrorists to stop using the blogs. Internet loopholes and workarounds are also as matured as Internet itself is.
There are lots of ways to bypass these restrictions and continue to blog and view it.
For instance most of us are now migrating blogspot to pkblog.com (i am also using the same).
And it's sad that Govt has not realised that pkblogs.com is a pakistani site.
This looks more like a Govt's show off just to show the innocent public that something great is being done. They will be doing all these crazy things which are of no use, and would let the actual culprits run away. Or may be the Govt has got scared of blogs as this is one place where people can freely ventilate their ideas about the Govt as well and they want to supress it.
Here is the Hindu article where the NASSCOM has called our govt decision as 'Neither desirable nor feasable'
One of the world's top blogger Robert Scoble says 'It sucks' while responding this act by the Govt. read it here
If you are a protester for this you can go and voice your opinion here (http://censorship.wikia.com/wiki/Protests_By_Bloggers )
Thanks to Sudhakar for this pointer
I was just having a glance of one of President Abul Kalaam's book . And one of the page talks about a person who asked the president , "how can u say India is a developing country and not a developed one. At what time can we call ourselves developed and for long we will be devloping only".
I think India will always be called as developing only as long we have such ignorant and foolish people sitting in the govt.
Latest News (after a week of the ban): Ban removed. Democracy wins
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
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