Slashdot Mirror
Indian Government Lifts Ban on Blogs
iDope writes "The Department of Telecommunications of the Government of India has lifted the ban on blogs (reported previously on Slashdot) following pressure from the Indian blogger community and the media. Even with the lifting of the ban several bloggers from BloggersCollective are getting ready to file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) (similar to a Class Action Lawsuit in US) in the Supreme Court of India against the Government censorship of the Internet."
What exactly is the role of the Indian Supreme Court in their government, and is it analogous to the American supreme court?
What powers does the Indian Supreme Court have in persuit of protecting things like freedom of speech, and from what source exactly does it draw those powers? Does India have any kind of constitutional limitations on government, or common-law-style protections of human rights, or what?
Would be curious if anyone here is familiar with Indian govenrnment, thanks.
- Steve.
(Yes I am really being named Steve, and the weather here in Bango...r, Maine is wonderful! We in America are overjoyed to be reading this and posting about it on your Slashdot!)
Even though I don't live in India, this is good. I'm all for people saying whatever the hell they want, regardless of any governmental restrictions or intrusions. Now, if only we could get the government off our backs here in the states...
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How about China, with one fifth of the world's population, learns from this and stops censoring their internet, allowing Chinese citizens to fully participate in the online world community?
Seriously...WTF?
I really hope /. keeps up on the coverage of this story if it goes to court. It would be quite entertaining to see a govt get it's hat handed to them for strongarming their population.
...against the US Mainstream Media?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Good news! Now we can outsource Blogging to India!
i have heard it argued before that india is possibly the most democratic nation in the world. when i hear things about their last election, and now this, i can see why people might say india is so democratic.
"if only i had known i would have been a locksmith." -albert einstein
If the blogs were illegal, why is the Govt. caving in to such criminal 'blogger' community. This is pandering to the criminals. What next, Pakistan O.K.ing manufacture of C4 by terrorists?
India is on a slippery slope here; today they allow bloggers, tomorrow they got homosexuals burning Indian flags at their weddings to celebrate partial birth evolution.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
What we are seeing here is the difference between a democratic government like India (which has things like elected officals eventually accountable to their constituents and thus amenable to influence by public pressure; and an independent judiciary with the power to check the elected officials if they violate the citizenry's fundamental rights), and a state like China.
Democracies can be imperfect; democracies like India can make mistakes, or do things (like this Blog censorship program) which are wrong. But at least in a democracy, there is some kind of mechanism in place that can be used to eventually fix the mistakes and correct the wrongs. China has no mechanisms in place to correct the wrongs of those in power. And so you can wait, but the wrongs are not going to just go away.
This shows India is real democracy. Goverment just cannot do anything it likes. What happened may be far from perfect Democracy but still show the difference between India & China
All the ISPs had the same technical error? How about a technicality error, by the Indian govt, giving incorrect information out?
There was no vote here to reduce government's intrusion -- there was a public outcry and thousands of individuals who were prepared to just violate the law and become criminals. This is what I like to see.
When people tell me to take my anarcho-capitalist viewpoints and shove it because I refuse to vote, I always strike back by proving to them that all voting does is create more government, bigger government, madder government, and more tyrannical government. You can not vote to downsize government, you can only vote to increase their power.
Here is proof that voting is irrelevant -- you can change government by demanding that they stop what they are doing. Put yourself forward and refuse to accept their law and their regulations and their restrictions on your inherent rights that all humans are born with regardless of their citizenship. You have the right to speak freely using your body, your tools and your property. No law and no politician can change that.
Good going, Indians. I just returned from a business trip to India back in March, and I also noticed that most Indian entrepreneurs ignore the business regulations, tax requirements and licensing regulations, too. Here's a competitive country that we should be watching very carefully. They might be living in our mansions and driving our leased cars in a few years. I guess they deserve it, they're the ones loaning us the money to splurge.
to ban movies:
"India's ruling party takes legal steps to stop a film director from making a movie about Sonia Gandhi." BBC story
If those poor Indian citizens couldn't get their daily supply of Livejournal emo teenagers, I don't know *what* they would have done. Peaceful protests or some-such - oh, wait, they did.
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They walk the good talk about public safety, terrorism, etc., but it's always just a ruse to get their foot in the door of censorship. Blocking a blog won't stop the terrorists behind it. Racist speech is only dangerous when it gets the mystique that comes only from being banned by hand-wringing bureaucrats who are open about fearing it.
Repeat after me, censorship is always bad except in the most extreme cases like publishing a how-to FAQ on building a portable nuclear bomb or up-to-date troop movements. Why? Because speech never killed anyone and the fastest way to make the very people who might strengthen an idea interested in hearing more is a legislative or executive attack.
It's a perfect example of why "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is a bad argument. People quickly turn to the "anti-racist/sexist/anti-homosexual/terrorist" state and say, "what are you trying to hide?"
This is certainly good news for the Indians, but I wonder if this will be good for business too. Right now I would guess that China and India are pretty fierce competitors for offshored business from the West. China holds the edge right now in manufacturing, while IT related work seems to be India's forte (I reserve the right to be completely wrong about this). I don't really see manufacturing moving to India any time soon, but I think there is some pressure for more IT to go to China where the workers are increasingly cheaper than those in India as Indian wages increase due to high demand.
But I would guess that the less than free and open society in China coupled with China being looked upon, by the U.S. at least, as a dangerous competitor on the world stage, is putting a brake on IT work freely flowing into China. Seriously, China and the U.S. could be at war tomorrow if Taiwan declared independence. India can play this to their advantage by doing as much as possible to resemble the free and open society that Americans claim to love so much. India is, afterall, the world's largest democracy, so playing the freedom angle isn't too much of a stretch with the right marketing.
I'm not saying that there is any concious orchestration going on. But stories like censoring the internet don't help the image the government probably wants to project, so reversing that can only be to their advantage.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
The indian government took a wrong step there, it's good they reversed the decision.
We're all having to learn how the internet works. Governments, great lumbering beasts that they are, are prone to dumb decisions when it comes to new technology, at least at first.
I wonder what unseen pressure group was responsible for that. Google's blogspot was blocked. Hmm, I do wonder what microsoft were whispering in the ear of indian politicians before the decision.
... can we get electricity/water/food for all the poor people out there who don't even know what a blog is?
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
can snakes even manufacture boots? I mean, the whole insult is just kind of silly. Snakes can BECOME boots, but there is no way they can hand-make boots.
Monstar L
So, the article says that ..
.. the blanket ban on blogspot and typepad was in ERROR ... the ISPs' mistake .. not the big bad govt's.
a) The govt. had infact NOT asked for all blogs to be banned. It was just ISPs being clueluess. Repeat after me
b) The govt. had infact asked for 20 odd blogs and sites to be blocked - these were allegedly trying to incite hatred against certain minority communities, by blaming them for the recent bomb blasts in Mumbai. It was felt that such hate campaigns may lead to a violent reprisal against these communities.
c) While banning said sites may also be an attack of freedom of speech (though I think this is similar to the ban on Nazi propoganda in Germany). it is NOT in the same league as that in China and North Korea.
d) This (and by this, I mean blocking the original 20 sites, not the whole of blogspot, etc) is ALSO different from the US govt's reaction after 9/11. There was no attempt to use temporary public anger to justify aggression, infact quite the opposite - the govt. has tried to defuse such tensions and ensure sanity prevails.
As an American blogger, this sucks. My blog is going to get outsourced, I just know it.
The Government will let you post on your blog until they see fit to add it to their blacklist.
So while you will still be able to pick up your buddies favorite curry recipe, anything really interesting or political will go back to being blacklisted.
Awesome.
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
I think you need to use preview, you mispelled worthless!
Plus blogs are usually fairly worthless.
Ahhhhhh, much better
You can be an atheist and still not want to succumb to some weird cross-over sheep disease -- AC
In a previously highly rated post a reader claimed that democracy doesn't guarantee freedom. From a strict standpoint, he's absolutely right. But democracy makes freedom MUCH easier to attain since in general people want freedom and not opression. I think this reversal of the policy nicely illustrates that. As several others have pointed out, contrast this with a country like China where there's no democracy, and the government keeps a tight grip on its citizens. It's like the addage that money doesn't buy happiness, but the corollary is that it makes it whole lot easier.
AccountKiller
I suppose if you want the Public Image Limited edition.....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The truth is out there....on the internets!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Either people aren't reading the article or are completely oblivious to recent events.
Trains in Mumbai (Bombay) were recently bombed in what many people suspect was an act of Islamist terrorism to further the separation/Islamistization of Kashmir.
The blogs in question were inciting violence against India's muslim population in response to the train attacks. The blocking of these blogs were done to prevent the incitement of retalliatory attacks and to prevent the issue from escalating into an unmanageble situation like what is currently happening in Israel/Lebanon. I for one think this is the only legitimate use of censorship and applaud the Indian government for its foresight and action.
Many people fail to realize that India is not only the world's largest democracy and for the most part has a responsible government. Unfortunately, India too often gets lumped in with the Islamist extremests to the west (of India) or the Communist despots to the east (of India).
Even though Govt of India ordered to restore acess to blogspot, The 18 sites that Govt decided to ban is still banned. But for most of those sites & blogs I cant findout reason to block. Still ministry is silent on it. It again the duty of bloggers community to file Right to information Application to know why this ban. The news came on Indian Express Newspaper addresses this issue in some amount. Are Bloggers are happy after removing the threat to their own blogs? If they can block a blog like http://princesskimberley.blogspot.com/ they can block any of the blog site. Is there Govt have a justification for blocking each & every site? why a website talking about dalit nationalism ( i didn't seen any hate content on http://www.dalitstan.org/ ) is blocked in a country that addreses diversities...? so Indian bloggers must move on this way to ask the reasons for the censorship.
Govt of India never banned all blogs. After terrorist attack in Mumbai, 22 sites were ordered to be blocked to prevent communal hatred and riots. The order was misinterpreted by ISPs who blocked blogspot.com (this was just a mistake).
I am against all kind of govt censoring (including this). But this ban should not be compared to one in China. The two are fundamentally different as India is a democracy and Indian Constitution provides freedom of expression. But this ban was not unconstitutional as freedom of expression does not allow one to spread opinions of hatred.
My right hand is broken. Typing one handed all day makes one prone to mistakes. :-P But this is off topic.
Now if they only lift the ban on toilet paper and bathing with soap.
Hurray!!
funny, all i seem to find out there is pr0n
Refer to this comment for some advice.
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
Great. Now how about the ban on exporting dahl?
But democracy makes freedom MUCH easier to attain since in general people want freedom and not opression.
How optimistic. Gerry Spence once put it far more eloquently than I ever could:
"We are not free. Nor have we ever been. Perfect freedom demands a perfect vision of reality, one too painful for the healthy to endure. It requires that we be alive, alert and exquisitely aware of our raw being. Faced with the pain of freedom, mans begs for his shackles. Afraid of death, he seeks the stultifying boundaries of religion. Afraid of loneliness, he imprisoned himself in relationships. Afraid of want, he accepts the bondage of employment. Afraid of rejection, he conforms to the commands of society. If our knowledge of freedom were perfect we would not choose it. Pure freedom is pure terror."
ergo: pr0n is the truth.
Reason why there is hope for the future generation #364:
"I wish my grass was emo so it could cut itself."
You have to bear in mind that this govt is a Left-wing coalition, and so their willingness to resort to things like censorship will be greater.
The center-right political opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, have in the past championed laws such as the Prasar Bharati Act to protect independence of the media from arbitrary government censorship, precisely because the Indian Left have a long history of playing these types of games.
That's why the Left favors the notion of big govt at every oppportunity, because they like to use Big Brother tactics on political opponents.
Read here about the State of Emergency which was declared by the Congress Party in 1977 as a stunt to grab absolute power and arrest political opponents.
The Supreme Court struck down the Emergency with their court ruling, and despatched law enforcement personnel to arrest Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had re-named her party Congress(I) -- I for Indira.
Yes, the dal issue is more important and more stupid that the ban on blogs. If the dal price goes through the roof what will all the Non Resident Indians do? Where will the vegetarians get their protein?
Where is the outrage over that?
All your favorite sites in one place!
http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060720& fname=blogs&sid=1
The Govt of India Sucks. Die to this ban i lost lot of revenue and my hardwork, but yesterday google deleted all my blogs automatically without any notification. :(
Now this sucks more.
Iam better with these type of blogs - Ambatchdotcom Seocontest
Will never go to blogger back, as you know what you pay is what you get
SEO
Amit Patel
PIL is nothing like Class Action. Class Action is mostly for lawyers to make a lot of money while PIL is for the public good, where lawyers and the plaintiff do it because they care.
I am still not able to access blogspot!!!
I had gained access to my blog via a site (besides Google's proxy servers) that was set up by a bunch of Pakistanis! I remember my thanks being acknowledged by someone from across the border. If this doesn't prove how the Internet is spearheading a borderless society, I wonder what does.
The Indian Govt. hasn't lifted the ban. It has only instructed the ISPs to impelement the ban more carefully than blocking entire web-sites.