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."

Comments

We are rejoicing!

[Tackhead]

"In bureaucratic India, overlords who are first at posting are pleased to be welcoming you!"
- 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!)

Good news, I guess

[ChaosCube]

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...

Great ... now ...

[Guanine]

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?

keep up the coverage :)

[Burlap]

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.

Finally!

[Andrewkov]

Good news! Now we can outsource Blogging to India!

Official Circular

[iDope]

Here's the official notice by the Department of Telecom to ISPs to remove the block (http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=18954 ):

July 20, 2006 The Department of Telecom (DoT) has instructed all the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the country to block only the specified website/webpages on the parent website. The DoT, in its letter issued to all the ISPs has mentioned that it had come to notice that in some cases the parent website had been blocked in contravention to what was stated in its earlier order dated 13th July 2006 whereby it ordered the ISPs to block certain websites/webpages. As such the DoT has now directed all the ISPs to strictly comply with the order dated 13th July 2006 and provide unhindered access to Internet except for the websites/webpages which have been specifically mentioned in its orders issued from time to time. The DoT has further sought explanation from the erring ISPs as to why action be not taken against them for blocking unintended websites/webpages.

I doubt it

[Silent sound]

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.

Re:I doubt it

[tinker_taylor]

It has been interesting (to say the least), observing the current Indian Government. A ragtag coalition of opposing political groups, their common underlying theme is "Socialism". Their major coalition partner is the Communist Party of India (Marxist) which has influenced important policy decisions by the govt.

The Government back-pedalled on the Blogging ban because they were afraid of getting their heads slapped around by the Supreme Court. This Government is the first in recent times (past 20 years) that has been "spanked" by the Supreme court of India on various issues ranging from religious, social, economic and political pandering to offensive and "communist" style ideologies.

Playing The Freedom Angle

[blueZhift]

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.

Did anyone RTFA ?

[genmax]

So, the article says that ..

a) The govt. had infact NOT asked for all blogs to be banned. It was just ISPs being clueluess. Repeat after me .. the blanket ban on blogspot and typepad was in ERROR ... the ISPs' mistake .. not the big bad govt's.

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.

Democracy != freedom, but it sure makes it easier.

[Vellmont]

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.

Re:Now that the ban on blogs has been lifted ...

[rovingeyes]

can we get electricity/water/food for all the poor people out there who don't even know what a blog is?

Wow, I have never seen a more rhetorical question from a guy who comes from India and is apparently settled in US (visit his website). Somehow I feel that you are one of those millions of Indians in US who feels they care about their country and express it in soulless words. If you were all that concerned, you wouldn't be waving racing flags at Nascar races, but instead be in India and help the poor in that country get education or something goddamit.

Legitimate Ban

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

(all) blogs were never banned

[nileshbansal]

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.

Re:It's always a ruse

[bombom]

Did you even RTFA? The Govt. asked ISPs to block 17 blogs (not entire blog networks) and even those blogs were not "terrorist" blogs but rather sites inciting reprisals against India's muslim minority for the Bombay bomb blasts last week.

As for "censorship is always bad except ....", except when you think its justified? Paging Dr. Hypocrite.