Slashdot Mirror
India Sleepwalks Into a Surveillance Society
An anonymous reader writes "ZeroPaid has a fascinating roundup of news stories surrounding the latest surveillance laws passed in India, including a first-hand account of someone writing from inside India. The legislation in question is the Information Technology Act's amendment bill 2006, which was recently passed in the Indian parliament. Things you can't do with the new legislation include surfing for news in Bollywood and looking up porn on the internet. The legislation also allows all transmissions over the internet to be monitored for any form of lawbreaking and permits a sub-inspector to break into your house to make sure you aren't browsing porn on your computer."
The internet is really really great...
AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA.
Wonder how long this'll last.
A government wanting to decrease people's access to information, bit by bit. What a surprising turn of events.
Seems that a good government ass-kicking is may be in order. Course, that seems to be the case in several places.
If they took all the porn off the internet, there would be only one website left: www.bringbacktheporn.com
I've got a fast connection, so I don't have to wait...
Make the idiot masses panic with a spectacular, loud, but in all honestly tiny (a few psychopaths with boats and guns) action. Foolish laws are drawn up despite everyone "knowing" where they go. If there's any sign that the society is not going there, repeat to set it back on course to its own destruction if possible.
You can thank U$A for this. Just like all "terrorism"/"for the children".
Obama is a puppet of Bu$h and you know it. -1 flametrollbait for Change!
India???
I live in Europe and I want my own TV show too... :C
tl;dr
There's always some new site...
FOR PORN.
I browse all day and night.
FOR PORN.
It's like I'm surfing at the speed of liiiiight...
I can already see Indian sub-inspectors extorting people with records of porn they watched. Seriously, a morality police is among the worst things imaginable, it is like the crown of this totalitarian bill.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
This post has been deleted by the `Surveillance Task Force Under-ops'. (STFU.)
Good to know the Raj isn't over. O_o
Also, WhopperVirgins.com has been banned, for EVERY POSSIBLE reason.
If there's one thing that you really can't control today is the flow of information.
Constructing an Orwellian society is impossible because geeks are always going to be many steps ahead.
Sadly though, the mentallity of many governments is still stuck in the past and most politicians have no clue what PGP is.
Hi, I've been in India for the past 2 decades, and let me tell you, the /. headline is nothing but fearmongering. The legislation in question might have those provisions, however, like in Russia and the erstwhile Sovet Union, Indian laws are actually never enforced to the letter. Most of this stuff will never happen. So Dear /., nothing to worry about. This is a country where law enforcement agencies are entangled in red tape & politics to the extent that they've been unable to stop a terror attack(Mumbai 26-11), inspite of intelligence from the US 2 MONTHS in advance. This will never actually happen. Shame on /. for the sensationalist headline.
The sensationalism is getting worse by the day!
Thank you for reading my post. You owe me a BJ.
FTFA:
"Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device, â" (a) any content that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or (b) any content which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will... shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years and with fine."
>> This provision seems to be a way to enforce acts online which would otherwise be quite serious in person. You can't threaten to kill someone IRL, so don't do it on the internet either...
"Whoever publishes/ transmits/ causes to be published/ transmitted in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it, shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either prescription for a term which may extend to two years and with fine which may extend to five lakh rupees and in the event of second or subsequent conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years and also with fine which may extend to ten lakh rupees.
If the material is sexually explicit act or conduct then the punishment on first conviction is imprisonment which may extend to five years and a fine which may extend to ten lakh rupees. In the event of second or subsequent conviction imprisonment may extend to seven years and fine to ten lakh rupees."
>> Correct me if I'm wrong, but this one looks like it prevents people from UPLOADING porn, not from looking at it. I am not aware of the current state of censorship laws in India (I'm sure some slashdotter out there does know), but I would assume that this is in place because publishing physical copies of porn is already illegal in India. I am totally just guessing here.
ZeroPaid has always gotten a boner about sensationalist material though. I'd be quite surprised if this wasn't completely misinterpreted...
Seriously, loads of Indian laws are notoriously unenforceable. Besides, IIRC, viewing pornography isn't illegal, it's distributing it that is illegal.
Anyway, it's interesting how little the average Indian knows about surveillance, and even more interesting how little he cares. Take me, for instance, until Research In Motion said that they couldn't allow the Indian Government to read email and stuff from Blackberries, I did not know that the Government could do that with my messages or phone calls.
Even otherwise, I find it hard to care, because even if intelligence gathering is done, it'll probably get stuck in a file somewhere, with nothing done. Really, incompetence cuts both ways - helps the militants, helps us.
Ideally, of course, it would be hard to make legislation like this and there would be protests and discussions about why laws like this do nothing to actually prevent terrorism, and how our essential liberties are being threatened. But try pulling stuff like that in a country where 120,000 people have starved to death or committed suicide for lack of a harvest. The large majority of Indians have more immediate issues to worry about, and the few who care can bypass these stupid strictures easily.
In addition, it's always been easy to be 'hard on terrorism', it's actually much much harder to have the resolve to fight it properly. And Indian politicians have rarely had the resolve to do anything.
When are we, as humans, going to learn that we don't have to cater to the whiny religious/moral nutcases out there?
Politicians: GROW A SPINE. When a whiny anti-sex/anti-drugs/anti-rock-and-roll nutcase writes you, complaining that their sensibilities are affected by the private actions of others, tell them to get bent.
Please, please, please. For the good of society and the world. Tell those miserable people that they can stick their pathetic little psychosis where the sun doesn't shine.
We rely on you. You are our leaders. Please act like it!
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
India, despite honouring itself as the largest democracy in the world, is - on the ground, at least - an exemplar of the class system.
Your higher classes are the rich families who go to boarding schools then usually foreign universities. The "better" ones may train as doctors, lawyers, etc., but many dabble in politics, where they take advantage of the pretty much universal corruption (especially in poorer areas) and ease with which one can lie to a mostly uneducated set of voters. I have a few family friends in this class.. some have minor royal titles (good enough to get HM The Queen to visit their wedidngs etc.). For them, money by Indian standards is no object, and while they may be socially restricted by tradition - childhood arranged marriage, for example - there's nothing that can't be wrangled out of with $ appropriately channeled to make it look like everyone's still behaving. The unwanted wife becomes a minor tax to pay and ignore.
What's more interesting, however, is the gap between the small middle class and the often illiterate, uneducated, unhealthy, dirt-poor, often racially inferior (by Indian standards) remainder. If you were you, in India, as a regular middle class Joe, you would have servants. I can't emphasise the extent to which a man's attitude to his fellow man changes when he keeps a gaggle of servants:
(1) It is not customary to treat your servants as equals in your employ, but as entities who must look up to you and talk to you with deference. From the moment you become aware of your household as a child you are taught to see these humans who are in some way less human than you. Once you can do that with one subgroup of humans, you can do it for any.
(2) These aren't well paid, well-educated guys with a calling to household service. These are people who need a job and whose fallback on hard times is a dusty street. It is easy to bully a man who cannot talk back.
In the USA and Western Europe, the significant quibble is - contrary to the perception of the average (Slashdotting) progressive political activist, whose opinions align with only a minority - between working and middle classes. As the blue collar moves up to white, or unionises, he increases costs and competition for the existing white. But in India, there is such a deep, desperate blue collar pool that the whites are under no threat.
In India, the primary concern is - as in any feudal state - that of the higher classes for the power of the middle. Laws must be written for arbitrary application to any undesirables in this class, while preserving that squeaky clean image for the ignorant voting proletariat that keeps them on your side.
This is merely one such law.
I live in India and I can assure you that, there are no think of the children or think of the terrorists laws in India (Except POTA for terrorism, which was repealed two years ago, and a bill which is under discussion right now).
From a glance at the bill, I believe they wanted to cover all immoral acts and also leave the interpretation wide open. This is partly because of incompetence and stupidity of the person who wrote the law and partly because the law will be passed without a discussion in the Lok Sabha (one of the two parliamentary chambers), where I am sure not a single person would even have a vague idea of what the bill is, and subsequently though the Rajya Sabha(thought it does have few bright and technically sound people)
As Heinlein's Razor" said, "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity"
That said, in India, it is always how the laws are enforced that matters; there are a number of laws, which even lawyers, judges, police do not follow.
And I do hope these change soon.
Score 5: Disturbing.
=O
'Nuff sed.
When first they came for the criminals I did not speak
Then they began to take the Jews
When they fetched the people who were members of trade unions
I did not speak
When they took the Bible students, rounded up the homosexuals
Then they gathered up the immigrants and the gypsies
I did not speak, I did not speak
Eventually they came for me and there was no one left to speak
Hmm, seems vaguely familiar.
Reality is much different here:
Like the stupid ideas of the British Parliamentarians who propose outlandish laws, these are also the same kind of crap.
The constitution contains a STRONG reference to freedom of speech and expression: Porn being one of them. So the upper house will either return it back or hold it.
Secondly, the police have lots of other things to do than look at each image and text as porn or not. The ratio is close to 1:1,6333 cops:people. Hence rest assured, this is one law that will not cross the door.
Thirdly, The Supreme Court is a HUGE people-friendly institution here that does not shy away from arresting and imprisoning even the biggest politician here. Hell, they get a kick out of doing it just for fun. This law will be challenged by an NGO and surely be banned outright, or struck down.
Lastly, the ruling party is a middle-path: Neither the right-wing BJP nor the extreme left-wing communists. Their priorities right now are the economy and Pakistan, so this law will be forgotten instantly even if passed.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Apu's quick guide to cyber-anonymity:
Buy laptop with cash.
Buy a tiny 4gb+ usb thumbdrive with it.
Wipe hard-drive using any linux live-cd.
Make 2 or more partitions on the hard drive.
On the last partition setup Windows XP so that authorities have something to work with if they check your computer.
Setup your preferred linux distro on the first partition.
If option is offered encrypt your home directory.
If not use truecrypt and encrypt your entire linux partition. Leave Windows XP naked.
Setup GRUB so that:
-WinXP boots by default
-Grub doesn't show up at all unless desired combination is pressed upon bootup.
Label the linux partition as Recovery or Backup, be creative.
Do all your deemed illegal things on linux, and your "civilized" things on windows.
Use TrueCrypt hidden volumes for storing sensitive information, in case you are extorted.
Use HotspotShield VPN or Ultrasurf proxy for browsing the web.
If you can get a hold of a linux box in europe set-up openvpn with it.
Have a bootable livelinux on your thumbdrive just in case, along with portable truecrypt and stored hidden volumes if necessary.
Don't ever backup the same thing twice.
Use sneakernet or snailmail for sharing information with friends.
GnuPG is your best friend.
????
Profit!
Now everyone can be in Bollywood
Damn...Obama hasn't even been sworn in yet and George W. Bush already has a job writing new laws in India...
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
This reminds me of an incident where a TV show was taken off air because the show parodied Gandhi. It's sad that people of India have to depend on the abysmal incompetency of law-enforcing bodies to keep their privacy and freedom of speech alive.
Not really. Guys, this is India, the country in which "sodomy" is still illegal and punished by several years in jail.
I personally think this is kind of awesome, but I am a dork. I love when they say shanti, which means ace in English.
Indian Thiller
Things you can't do with the new legislation include...looking up porn on the internet.
What moral standard are they claiming compels them to make this restriction?
I don't get the impression that Hinduism is very strict regarding one's sexual conduct.
THE INTERNET IS FOR PORN!
WHY YOU THINK THE NET WAS BORN?
PORN, PORN, PORN!
(unyell.filterstop.unyell.filterstop.unyell.filterstop.unyell.filterstop.unyell.filterstop.unyell.filterstop.unyell.filterstop.unyell.filterstop.unyell.filterstop.unyell.filterstop.unyell.filterstop.unyell.filterstop>
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Here is a copy of The Bill.
I just read through it, it makes several strong references to child pornography, couldn't find anything on "regular" porn though.
But anyway, this worldwide erosion of rights and freedom impacts the rich and poor countries alike. Except that in a country like India, you would have fewer voices speaking out because of other issues which are more important (like Hunger for instance). Such laws become tools for any state to silence dissidents.
You could silence critics by jailing them for looking at Porn. wow.
Life is just a conviction.
This really pushes back the date of my visit to India from never, to never +1!
Seriously folks, this is India you are talking about. It's easier to have a list of things you can do in India. I'm not trolling, I really feel this way.
Famine, disease, abject poverty, bronze age superstition, the black plague, flies, flies, flies, terrorist attacks and now an internet porn ban. Just keeps getting better.
"Once you can do that with one subgroup of humans, you can do it for any."
To a westener in India it stands out like dogs-balls but if you look again you will find all humans spend a lot of time behaving like this, wealth just makes the behaviour more potent. Once you see that, all of the random ass-headed cruelty of the world will suddenly make perfect sense. Not saying it's right or wrong it's just the way our wetware bios works.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
This is a simple matter of the Indian government responding with regulations to protect you, the consumer. Adult web companies refuse to do business with customers located in India: call centers have too much access to credit card info, and chargebacks are the biggest headache for any porn company. India is number one on the CC processor blacklist for this reason.
If the porn lobby and the Indian government didn't regulate this, you'd be ringing a call center in India right now to dispute your purchase of the entire "Curry Cream Pie" series.
You are missing out. The second most wonderful trip of my life, 10 years ago, was to India (the first most wonderful was to Sri Lanka). It is an amazing place. I cherish the memories of ny visit there and only hope I can return one day. Granted, it's not everyone's cup of tea. As a budget to mid-range tourist you have to have a sense of adventure and a willingness to constantly deal with hassles while struggling across country in soaring temperatures on buses, trains, boats, minibuses, taxis, aircraft - all of which bring their own problems. But you learn various tricks, such as tipping a hotel room boy to go and buy your train ticket for you - they can do it early in the morning and it's easy for them. You may have to wait for hours in a queue.
Oh, and the Taj Mahal really is the most beautiful building on earth.
Why are governments obsess with pr0n*?
:)
What does pr0n* do to people?
* adult consensual films including home made movies
From conversations some Indian nationals at work, school, and a few in-laws, there's a much greater diversity of infrastructure than most other countries in the world. Though the larger cities might be near the US in terms of infrastructure, in many of the rural areas, have reliable electrical power is more of a concern than having internet access, much less it being monitored by the state.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Is it even possible to browse the internet without coming across some porn eventually? Soon all the elderly in India are going to be in jail because they use IE6 and have no idea how to remove pornwarez.
That was sexy :3
These guys are the most dangerous Indians posting on slashdot. Record their IPs - track them one by one and shoot them from the Sky using HAARP guns on satellites.
If you read this post, we pwned you, (deep throated nasal laughter)
Hawn! Hawn! Hawn!
Dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
Seriously speaking, we need people to actually think about social responsibility. I just hope the surveillance makes some of the nuts in the extremist-supporting communities (both sides are guilty) actually think of society and citizenship.
I for one, welcome this surveillance, not as safety against terror, but as a prod to civilised behaviour by educated Indians - which seems sorely missing. Our culture was wiped out by the British education system and now replaced by US satellite television. I hope surveillance at least sobers the alpha-males down to the point of "social animals".
Right now, they're *anti-social* animals (clarification: both communities).
This is a country where cows are commonly worshiped as gods. When I cow walks into a road in India all traffic stops until it has decided to walk away.
They have bigger problems than computer crime.
who sells those CDs.
Without a "permit" he cant sell CDs and the permit is a virtual bill of about 100-200 bucks a day.
Now which corrupt cop will want to stop earning a third of the month's salary for doing nothing?
To uphold a law passed in a North Indian office called Parliament where people are busy collecting other "permit fees"?
Gimme a break!
Porn sells like ... well, porn, and you can't get the cop to stop it - he loves the cash - and he watches the porn too.
That's the problem for parents, not the law.
Girls get pregnant at such "porn viewing sessions"(No, not from personal experience...).
And that's considered horrible in Indian culture - she might not get married EVER if its known to ANYONE. India is a different place. Premarital sex is the worst shame in India - and probably rightly so for our society. It's fraught with risks like STD infections, emotional turmoil, possibility of mental problems, addiction to drugs and God knows what else.
Parents know this and that's why this law - parents vote, after all.
Of course, flame me to death for talking against your sensibilities, but India has a different culture.
Things you can't do with the new legislation include...looking up porn on the internet.
What moral standard are they claiming compels them to make this restriction? I don't get the impression that Hinduism is very strict regarding one's sexual conduct.
Karma Sutra! Yeah, Baby!
Oh, and the Taj Mahal really is the most beautiful building on earth.
The Taj Mahal is in India, it's not Indian. It was built as a mausoleum by a Mughal Muslim for his wife.
India's involvement in the whole affair is to rip off foreigners for entrance fees many times higher than Indians pay and to steal your mobile phone at the entrance.
Obama is an Arab, not an Indian. You're confused because he's from Hawaii, which is next to India but actually considered part of the Middle East.
In India everything is run by bribes. They won't invade your house or monitor your internet usage. It's just another way to add someone to the list of people you have to pay off to avoid being hassled.
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
"Thank You! Cum Again....!"
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
But who was watching?
Does this sub-inspector happen to be a hot chick?
at least that's what I heard, but maybe that's changed too. but i guess if i had a hawt indian girl then i wouldn't care much about the
pr0n...
This sucks, india totally sucks
They got no freedom over there?
pfft sucks fight it
People know what's happening, but they're too scared to try and change it, or assume it will only affect other (less desirable) people. Face it folks, people have realized that a majority CAN vote away the rights of the minority.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
People "like you and me" don't run governments, so we don't morph into anything. The reason governments and bureaucracies are so bad is because they attract power hungry people who don't know their own limitations. I mean, would you be callous or stupid enough to order the Iraq war? How can someone like Palin possibly think she is capable of running the country?
It's the same with police. Who do you think joins the police force? What kind of person do you think wants to deal day-in and day-out with drunks, drug addicts, and violence? What kind of person do you think wants to carry a gun, knowing that they may have to use it occasionally? It's either people who are very naive, or people who enjoy violence, or people who simply don't have a choice.
No, sorry, police and government are not made up of "people like you and me".
Your classification doesn't make sense. By your reasoning, the Middle Eastern terrorists aren't terrorists for religious reasons either: all they want is for the US to get out of the Middle East and for the nations of the Middle East to be unified again.
The point is that whenever the government sees you as an undesirable, they now have a new law to throw at you as an excuse to put you in jail.
The best way to have complete control over your citizens is to make every one of them a criminal without necessarily enforcing it. You just enforce it whenever it's convenient to you.
The convenient thing about terrorism these days is that 'probable cause' pretty much went out the window when it comes to getting a warrant, so people better darn well be white as snow if they cross the government.
Mind the frickin' laser...
From out here in the midwest, it looks like a simple pissing contest. When the big push came for gay marriage, the complaint was that privacy requirements, adoption laws and probate laws were the reason gay marriage were necessary. Now the rules have suddenly changed. Civil unions granting all the supposed benefits of marriage without the name are just an insult. Both sides are in a pissing contest over the "respectability" of gay marriage; nothing else.
they have their uses, Kate. In particular, they don't need batteries...
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed - and thus clamorous to be led to safety - by menacing it with an endless stream of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H. L. Mencken
Countercurrents.org is an ultra-leftist site that supports violent Maoists and writes apologia for Islamist Jihadis. This is merely an alarmist piece from someone who fears that the future of Maoism and Islamism in India is threatened. Ultra-Leftists thrive on attention. They are best ignored.
The website quoted here, countercurrents.org, is a far-left extremely anti-India hate site full of racist conspiracy theories and assorted bullshit
Some examples:
1.Recent Mumbai attacks were a "Hindu-Jewish false flag operation" (Pakistani media propaganda)
http://www.countercurrents.org/misra031208.htm
2. The holocaust never happened and 9/11 was "an Israeli onspiracy" - by American neo-Nazi Wendy Campbell
http://www.countercurrents.org/campbell060108.htm
http://www.countercurrents.org/campbell240108.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Campbell
I would not take such websites seriously if I were you. It's disgusting that this vile trash even made it through to a page here. Slashdot's standards are slipping.
If this were any other country or ethnic group other than India or Indians, this would have been caught out.
I visited India as a teenager in 1968. We went to Calcutta in the eastern part of the country.
I remember thousands of beggars on the street. All of them dirt poor and in horrible condition. But what I remember most is the dozens of begging lepers with missing limbs and faces pushing their baby children into our faces. Trying to sell their babies to 13-year-old American tourist for a few pennies.
Now as programmer I hear a lot about the 'rise' of India. About how they are the biggest democracy in the world, how they have the world's largest 'middle class', how much development there is now in the electronics and technological sectors, how much energy and spirit there is among the young people and how smart and ready they are to bring their talent and knowledge to the world.
I always ask them (well not always, after all, one must be discreet and diplomatic)... Have you been to Calcutta? Are the thousands of beggars still in the street? Are the lepers still trying to sell their babies to tourists for pennies?
I ask..if India is so advanced, so democratic, so full of spirit and energy, then why are the beggars and lepers still there in the street?
Almost always at this point the conversation ends. I get the meanest look possible from the Indian and they walk away.
But every now and then the other person that I am talking to from India just looks at me and says that it is the will of the Gods that these people are in such a horrible condition. That they are this way because in previous lives they were horrible people and if they were to be helped, then the Gods themselves would be angry at us for meddling with their placement of people on the earth and that we could end up as lepers and beggars ourselves in our next lives if we were to help them.
Sometimes they even try to explain to me the four levels of humans in the natural order. But usually they just give me the old dirty look and walk away as if they were just discovering that I was a subhuman placed into an European/American body as a joke played on the world by one of their Gods.
But for someone with a Christian European/American upbringing, it's hard for me to ignore the begging lepers. And it's hard for me to listen about the rise of India and their space/moon program. It's hard for me take India seriously since I've had baby lepers shoved in my face and 30 years later have some IIT graduate tell me that this happens because some six-armed blue elephant-headed god wants it to happen.
So, my Indian brothers and sisters, ignore the porn and deal with beggars.
Namaste
It is almost insulting to say Indians wouldn't be more aware of the problem particulary since the majority religion portrays the problem among others and guides towards the solution for this problem particulary.
But aren't they about overpopulated already? maybe letting them look at porn is a good idea.
What's more interesting, however, is the gap between the small middle class and the often illiterate, uneducated, unhealthy, dirt-poor, often racially inferior (by Indian standards) remainder. If you were you, in India, as a regular middle class Joe, you would have servants. I can't emphasise the extent to which a man's attitude to his fellow man changes when he keeps a gaggle of servants:
What propagandistic bullshit! India's middle class is the largest in the world (300 million). Plus, India has no feudal landlords anymore. Feudalism is more a characteristic of it's neighbour, Pakistan.
How can someone like Obama possibly think he is capable of running the country?
There have been many comments here on the Amendments to Information Technology Act 2000. The amendments of far reaching consequence were passed in the Parliament without any debate. Despite my personal efforts to raise the alarm as soon as the Bill was presented, none of the legislators understood the importance of the Bill. The ruling party also rushed through the process of passign the legislation deliberately to avoid the discussions. As a result the Act now provides enormous powers of surveillance to the Government of India. It will now have powers to monitor, censor, order decryption of any content either in transmission or in storage. It also continues to make publishing and transmission of obscene information punishable and additionally also makes it an offence to view Child Pornography. (For details, please view the Bill at http://www.naavi.org/ita_2008 as well as the comments at http://www.naavi.org/ The Bill has now gone for the assent of the President and will be effective once the rules are notified after the Presidential assent. There is no doubt that the provisions are amenable to be abused and will be abused in due course. I personally advocate strong enabling laws to counter crimes and restore the usability of Internet by the masses but at the same time am concerned about the possible abuse. The solution I suggest is establishing checks and balances. In the present case, I strongly urge the Government of India to set up a "Netizen's Rights Commission" on the lines of the Human Rights Commission, with statutory powers to take complaints from the public about misuse of any powers under the Act, conduct investigations and prosecute or advise prosecution of offenders. It should have representation of Netizens and relevant organizations outside the Government. I look forward to the support from concerned Netizens in this regard. Now what is left is some corrective action.
I don't get the connection / link!?
Was it the porn on the net that motivated and instilled the Mumbai terrorists to wreak havoc on soft targets?
I honestly don't think so. Unless there is some porn site of virgin harems in heaven for jihadists.
And let us not forget that it was the freely available copious porn on the net that made the internet what it is today. Remove that, and the masses will simply form another net in elsewhere technology space. Oh, I forgot. That's already happening. What with several governments trying to own the net with firewalls and black lists.
What propagandistic bullshit! India's middle class is the largest in the world (300 million).
There you (by which I mean, those who support the Indian class system) go again with the lies, damn lies and statistics.
1. I see you've picked the excessive "300 million" figure from Wikipedia - an idiot's last refuge - which in turn refers to another article that admits this figure to be based on a "fairly loose definition". Kids, remember, real encyclopedias use respected journals and their authors as writers, not the popular press. Two years after that article was written, you'll still only see figures like 200 million spread about by the more generous.
2. India has a population of over 1.1 billion, so even your completely imaginary figure of 300 million would mean 800,000,000 living in relative squalor. But, hey, it's not that bad, only 3/8 of this number live on under $1/day (Nov 2007 IFPRI report - and yes, armchair reactionaries, this is a valid measure even for India; read it). That's 1/4 of your population malnourished despite spending 60% of its income on food - is that sufficient evidence for an underclass that can be treated as the higher classes wish?
3. The Indian patriot's "middle class" is far more permissive than Western definitions. The source for your likely figure remarks (correctly) that "consumer" goods identified as middle class purchases are such extravagances as bicycles and table fans; meanwhile, one percent of the population have private medical insurance. "Lives in brick building with table fan" does not make one middle class. It's about being able to control one's own destiny through significant individual purchasing power. This group of Indians is far smaller.
(This explains, of course, why the Indian "middle class" seems so passive compared to other middle classes when it comes to pushing for political and infrastructure reform. Most are nothing of the sort, by Western standards.)
The data on it seems a year old...
There you (by which I mean, those who support the Indian class system) go again with the lies, damn lies and statistics.
Yeah, India is such a shithole that milliona upon millions of Bangladeshis and Nepalese illegally immigrate to India every year to bathe in their own filth, right Mehrjuba?/sarcasm
You left-wing trolls really need to get a life.
But, hey, it's not that bad, only 3/8 of this number live on under $1/day (Nov 2007 IFPRI report - and yes, armchair reactionaries, this is a valid measure even for India; read it). That's 1/4 of your population malnourished despite spending 60% of its income on food - is that sufficient evidence for an underclass that can be treated as the higher classes wish?
In terms of ratios, how is this worse than any other country in South Asia? Bangladesh and Pakistan have far higher levels of income inequality and infant mortality (Pakistan's is 88 per 1000, India's is 83) than India yet it's India that gets bashed and Pakistan portrayed as an Islamic "firdaus" paradise.
Methinks somebody is jealous.
And stop tendentiously quoting the "less than $2 a day" nonsense. In India's economy, I lived on $1.5 a day, and I had food, rent and a friggin car.
I'm not saying India does not have throng of suffering poor. It's a DEVELOPING COUNTRY. What do you expect?
My own mother was one such starving poor person (she came as a refugee from Bangladesh after your allies in the Jamaat-e-Islami murdered her entire family, and didn't have a fucking pot to piss in for years). But India has a lot of poor people because India has a lot of PEOPLE, period.
India has had a green revolution, and no famines since the 1960s. India'a poverty rate, measured by FAIR standards, has been declining steadily since the 1950's. FAIR standards would be the kind of income that doesn;t get you shit in India (about 50 US cents a day), which puts the REAL poverty rate at 25-30%. Bad numbers, I know, but not apocalyptic. Other devleoping countries are definitely worse off.
40 million people get added to the middle class every year.
These are people with proper food, clothing, shelter, and education. These are not fake numbers.
(This explains, of course, why the Indian "middle class" seems so passive compared to other middle classes when it comes to pushing for political and infrastructure reform. Most are nothing of the sort, by Western standards.)
That's the upper classes you're talking about. The middle class is very pro-reform. Who do you think the golden quadrilateral superhighways are for? You think rich folk give a fuck either way? It's all for the burgeoning middle class.
Stop the ISI propaganda please. You may be able to fool the average idiot slashdotter who has no real knowledge of the complexities of South Asian society, but your biased, tendentious crap WILL get outed eventually.
The full copy of the Act is available here: http://www.naavi.org/ita_2008/
Dude, could you please re-write that post without all the anti-Islam crap? In case it helps: I am the GP and I am Anglo-Saxon, with family married into Indian Hindu aristocracy. I have no association with Pakistan. I am not fighting for Islam; I'm an agnostic and the only religion I had drilled into me - and ignored entirely - was High Anglicanism at English private (public) school. I am not fighting for the working class. The fate of the Indian middle class will not affect me. The fate of the Indian upper class will not affect me, as my wealth is all in England. I am just observing and recounting.
milliona upon millions of Bangladeshis and Nepalese illegally immigrate to India every year to bathe in their own filth?
Assuming it was you, your previous post quoted a random figure without putting it into context of total population. Now you're arguing that India is good because people from Bangladesh immigrate there. I conclude that you have problem understanding the difference between relative and absolute. Perhaps you skipped rhetoric class; I'll help you out: "India is good because it's not as bad as Bangladesh" is a poor argument.
Bangladesh and Pakistan have far higher levels of income inequality and infant mortality (Pakistan's is 88 per 1000, India's is 83)
As above. I'm sure you're very proud of 83/1000 vs 88/1000 (you really don't like Pakistan, do you?), but it's barely statistically significant, let alone impressive.
In India's economy, I lived on $1.5 a day, and I had food, rent and a friggin car.
Can you even read? I was quoting $1/day as poverty. 50 cents more may not sound significant to a Western mind, but is 50% more! Congratulations on being able to afford food and rent, which basically means you lived. As to the car... erm, 50 cents/day? Did you save up for it? Did you actually use it?
...which puts the REAL poverty rate at 25-30%. Bad numbers, I know, but not apocalyptic.
I think I quoted 25-30% horribly poor, so you're agreeing quite violently with me. The problem is that you see it as "bad, but not apocalyptic" whereas I see pretty much 0% in England living like those 25-30%. As long as you have such a huge, desperate human resource pool, there's little possibility of improving the lot of the working classes.
40 million people get added to the middle class every year.
Cite source with clear definition of "middle class", please. I'm not sure what "proper" food/shelter/clothing/education is; certainly the mere possession of any of these things in sufficient quantity to live does not imply middle class by any economic definition.
The middle class is very pro-reform.
The middle class, as in those with the real ability to make their money talk, is the nearest you can get to an effective force for reform, though the class-based culture means the reforms will be designed to benefit specifically that class. It's also smaller than you think, so more easily repressed by the upper classes.
Dude, could you please re-write that post without all the anti-Islam crap? In case it helps: I am the GP and I am Anglo-Saxon, with family married into Indian Hindu aristocracy. I have no association with Pakistan. I am not fighting for Islam; I'm an agnostic and the only religion I had drilled into me - and ignored entirely - was High Anglicanism at English private (public) school. I am not fighting for the working class. The fate of the Indian middle class will not affect me. The fate of the Indian upper class will not affect me, as my wealth is all in England. I am just observing and recounting.
None of which absolves you of the charge of Indophobic bias and prejudice. India is not some feudal theocracy as you put it. It has feudal elements, sure, but what developing country in the world doesn't?
The level of hate and bias in your posts is positively pornographic.
Now you're arguing that India is good because people from Bangladesh immigrate there.
No. I'm arguing that India is not a hellhole run by filthy wogs (that's what you English people call Indians, right? or is it "darkies" these days?) because people from other countries immigrate there. ok, Mr Nick Griffin?
whereas I see pretty much 0% in England living like those 25-30%
Here is where you show your racism. England is a fucking developed country. India is not. Since when is it fair to compare a developed country to a developing one.
If you compared England this way to lesotho, and called Lesotho people the vile blood-libel-esque racist things you called Indians, you;d be called a racist by every poster here. But because it's a bunch of unrepresented wogs, everybody mods you up.
Cite source with clear definition of "middle class", please. I'm not sure what "proper" food/shelter/clothing/education is; certainly the mere possession of any of these things in sufficient quantity to live does not imply middle class by any economic definition.
Read and be enlightened:
http://www.wfs.org/confprcetron.htm
A decade ago, over the 35 percent of Indians lived in poverty. An estimated 300 million Indians now belong to the middle class; one-third of them have emerged from poverty in the last ten years. At the current rate of growth, a majority of Indians will be middle-class by 2025. Literacy rates have risen from 52 percent to 65 percent in the same period, though India is more generous than other countries in its standards of literacy. This is a rate of progress no one else in the world can match.
This is by your fellow white man. You might even see him in sapogi jackboots in your BNP Neo-nazi rally next saturday.
Thanks for posting the contents of your India factbook from the 50s.
India, despite honouring itself as the largest democracy in the world, is - on the ground, at least - an exemplar of the class system.
Your higher classes are the rich families who go to boarding schools then usually foreign universities. The "better" ones may train as doctors, lawyers, etc., but many dabble in politics, where they take advantage of the pretty much universal corruption (especially in poorer areas) and ease with which one can lie to a mostly uneducated set of voters. I have a few family friends in this class.. some have minor royal titles (good enough to get HM The Queen to visit their wedidngs etc.). For them, money by Indian standards is no object, and while they may be socially restricted by tradition - childhood arranged marriage, for example - there's nothing that can't be wrangled out of with $ appropriately channeled to make it look like everyone's still behaving. The unwanted wife becomes a minor tax to pay and ignore.
Maybe you can tell us how many friends you have in the illiterate, uneducated, ... class so that we can truly assess your intimacy with the issues at hand.
What's more interesting, however, is the gap between the small middle class and the often illiterate, uneducated, unhealthy, dirt-poor, often racially inferior (by Indian standards) remainder. If you were you, in India, as a regular middle class Joe, you would have servants. I can't emphasise the extent to which a man's attitude to his fellow man changes when he keeps a gaggle of servants:
In the USA and Western Europe, the significant quibble is - contrary to the perception of the average (Slashdotting) progressive political activist, whose opinions align with only a minority - between working and middle classes. As the blue collar moves up to white, or unionises, he increases costs and competition for the existing white. But in India, there is such a deep, desperate blue collar pool that the whites are under no threat.
Maybe the Indian friends you have display such tendencies. I grew up in a middle class Indian family, and the domestic help worked with us only because both my parents worked long hours. Our domestic help was not suppressed or bought to work, she was as good as a nanny, a member of the family. It was to her benefit that she could find a job with her lack of education, and when it came to her children to be educated, my mother was the first person she looked to for guidance. (As an aside, the middle class is not small anymore).
In India, the primary concern is - as in any feudal state - that of the higher classes for the power of the middle. Laws must be written for arbitrary application to any undesirables in this class, while preserving that squeaky clean image for the ignorant voting proletariat that keeps them on your side.
{{Citation needed}}
This is merely one such law.
Finally, I have no idea what your diatribe relates to the porn law. Worse still, it smacks of the common argument that I see atleast once on every Slashdot article featuring India. What surprises me is that those comments were rated down rapidly, while yours was rated "5 Informative", which it certainly is not. (This common argument can be summarised as: "Look at the other systemic evils in India. Club it with this latest article. Hence any worthy achievement by India has the blood of oppressed people on its hands. Which we in the first world will not and cannot appreciate.")
Noone denies that the caste s
I suppose old Indian Buddhism is using the old third eye to see into the hearts and minds of their billions of citizens. Can you say, "Oh, my curry, see what Mr. and Mrs. Raffa are doing doggystyle, while watching illegal porn. Hurry, Officer Ghandi Wind, get over there and bring them some lubrication, so you can seperate them, and bring them down to the police station, right away! If they don't answer, just break down their door!" "Stop by the qwicky mart on the way back, and get me some of Mahatma's donuts with the bigger holes, and make sure they got a little chocolate in them. I'm hungry and need something to eat." That means, the government will be the ones watching porn, watching all those people getting on their porn sites, doing unimaginable things! Shegads!
Hinduism is nothing but a covert mask to socio-economic collusion in India since 12th century aka Casteism.
Hinduism's caste system is a religious-based system of separating groups and keeping one class (the Brahmins) over everyone else.
In America there is no system in place today that forces people to remain separate or keeps one class subservient to another.
If you were born the son of a street sweeper, but excelled, you could become a doctor or lawyer or some celebrity or entrepreneur - and at the same time you would be fully accepted by your peers.
Not so in India. The caste system freezes everyone in place. It is extremely difficult - almost impossible - for someone from the lowest caste to rise in education and social status.
A Dalit would never be allowed to marry into one of the higher castes and would never be accepted as an equal.
And for a Dalit to make it into medical school or become a member of high society in India is very rare indeed.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
is the root of all evil.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
"Force always attracts men of low morality." -- Albert Einstein
It's true, the majority of police officers and government clowns are immoral crooks. The reason you nor I step up to the position is because we won't want to try and rule other people. There is no need! At least not a ruling with so much power :P
Limited government is what was intended by the original constitution.
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