Monday, July 17, 2006

The GoI IS blocking blog sites!

Confirmed - my cable operator (7Star) is also serving up an ‘Operation timed out while attempting to connect to ___.blogspot.com’
This is one more in a list that includes Spectranet, MTNL, Reliance, Airtel and Sify.

Was ok in office, though; will check again tomorrow.

There's a 22-page list which has been sent from the DoT to MTNL, a list of sites to be blocked. What are they? Nobody knows (or wants to tell) because it's confidential.
That I understand. The HNLC became really popular only after it was blocked. They don't want to repeat that. But somewhere, someone has implemented this so hamfistedly, either in creating that list or the block instructions, or simply tried to take a shortcut to blocking, that has resulted in a violation of a constitutional fundamental right.
Did someone say, "I see a lot of X.blogspot.com sites with content that I don't like. Block them all!"
Or did someone else say, "This list has a lot of X.blogspot.com sites. Poora blogspot hi block kar, paanch minit ka kaam hai, phir chai maarte hain"

This is very, very worrying, whichever way you look at it; either as a deliberate act or as a careless mistake. The Government of India either does not understand or care about something called fundamental rights; we don’t have the right to equality, educational and cultural rights, and now we don’t have the right to freedom of speech and expression.

And what does the government say to that?
CERT-IN's Director, Dr Gulshan Rai, said he was unaware of the problem and would not be able to respond "off-hand". In a telephone interview, he told this reporter, "Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem?"

See the story here.
See the entire event chain here.
Register your protest

3 comments:

  1. Ridiculous isnt it?

    Only the GOI is capable of such insane acts of stupidity. Maybe they thought the majority wouldn't care much for it, but see it as a positive measure of reform. Backfired!

    Things are okay at my end now. I can see all blogs quite easily.

    I posted similarly on it.

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  2. Anonymous12:06 PM

    Hey what a great site keep up the work its excellent.
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  3. Anonymous9:31 PM

    Your are Nice. And so is your site! Maybe you need some more pictures. Will return in the near future.
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