A few weeks ago, the Times of India reported that it had access to certain papers that showed that the UPA government was planning to bring about a bill that would give it absolute powers to deal with the various media channels in the country, including complete take over of their infrastructure during times of war.
At first I dismissed the story with the assumption that its Times of India and they usually jump the gun on a lot of issues. I assumed it is one of their half-researched, sensationalist stories. I think that story was published in a couple of other newspapers as well later, and then there was a news that the various media houses were gathering together to oppose such a bill.
Today, I came across this article about the government's directive to various Internet Service Providers in India to block certain blog sites, including the biggest of them all, www.blogger.com. Incidentally, that is the blogsite I am currently writing in, and the fact that many in India will not be able to read what I am writing is beginning to get under my skin.
Have you noticed a trend in the way the UPA is functioning? Of course, keeping aside the fact that they are gutless and spineless and cheering for the nation's enemies, they are slowly moving towards a more socialist and authoritarian regime?
Sure one will point out examples of the new SEZ laws and the opening of the real estate and everything, but at the same time this one facet of the economy has been heavily diluted by their extreme socialist tendencies in the others. The Common Minimum Programme, as a commentator in Bloomberg.com said, has fizzled into a free-for-all gift fest with the government without a clue as to how the scheme will be bankrolled. Of course, the biggest shocker came when the entire disinvestment process was put on hold because some regional party wanted the money for itself and appease the angry government employees.
Why India Must Sell Only Troubled State Assets: Andy Mukherjee
Economic policy making in India was the casualty last week as the government lost a battle that it shouldn't even have been fighting.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh capitulated to pressure from coalition partners when he scrapped a June 22 Cabinet committee decision to sell 10 percent stakes in two state-owned companies.
Investors would have taken these sales as a sign that Singh's Congress Party government, hamstrung as it is by the obduracy of its coalition partners and Marxist allies, not to mention by the left-leaning sensibilities of its own supreme leader, Sonia Gandhi, still has some room to maneuver.
Now that Singh has blinked, investors are left in no doubt about how much real authority he has.
It was self-defeating. The Common Minimum Program of May 2004, the agenda agreed on by the government and its allies, states that, ``generally, profit-making companies will not be privatized.'' Both National Aluminium and Neyveli Lignite make money.
Singh's government has been far less practical. Its noble mission of ``economic reforms with a human face,'' which was supposed to offer a contrast to the laissez-faire approach of its predecessor, has degenerated into a please-all strategy of announcing all types of government-spending programs with little thought spared for raising commensurate resources.
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In addition, we know the Government's two pet projects are bringing the caste system into our education system and into our private sector. Instead of trying to get rid of this society of its class heirarchies, from now on our best universities and best companies will ask a prospective employee his/her caste first, and qualifications later.
And now comes this shocker that the government is also trying to control our airwaves. One might say that the government just undertook a successful selloff of many FM frequencies, but what is the point when you have a bloody bureaucrat snooping on every fucking word you say, making sure that you are not critical of the government. Jeez, I knew we wanted to emulate China, but not this way! This blocking of internet media has convinced me that the Congress does not give two hoots about anything but protecting its grip on power. This article is by another blogger, Shivam Vij.
Are Internet Service Providers blocking blogs?
Bloggers in India are getting together to protest against the sudden blocking of popular Google-owned blog-hosting site Blogger by some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Spectranet, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Reliance Powersurfer, Airtel Broadband and Sify.
On July 15, Mridula Dwivedi, a teacher of management studies in Gurgaon first discovered that visiting any blogspot blog -- such as, say Mumbai Help -- returned the message, 'Site Blocked!' Her ISP, Spectranet, confirmed they had blocked some sites based on government directives.
J Grewal, Spectranet's Delhi representative at the National Internet exchange of India, told this reporter that, on July 15, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had sent ISPs a list of sites to be blocked. R H Sharma, senior engineer with MTNL, said the list ran into some 22 pages.
Now, several bloggers have organised themselves into a Bloggers' Collective and are planning to file a Right To Information application to obtain the list.
Anil Saxena of Spectranet confirmed that the list sent by the DoT contained names of particular blogs, but added that Blogspot as a whole had not been blocked. This is contrary to the experience of customers like Dwivedi, who are still unable to view sites hosted on Blogspot, in addition to those on Typepad and Yahoo!'s Geocities. "The list is confidential and I can't make it public," said Saxena.
Under the Information Technology Act, 2000, a body called the Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-IN, was created along the lines of similar authorities the world over. Although its main task is in the domain of Internet security, it also oversees Internet censorship under a clause that seeks to ensure 'balanced flow of information.' Any government department seeking a block on any web site has to approach CERT-IN, which then instructs the DoT to block the site after confirming the authenticity of the complaint.
"Such sites may be blocked within the provisions of the Fundamental Right to free speech and expression, granted in India's Constitution," said cyber-law expert Praveen Dalal, adding, "If, however, the blocking is arbitrary, unreasonable and unfair, it would be in violation of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India."
The trouble is bloggers don't even know which sites the DoT wants blocked. To make matters worse, ISPs seem to be blocking entire domains on which these blogs are hosted.
However, 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?"
Bloggers certainly think of it as a problem though, and are all set to react.
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So here is how this pusillanimous, and devious, government will work. It will not fight your enemies, those looking to hurt you and kill you, but it will try to take away your liberties, it will try to take away your self-respect, and will be bent on reducing you to just member of a divided society to be exploited at will.
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