My fellow bloggers are right; this article regarding blocking the blogs in Outlook India is one of the better MSM stories out there; likewise with the article in The Hindu. It rightly addresses the key concern – inept and ‘ham-handed’ manner in which the authorities went about in trying to ban websites.
The followup story in Indian Express examines most of the URLs that have been blocked including four blogs and shows how stupid the choices are; content-wise. In the meantime, the ‘blocked’ blogs like OpiniPundit i.e Exposing the Left is thankful for the heavy traffic from Indians – “I have gotten more hits from India in one day than all previous days combined.”
If you have been living in a blog cave for the past few days and don’t wish to read through the tons of material, listen in as Kamla Bhatt talks to Amit A, Kiran J, Neha V, and Suresh regarding the issue of the Blogspot ban [podcast].
Shivam informs us that the Blogspot and Typepad blockade will be lifted within 48 hours. No word however on the future censorship policies of the goverment regarding blogs or opinion websites.
Comments
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Falstaff
Jul 18th, 2006 at 8:34 pm | #
Yes, though it would be nice if they could spell blogspot, instead of talking about “mumbaihelp.blogsopt.com”
Did you see the NY Times piece by the way? I loved the bit about:
“Officials at the Ministry of Communications here did not return repeated calls. An official at the ministry’s department of information and technology, Gulshan Rai, said he was aware of “two pagesâ€? that had been blocked for spreading what he called “antinational sentiments,â€? but was unable to provide details.
The secretary for telecommunications, D. S. Mathur, that bureau’s highest-ranking civil servant, hung up the phone when reached at home.The minister of communications, Dayanidhi Maran, was traveling in San Francisco and unavailable for comment.”
thecommutist
Jul 20th, 2006 at 1:53 am | #
Gauarav Sabnis appeared on NDTV’s 60 minutes wherein they were discussing the ban with the panel including Pawan Duggal and some ISP assoc. rep. It was telecast late night day before yesterday 11:30pm Dubai time. Did anyone else catch the show?