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Tuesday, July 18, 2006 |
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We want answers. The silence from the officials isn't helping. I was talking to a
journalist who asked me whether the silence from the Government has
left us in much confusion. My answer - an unquivocal yes. Questions in
my mind ....has the Govt goofed ? Or is it really talking censorship?
If it is the latter, as a citizen I feel my constitutional right to
freedom of speech and expression is under severe threat. And that
disturbs me greatly - with all of our problems in India I was naive enough to feel that I was always free to express myself. There is a lot of anger too as is evident in all
the discussions at the Blogger's Collective google group. Dilip who authors the blog Death Ends Fun (ironic huh) writes so eloquently in a mail to the group: "This is not about finding the innumerable proxies, nor about simply getting blogspot unblocked. This should be aimed at nothing less than ensuring the Government will never again do something like this. There should be no site or group of sites that they will ever again be able to block; in fact, there should be no book they will ban, no infringement on freedoms at all ever again. That's what this is about." And ends with: "I'm actually glad this bizarre block has happened. For it opens our eyes to the way the government works and forces us to find ways to make it accountable to us. Sometimes you need something crazy to happen, It's the kick in the behind that makes us fight for things we otherwise take for granted." There is another angle to this too - is it a goof on the govt's part ... or the ISP's - if the Govt banned certain blogs ... and the ISP's banned entire domains ... that's perhaps the ISP's screwup. But now that the issue has taken such serious proportions that we want answers, and soon - what really toook place between the government and ISP's? Why it happened? What does this mean for my rights as a citizen? What assurance that it will not happen again? 6:28:26 PM  comment [] trackback []
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In all the craziness surrounding the blog censorships in India, Angelo, Bala and Nancy remind us that there are other crises elsewhere - they have been busy updating us on what's been going on in the Java Tsunami that hit yesterday at the World Wide Help blog. 3:32:26 PM comment [] trackback []
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Mumbai Mirror reports: "At 6.24 pm sharp, 196 sirens across the city will wail in perfect synchronisation to bring the bustling megapolis to a still. At 6.25 pm, Mumbai will fall into silence for the next two minutes in the memory of the 7/11 victims" Join us.
8:27:38 AM comment [] trackback []
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Copyright 2009 Dina Mehta
