Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Home. Arghh!!!

The Arghh is not because i am home.
I am actually really happy to be back for a break. I shall be pampered and fed good food which after 6 months on instant noodles and soup is heaven. And i feel normal. I am no longer too tall, too broad, wavy haired freak. Yay!!!

The Arghh!!! though is because my freedom loving government has decided to block blogger, typepad and some other websites. (Though apparently the Andaman and Nicobar islands aren't a part of India any more - you can access the sites from there).
I tried accessing a few blogspot.com sites last night and after many futile attempts concluded that something must be wrong with my server. I could access blogger and write posts and what not but couldn't see any published sites, you see.

It was only when i read the papers this morning i got to know of the so called ban. Apparently in the aftermath of the Mumbai blasts the government wants to block websites spreading hate and have on their list sites like hinduunity.org, hinduhumanrights.org , bloodspot.com , dalitstan.org along with which they have clubbed blogspot and typepad. Now, why do i have a feeling that the idiot who is responsible for this blockade doesn't know that blogspot and typepad actually host millions of blogs??
I would argue about the absolute ridiculousness of the block but Falstaff has already done so, to great effect, here.
Also please check out Bloggers Collective and press coverage of the issue at Wiki.

So while I am happy to be home, I am completely outraged that I now have to navigate through cyberspace as though i am in China, Iran, Pakistan or even Saudi Arabia. Didn't we use to live in a democracy that respected freedom of speech and expression?

3 comments:

Cyberswami said...

yeah, and makes you wonder why it was done in the first place? i mean, after all, if terrorists really wanted to communicate (as is the official reason) then why not block hotmail and gmail as well? i don't think they could be QUITE so idiotic.
anyway, that's besides the point. the more interesting question is, what could the real reason have been? and here, i'm clueless.

Cyberswami said...

okay, that didn't make much sense, did it? oh well, never mind.

Szerelem said...

hehehe....
yes it was most idiotic not to mention ineffective!
and it has been disconcerting hasn't it?? no one ever came out and said what exactly happened and why...