India blocking blogs - following path of China, Iran and the like

China and Iran I expect.  I commented the last time I passed thru Beijing.  Pakistan is not that surprising, but India?  Apparently Indian ISPs have begun blocking access to Blogspot and other blogging services. A story on Rediff News, already referenced on slashdot, and another on WebProNews have good coverage.  There's rather extensive detail from the Indian blogosphere in this post and this wiki.

It appears the Indian Department of Telecommunications has given Indian ISPs a rather extensive (several pages long) list of specific blogs to be blocked, but that some ISPs have reacted by blocking all blogs at popular hosting services like Blogspot and Typepad.  Rumors are flying.  The "Great Indian Mutiny" claims:

Two sources, one inside the Government of India and the other kind of inside/outside have confirmed to the Mutiny, that ISPs are being instructed to ‘control’ access to blogspot. It seems that some blogs are being used by some terror units (read SIMI) to communicate.

There is a crack down in place. IP numbers are being physically located and identified. All should come back to normal once this operation is over. There is no ban in place.

Of course, if the goal is to catch terrorists, leaving blogs alone and secretly tracing specific people and specific blogs would seem to be a much more effective strategy.

What I find disappointing is the mainstream Indian press.  Where is the outcry? Where is the discussion?  This situation has been visible in the Indian blogsphere since Saturday morning Indian time. It's now (very) early Tuesday morning in India and yet I haven't seen any coverage in the mainstream Indian press beyond the Rediff article mentioned above. 

What's up with the "world's largest democracy"?  Why no discussion?

Comments

[Yi Lin]

So much for the stereotype of "democracy". Being called a "democracy" makes people think India = US. The matter of fact is demoracies in different countries have different forms and results, which are not always good.

[WA]

Oh guys, just wanted to say there has been plenty of discussions and a lot of bloggers have created a racket and plenty of complaints have been made to the relavant bodies, lets see what comes of it. I personally don't believe that the block will last long.

[xia]

Hello,

I remember when the blogs were banned in Pakistan. My friends were very upset. Knowing what we know about the capabilities of Pakistani government, bloggers were quick to find the alternatives. Check out this recent post that talks about the earlier ban in Pakistan and the new ban in India.

http://karachi.metblogs.com/archives/2006/07/indias_blogspot.phtml

In my opinion, the state run media usually waits for a nod from the government to discuss sensitive issues like these. Especially after 7/11, most of the media is trying to cooperate with the government in order to find the culprits. Unlike United States, countries like Pakistan (not sure about India) lack the technological advancements to quietly monitor the civilians.

[Manish]

[What I find disappointing is the mainstream Indian press. Where is the outcry? Where is the discussion?]

There's been lots of coverage:

http://censorship.wikia.com/wiki/Press_Coverage_of_The_Ban

[brough]

Indeed, I'm now (Wednesday morning) seeing comment in the mainstream Indian press that I didn't see on Monday, for example:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1747559,0008.htm
http://infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1773723.cms

There was also coverage page A8 of the US editions of today's Wall Street Journal.

Now that the news is being covered, hopefully this will be followed with editorials in the mainstream Indian press.

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

There's some fairly extensive coverage - some more links at Jace's blog
http://jace.seacrow.com/archive/2006/07/17/blogspot-blocked-by-indian-isps

And this article appeared in quite a few editions of the Times of India
http://jace.seacrow.com/writing/2006/circumventing-censorship

[brough]

Yes, the good news is the increasing mainstream coverage and finally, today, the Indian Department of Telecommunications has reversed course:
http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?leftnm=lmnu9&subLeft=2&autono=98972&tab=r

[Woke]

http://mutiny.wordpress.com/2006/07/21/isps%e2%80%99-laziness-caused-the-indian-blog-blackout/ for the real story behind the blockade.

[brough]

Thanks "Woke." Surfing from the URL you posted, I came across these two URLs of interest. The first is a scanned image of the actual order from the DoT:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/nic/banned.pdf
The second, from "The Renegade of Junk", describes some of the obvious typos in the DoT's list where they clearly misspelled the names of some of the sites they wished to block.
http://curiousgawker.blogspot.com/2006/07/incompetence-of-indian-government.html