Pissed at Indian bloggers

So now there's this huge brouhaha about how blogger.com is banned in India. Even established bloggers are writing about it without realizing that it's just a temporary blackout and not a blanket ban.

Let us just consider some statistics.
What's the population of India - 1.25 Billion
How many from India access blogspot.com - Probably less the number of people who have died so far due to terrorist attacks in Kashmir and it's offshoots. Let us say about 10000 people may be.

So the population affected by blocking blogspot.com is infinitelysmall. So which is more important, a Govt action to trace certain blogspot users who are considered terrorists accused of killing 100s of people or the ability to access blogspot 24 x 7 to these other bloggers ?

These same bloggers will then write about how Indian govt. is fucking sleeping when terrorists are exploding bombs right and left. Unfortunately they are India's face on the web. They are the ones who will quote Bharathi's "Thani oruvanukku unavillaiyanil jagathinai azhithuduvom" everytime a terrorist strikes India. Won't u think they would think twice before they slam the Govt. Alas no. Bloggers have failed India.

Just because they can write and they have an avenue for writing they think they can write anything and everything. Comparisons to Taliban and China are totally unwarranted but have been made. The same people who rile against sensationalism in CNN-IBN, TOI and IE are now sensationalising a trivial issue. Everyone thinks that the ability to say, write anything is a God given right. Even fundamental rights can be denied when there's enough cause. The blocking/temporary banning of blogger.com is a trivial issue except for these thousands of people.

Now you know why India can never be an Israel. An average Israeli welcomes missile attacks from Hezbollah. An average Indian cannot even understand the compulsions behind banning a website. Sometimes it pains to be an Indian. Birthplace of philosophy my foot.

I follow news items in US and India. Let me tell u something. Indian Intelligence officials always seem to have stuff years before American intelligence. Right after 9/11 samachar.com had news items where in an Indian Intelligence official said that terrorists were running camps in Oregon (I was quite curious because I live Portland, Or and so I remember this very well). About 6 months or so after that there was another news item quoting intelligence sources that talked about Islamic terrorists communicating using Jpeg images.

Fast forward 3 years, a radical islamic is arrested and charged with trying to setup terrorist training ground south of Portland, Or. American Intelligence officials also confirmed the use of images by terrorists to communicate. Indian Intelligence, believe me, is one of the best. Yes it's going to the dogs but still is a dog of a high pedigree.

With the advent of cellphones the terrorists thought they could communicate easily uisng throw-away sims and such. But Indian police and intelligence were still able to track them down. And so the only reliable mode of communication between those inside India with the planners outside India is thru satellite phones or thru internet. The cheapest being Internet.

According to mutiny Govt. has instructed ISPs to control access to blogspot.com. If the ISPs execute this policy incorrectly why should the Govt. take the blame. All the bloggers are crying as if the Govt. has taken their daily food away and are starving them to death.

Give our Govt. a slack. All these guys have talked to only their ISPs for whom blocking a blog has no personal repercussions. Heck the guys wouldn't even know what a blog is. He would have just put *.blogspot.com in their filtering software.

One approach would be to use the Freedom to Information act that was recently passed to see the GOs. Ofcourse be prepared to face a rejection on the grounds of national security and one has to understand it. Govt. wouldn't want to publicly disclose which blogspots were in the list for obvious reasons.

I appeal to the Indian blogging community to trust the Govt., to find out the truth about the GO and then comment on it.

We are doing a great disservice to the nation by comparing ourselves to China and giving fodder to the Anti-India propaganda machine all over the world.

Now u see the real danger of allowing everyone to express themselves. Half truths and untruths will be taken as a bible because it's published on the web.....