Censorship - Crazy India

I used to believe that India was a democracy and that its people didn't suffer the ill fated problems that the Chinese people suffered. Anyone could ask the Dalai Lama his thoughts on China, though his thoughts may be thoughtful or even hopeful, he would probably allude to the fact they drove him and his Tibetan people out and tried to banish their religion. Well India has now shown that it too can censor thought. I recently tried to look at a blog on blogspot.com and was surprised to find that it did not work. Yes I could reach it through a proxy in a different country, but not from India. They had reasons why they felt that the freedom of speech needed to be removed, but like all dictatorships they could not make an argument that made sense. I will post multiple news links that illustrate their reasons. I called my service provider at the office to see what their explanation was. I am still waiting. Literally right now. I wonder what explanation they will afford me? Probably one that has nothing to do with the freedom of speech. Gandhi would probably find all this funny. All his hard work and now it is no longer the British that control the Indian people. And yes, I feel in my right to say control. When one prevents another from doing something that is an exertion of control. The media in the US, I have felt for a long time now, has been manipulated by the politicians. In India the news media is pretty good, but that could be a thing that may be on the censorship radar. Only time will tell. Blogspot.com has a number of good technical posts, but unfortunately the government here did not see fit to allow them to continue. In the land of IT I never believed that they would ban a site that promoted it. There may be things that offend them on the site, individual blogs that are offensive, but what they have done is a blanket ban. I have found a scan on the net of the order asking for the ban which I will not post since i do not know the origin of it.

The question I have is this if the Government can make any rule that immediately affects a company, how stable is it to do business in that country? Every company in SV better think carefully. In this case Google, the company that owns blogspot, has been targeted. Who's next? I also wonder if Google is complicit in this as well. They have been in China. If the freedom of speech means nothing then why do we care so much to fight wars around the world to help people? (Don't worry i am not that naive). But ultimately people have to rise up against this kind of nonsense. Vote people out that do things that are against the people. This is of course only possible in democracies. So is India a real Democracy is the question or is it more like China?


http://www.ipatrix.com/2006/07/16/blogspot-blocked-in-india/

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/07/blogspot-blogs-banned-in-india-read.html

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/08/blog-controversy-in-india-new-details.html