Monday, July 17, 2006
Indians can't see this blog entry
because some f##$$$%%^ ing bureaucrat in the Indian Government has mandated that ISPs block access to blogspot.
If I wanted to live under a dictatorial government that condones this crap. I'd go and live in Iran. Or North Korea.
The bureaucrats responsible (and the weaselly ISP bosses who go along) should be lined up against the nearest wall and shot! I don't pay taxes to have my freedoms taken away by you stupid bastards.
Blogger.com is still accessible so I can post stuff using the managements screens [roll eyes] but I can't read any blogs on blogpsot through my browser.
What's next? Book Burning?
Aaargh! someone give me a job in the USA (or even better, an admission into a good PhD program) please! I give up on this country!
I am fed up with the arbitrariness of life in India. For 10 years I refused to go or work abroad because I wanted to live and work in India. But I'll be damned if I support a systems that actively pits nations people against themselves (with caste based reservation - read discrimination - poised to entrench itself in the private industry) and does crazy things in the name of "national security" (like block blogspot). On one side we have the ruling Indian National Congress plus their traitorous Communist Allies and on the other we have religious fanatics led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, who are in the opposition.
I'd rather live as a janitor in a country where citizenship means something than in slowly decaying "world's largest democracy". Any "patriotism" or "national security" that is fragile enough to be destroyed by some s.o.b nutcase putting up an "anti Indian " blog on blogpsot (I offer a bet at ten to one odds that this will be the reason trotted out. Alternatively someone in the government is trying to shake down google) is not worth preserving anyway.
I used to be proud to be Indian. Now I am ashamed.
If I can't get into a decent PhD program this year I'm going to be one of the "cheap brown ill paid programmer doing crap work and desperate for a green card" types in the USA. Or get on a boat and f#%^ing ROW to the West. Anything to get out, so help me God.
Update: The Indian Government has blocked blogspot because "some terrorists are using blogs to communicate". I'm speechless.
Update: How to by pass the ban
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16 comments:
Ravi,
If you truly feel ashamed of what is happenning, why don't you move against the government through the courts ? Even in US, there have been several cases where the common man has wrenched his rights back from the Government. I believe that you should raise this to the courts and fight back with all your knowledge.
The problem with India is that when ever something goes wrong, people who have the power to make a difference either stay silent or prefer to "row their way to the west". The West is still free because people don't throw in the towel so easily.It is easy to say "Why the heck should "I" do anything...i am going to vote with my feet." Thats what Indians have always been doing...sadly you too.
Praful
u can still be seen @ http://www.pkblogs.com/ravimohan
@praful,
There are too many assumptions (e.g. the courts in India dispense justice in a timely and efficient manner) that I don't share. A point by point rebuttal would take a lot of space so I'll just address the main point.
Paul Graham
said,
"I admit it seems cowardly to keep quiet. When I read about the harassment to which the Scientologists subject their critics [12], or that pro-Israel groups are "compiling dossiers" on those who speak out against Israeli human rights abuses [13], or about people being sued for violating the DMCA [14], part of me wants to say, "All right, you bastards, bring it on." The problem is, there are so many things you can't say. If you said them all you'd have no time left for your real work. You'd have to turn into Noam Chomsky. [15]"
replace "say" with "fight".
More from Paul
Suppose in the future there is a movement to ban the color yellow. Proposals to paint anything yellow are denounced as "yellowist", as is anyone suspected of liking the color. People who like orange are tolerated but viewed with suspicion. Suppose you realize there is nothing wrong with yellow. If you go around saying this, you'll be denounced as a yellowist too, and you'll find yourself having a lot of arguments with anti-yellowists. If your aim in life is to rehabilitate the color yellow, that may be what you want. But if you're mostly interested in other questions, being labelled as a yellowist will just be a distraction. Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot.
Again this is a long way of saying "you should pick your fights". While I am exasperated by this bureaucratic rubbish, I don't want to waste afew years pushing a cse through the creaky Indian Legal system.
*I* think the right thing for *me* to do is leave.
Unlike you I never said what *other people* should or should not do :-)
I said *I* am leaving . You stay and Good Luck to You !
@anonymous - Thanks, I know ther are are alternate ways of seeing the blogspot blogs. Anonymizer is another option. Or just use a web based aggregator like bloglines.
The point is that no one should have to jump through hoops to view (or write) a blog.
Having said that thanks for pointing this out. I wasn't aware of pkblogs.
Don't come to the US of A.
In case you haven't heard - we don't want you.
Oh, our companies do, but your neighbors, the people you would live with... we don't want you.
After years of having our jobs take there out from under our oppressive government (ours) and put under an even more oppressive government (yours) we don't like you folks very much.
Stay away from here and invest in fixing your government.
Quick before we bomb yours too,
Too bad to see this sensorship insanity has hit India as well. We used to be a less fascist country.
BTW Ravi, since you have your own site, you can have Blogger publish the blog to it. You just need to configure an FTP URL and everytime you create a post, Blogger can (s)FTP the blog HTML to magicindian.com. (or a sub directory like magicindian.com/blog)
There were lots of things to be ashamed of before (the fact that exactly this happened a few months ago - they banned yahoo groups, corrupt law enforcement, judiciary, politicians, poverty, womens' rights) and there are plenty of things to be proud of even now (tech boom, bombay standing united, the perseverence of indians as a people). Why so much drama? You can make your point without it.
Hell! crap! I am really disappointed to read this!!
Why dont they cut off the whole internet, telephony, blow up roads and bridges as terrorists are using them???
I am sad!
Ranjith
@arun - Look on the bright side, at least your government isn't invading another country, destabilizing the world's primary oil producing region, bankrupting itself in an orgy of unaffordable war, entitlement, and pork debt, unbalancing the world financial system, creating a theocratic corporatist police surveillance state, and turning almost all 6 billion people on the planet against us, all in response to a terrorist attack. Just a little perspective for ya... ;)
Regards,
A concerned American
Well said, Ravi. I left India some 10 years ago, and I sympathize.
@anonymous (the one who asked) "why so much drama" ?
Because it is MY blog, which is a space to say what I want, in whatever fashion I want to, with whatever tone *I* think is appropriate. :-)
Sometimes I choose to be coolly rational. Sometimes dramatic. Sometimes incoherent.
Don't like it? Tough! No one is forcing you to read this.
I guess if you want consistent rationality, in an inflectionless monotone, you should go somewhere else
Having said that, of course there are good aspects to living in India. I've probably lived(and chosen to live) here longfer than you. Of course since you hide behind your anonymity, it is hard to be sure :-)
@byron
Great blog(s)! I've just added your "science" blogs to my bloglines feed.
Ushnam Ushneena Shaanti
"Update: The Indian Government has blocked blogspot because "some terrorists are using blogs to communicate". "
They should probably ban email,phones,paper and speech. Informed sources tell me terrorists use these too
India has the potential to become superpower provided the long pending people issues are immediately solved. Ensuring a credible basic income guaranteed system for every one whether they work or not will bring in dignity instead of desperation for the working poor and imposing inheritance taxes will stimulate compassion instead of collusion among people living in India.
@masa'il, (nice name!)
I never said I'd "steal" an American woman :-). You might want to re read the original sentence.
I have fairly strong views on "stealing" women. (See ravimohan.blogspot.com/2004/03/fowler-effect-and-thiefs-justification.html ).
I was just rubbing the xenophobe's nose in his helplessness to stop me doing what I want to do :-)
Hmmm, So "Freedom of Expression" is gone. Or rather hidden...
Wonder whats next...
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