Indian Govt has a lousy idea of Blog censorship that their Instructions landed up the ISPs to block all blogspot blogs!

Post 7/11, the Government decided to block sites and gave a handful of list to ISPs. Out of a misunderstanding of both Technology and Security, ISPs blocked all the Blogger Blogs. CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) of the Telecommunications demanded the block to some sites with no explanations to the drastic action of blocking all blogger sites. As a result, Indian Bloggers on the web with over 42,000 Bloggers on the Google owned blogspot.com suffered from this action. They have already formed "Bloggers Collective Group" and Wiki on Bloggers Against Censorship - a Campaign against Indian Government's apparent notice to various ISPs to Block the various websites and blogs hosted on blogspot.com. The bloggers demand their constitutional right to Freedom of Speech & Expression as Indian Citizens. Bloggers like Peter Griffin, Amit Verma, Dina Mehta, etc. have made all their efforts to help the blogging community to view the blogs and provided helpful hints and support.

A unique script has been provided by Dr. Awab Alvi, a Pakistani founder of 'Dont Block the Blog Campaign' and the Blogger Blogs can be viewed here. All you need to do is, just enter the name of the Blog. eg. kidsfstech, kidsfreesouls, sambhaav - all blogs that are hosted on Google's Blogger (blogspot.com) You will be able to read these Blogs here. A lot Thanks to Dr.Awab Alvi.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has now instructed the ISPs to Block only the websites and blogs specified in the Instructions to them earlier. The order further says that the ISPs operating in India should strictly comply with the order dated 13th July 2006 and provide unhindered access to Internet. They are only supposed to block the limited number of web pages and websites not the entire network of domains hosting some of these blogs. They are also asking the ISPs to clarify why they should not take action against them for blocking harmless sites and causing a lot of troubles for the end user in the country.

Strangely, still Bloggers are unable to access blogs hosted on Google’s Blogger service even now. They need to sort to services like pkblogs.com .

Some Bloggers are moving for legal action ironically to be based on the Information Technology Act, 2000. In Section 66, this Act defines 'Hacking' - as gaining illegal access to any website, or preventing access to a website through illegal means.

My Blogs (mjakbar.org & swagatgroup.net) two of the blogs, out of many that I manage, can now be accessed with Blogger.com Tech tools as they now appear on this site powered by Blogger. Any person with a hosted website need to change the settings in blogger.com to publish its blog via ftp, thus ignoring the ban. However, this demands Blogger help, tech skills, hosting space and unnecessary changes!

- ilaxi