Anivar's journal

Originally published at moving republic. Please leave any comments there.

I am looking at the media coverage on the blog ban. it is covered by all national & International press & channels. Times of india Dedicated a large chunk of its front page & wrote an Editorial. Indian Express also posted a Front page news that analysing content of blocked sites. NDTV & CNN-IBN are projected it as a top story for last 2 days. NDTV even conducted a poll with sms votting. And the news is slashdotted. Bloggers suceeded in making it as an international issue. Guardian, BBC, New York Times, WSJ , Asian age, washington post, list is very big.

At the same time bloggers setup alternate access mechanisms like inblogs & tools.superhit.in . worked out campaignes to popularise tools like tor & privoxy.

While looking at the group of protest bloggers it is only less than 100 in number. The bloggers collective group only have around 360 members. Even though they can make this much voice.

It clearly shows the power of blog as an alternate media. The power with bloggers is the power of media. Then what will be the effect if we can use this power for marginalised communities. the other india ? . When main stream media fails to address the peoples’s movements & issues of existance & livelihood blogs & a collective work by the bloggers can do a lot of mediation. The formation like Bloggers collective can also think on that direction ( even if it is a very much vulnarable group).

I am ending up with the post with a brilliant poem by Renjini Narendranath on her blocked blog on Blogspot.

Yea, I will still blog.

Yea, I will still blog.
I still continue to blog.
Blog my random thoughts.
They can’t stop me from talking.

The other friend asked,
Who are these ANTique kings ?
They attacked our blogs. *

Yes, they attacked in some name.
“Terrorism” they call it.

I say, this is terrorism.
Taking away ones freedom.
Without a word.
Without a clue.
One fine day, take it away ?

I don’t know what their arguments are.
Did they put it on the desk to debate ?
No.
Where we asked ?
No.
They just attacked the blogs.

July 13th was a black day.
This blog is my black badge.
A statement.
A statement for them to exit !
Flush the ban !
Else I fear an aftershock.
It is on the hold.
Exit our domain.
Let us thrive here.
You usurpers !
Exit the ban.
Throw open the Gateways.
The bloody internet is
Fourth dimension of life.
We are the citizens here.

Why don’t you ban the bloody MNC’s
Usurping our young minds ?
Why can’t you ban the bloody Colas ?
Why not ban the advertisements ?
The collateral damage is more there.
Don’t you see this?
If you do, then batter them.
Not the bloody blogs !

Originally published at moving republic. Please leave any comments there.

I came across this Great tool & campaign by Amnesty International against censorship on internet. Amnesties press release says

From Iran to the Maldives and Cuba to Vietnam, governments are both cracking down on those who use the internet to communicate their views and denying their citizens access to its wealth of information. Web users are locked up, internet cafes are shut down, chat rooms are policed and blogs deleted. Websites are blocked, foreign news banned, and search engines filter out sensitive results.

“The internet’s potential for change is being undermined — by governments unwilling to tolerate this free media outlet, and by companies willing to help them repress free speech”

Sun Microsystems, Nortel Networks, Cisco Systems, Yahoo! and Google are among those companies implicated in helping governments censor the internet or track down individual users. In 2004, Microsoft released information about nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu to the Israeli authorities without his knowledge or consent. The data was initially used to prosecute Vanunu for having contact with foreign media.

The most interesting thing is they have a great script to display the censored data into any blog that using the script. see the irrepressible badge on my button list. Thesre is a way to take the online pledge also. The pledge is very relevent in current indian context.