India Blocks Websites after Mumbai Blasts

The Indian government has instructed Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block 20 websites. The order has come as a result of the Mumbai bomb blasts, and these websites are perceived to be anti-India websites. And, one of these is blogger or blogspot.com, a Google affiliated site which hosts millions of blogs worldwide.

According to the government sources, a circular was issued by the Home Affairs Ministry three days back asking the Ministry of
Information and Technology to block the 20 websites which posted content maligning India. Hundreds of people tried unsuccessfully to log on to blogger.com on Monday. These bloggers exchanged flash messages to discover that none of them were being able to log on to the website.

Officials defended the decision saying, "We would like those people to come forward who access these radical websites and please explain to us what are they missing from their lives in the absence of these sites."

A group of bloggers, called the BloggersCollective, has been formed to monitor the block on the websites and blogs, and to influence opinion against the move by the Indian government.

Websites can be blocked under India’s Information Technology Act of 2000, if they are found to be promoting hate, violence, terrorism or pornography.

Although the instructions from the DOT list specific pages and websites, several ISPs have blocked some blogs altogether because they were not equipped to filter specific pages.

Some Indian bloggers are insisting on their right to continue to blog without hindrance, there is a strong section of opinion even among bloggers that it may be necessary to block some sites if it will help foil terrorist attacks.