The world's largest democracy introduces censorship!

If you are reading this, you are probably not in India (not physically at least). Post-July 11 India is a strange place with bloggers being accused of "anti-national activity" and spreading trouble. So, the government has banned some sites and blogs as a precautionary measure. And the Internet Service Providers react by banning entire blog services such as BLOGSPOT and TYPEPAD!

In the meanwhile, a former foreign minister has come out with pre-release publicity for his book in which he justifies releasing a bunch of terrorists! At the same time, there is no evidence of any hardening of India's attitude towards the actual terrorists. One blogger (well, his blog too is banned in India) called the attitude of Indians, esp Bombayites, "the silence of the lambs" for not reacting more harshly to the bomb blasts.

Would the ban on anti-national sites and blogs serve any purpose? I doubt it. In listing the sites that are banned, the government has probably invited attention to sites that no one knew about anyway. I mean I like my blog and all that, but why should the government or anyone outside my circle of friends take it very seriously? I wrote about this in Feb 2006 under "There is no sphere..." - the power of blogs is severely overestimated.