It is common knowledge that the Indian Government ordered local ISPs to restrict access to certain religious/political blogs in India. The technically inept ISPs went a step further and blocked all blogspot, typepad blogs even when these sites were not mentioned in the official directive.The Indian blogosphere reacted quickly to this "China-style" blog censorship and the ban was lifted in the next few days. The Government finally put the blame on ISPs and even issued them a show-cause notice.
Though the blog ban controversy has almost subsided now, some previously unknown facts have emerged on why the blog ban was revoked so quickly ?
According to a TOI story, the ban was revoked, not because the blogging community had expressed unhappiness, but intelligence agencies pointed out that the ban is limiting their scope of investigations into the serial blasts.
An intelligence official said that banned organisations were using chat rooms and blogs to transmit the messages. "But the ban was not only affecting the users but our communication channels had dried up," the official said, reiterating that the ban proved to be counter-productive.
So whom do we believe now - the ISPs, the Government or the Intelligence Agencies. One development is confirmed that blog content is now being scanned routinely in India.
Read full story - Blogging is back, but under lens
