DOT Reacts But Bloggers Remain Unimpressed

The Indian blog crisis has now entered day four and the situation remains as muddled as ever. In a rather terse notice issued by the DOT it has instructed all the ISPs in the country to block only the specified website/WebPages not entire domain ranges. As the Hindu reports: The DoT, in its letter issued to all the ISPs has mentioned that it had come to notice that in some cases the parent website had been blocked in contravention to what was stated in its earlier order dated 13th July 2006, whereby it ordered the ISPs to block certain websites/WebPages. As such the DoT has now directed all the ISPs to strictly comply with the order dated 13th July 2006 and provide unhindered access to Internet except for the websites/WebPages, which have been specifically mentioned in its orders issued from time to time.The DoT has further sought an explanation from the erring ISPs, as to why action be not taken against them for blocking unintended websites/WebPages. The government who has been embarrassed by the rather huge public outcry and the way the media has tackled this issue is trying to shift the blame back on the ISP’s who blocked all blogs because they were not equipped to filter specific pages. This could be because all websites hosted on blogspot.com, for instance, have the same IP address. This has also exposed the lack of filtering technology at Indian ISPs. All this really adds up to one thing. While India prides itself as a growing I.T and services superpowers, mistakes only set us back in the world’s eyes and show us as inept and lacking in even basic Internet infrastructure management. The Govt needs to examine the capabilities of Indian ISP’s and make appropriate changes to the laws of this country. If need be force ISP’s to develop capabilities to avoid faux pas like this. Hopefully measures can be worked out to avoid such embarrassing blackouts in the future.