Month: July 2006

Censoring by Government of India

We all know that the government of India is secular because they proclaim it as so. Therefore it must be so. Secularism by assertion. So also we know that in India freedom of expression is a right — as long as what is expressed is in line with the ruling coalition’s preferences.

Ventatesh Rangarajan pointed me to a news item on IBNLive which says “Anti-Congress” Blogs blocked.

The block against various websites has been lifted but the ban is still in place.

It seems there is a definite slant to the websites that have been banned – a stance that is not anti-national, but anti-congress.

India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) passed an order to ISPs on July 14 to block blog sites, as they were said to be spreading anti-national message. The list of the websites to be blocked was confidential.

“We know what is good for you, and we will tell you what you should think,” says the mai-baap government.

Deva! Deva!

OLPC — Rest in Peace

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is not going to happen in India.

The Human Resources Development (HRD) ministry of the government of India recently decided to just say no to the $100 laptop that Prof Negroponte of MIT Media Lab has been furiously peddling. He wanted the government to buy, oh, about 1,000,000 of those at the modest cost of $100,000,000 and give it to school children. Mind you, noble intentions motivate this: so that no child is left behind and the digital divide is bridged and all the kids will become computer savvy and what not. Continue reading “OLPC — Rest in Peace”

Wonders will never cease

The other day an old school friend of mine Ajay (not his real name) came to meet me when I was visiting Nagpur. Talk came around to how his son was doing. Ajay said that the kid was doing well, finally.

“Why,” I asked, “what was the matter?”

“He was not doing well at all in his studies. He was not able to focus on his school work. His confidence level was low and I was really worried about his grades. You know, his board exams are right around the corner.” Continue reading “Wonders will never cease”