Censorship - Does It Work, Can It Work?

After the unfortunate and cowardly bomb blasts on July 11 in Mumbai, India went on a cyber offensive and identified some blogs on blogspot and other sites that were perhaps being used as communication vehicles by the perpetrators of this vile deed.

The unfortunate response of the Indian authorities has been to bar access to blogs on blogspot from within India. Unfortunate not because the authorities should not respond - in fact a large part of the populace in India believes that the country has been way too patient in its response to a series of provocations including this latest bomb blasts. Unfortunate because censorship, esp in this age of the electronic media, seldom works.

What needs to be done is to work at the grassroots so that every Indian believes that there are more opportunities here in the country as is than anywhere else in the world, and more opportunities in the country as is than it can be after such violent attacks.

That will make it much more difficult for anarchists, whether of the LeT or the SIMI or even some of the more misguided naxalites, to recruit their supporters.

Blocking of specific websites only means that new ones will come up - the ones who cannot access them are humble scribes like this one who can post but not view their own (or others') blogs!