Category — Buffoonery

More censorship. We just can’t seem to get enough of it these days, it seems!

After having come through blog blockade, RTI Act dilution, art gag, the next medium to bear the brunt of censorship is television.

Cable operators, in at least Mumbai, have arbitrarily pulled all private channels off air without any prior notice! As of now as far as I know, only DD National, DD Sahyadri, DD Bharati and Janmat are on air. All other channels have been blocked out.
The following message is being scrolled on a black background on some of the channels.

IN TERMS OF BOMBAY HIGH COURT ORDER 21st DECEMBER 2005 CERTAIN CHANNELS WHICH ARE ALLEGEDLY CARRYING ADULT CONTENT WHICH ARE NOT TO BE SHOWN INCABLENET HAS SOUGHT CLARIFICATIONS FROM THE COURT WHICH IS PENDING. TILL THEN THESE CHANNELS ARE NOT SHOWN. INCONVENIENCE GIVEN IS REGRETTED. [sic]

What?!! Adult content on cartoon channels, news channels, Discovery, National Geographic, sports channels?!!

Basically, any attempt to deny me the right to gain information from any of these channels for viewing which I am paying money, is a gross suppression of my freedoms. I don’t care who is at fault here… the cable operators, the High Court or the government. This is ridiculous… utterly, pathetically ridiculous!!

Just a few days ago, I was complaining to a friend how the IB Ministry had forced music channels to run scrolling messages that made the music channels admit that they were showing ‘objectionable’ content and they would not do so in the future. Kinda reminded me of school where teachers used to ask troublemakers in the class to write things like “I will not talk in the class” a 100 times in their notebooks!

Incidentally, I wonder why the cable operators are still carrying the government-owned DD channels on air?!

Update: You can follow this story at the BloggersCollective and India Uncut.

Update 2: It is now fairly clear that the cable blackout is a form of protest by the Mumbai MSOs (Multi-system Operators) through the local cable operators, against the police action against them, in the form of raids. The Bombay High Court order dated 21st Dec 2005 had prohibited the cable operators and service providers from showing any material unsuitable for unrestricted public viewing.

As per the order, which takes immediate effect, cable operators will have to block any film on any channel certified as ‘A’ or for a particular class or profession by the Central Board of Film Certification. In effect, only films with a ?U? (unrestricted viewing) certificate can be beamed into people’s homes.

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When I woke up this morning, to reports of the saline sea-water turning sweet at Mahim, just behind the dargah of Haji Makhdum Baba and just a few hundred metres from the Bandra influent-effluent pumping station, the first thought in my mind was that the people who were flocking to the sea-shore to partake the ‘miraculous’ water might as well dip a glass in the commode at their homes and gulp down that water!

That way they would get water thats closer in taste and quality to the Mahim sea-water without leaving their homes and without getting sand in their shoes and on their clothes!

People dump colas because of miniscule pesticide quantities and yet gulp down sea-water that looks, smells and tastes like shit… literally!!… not to mention chemicals and sewage!! It happens only in India! ;)

Of course the SPG are to be blamed for the breach of security at 7 Race Course Road, New Delhi. And I’m pretty certain that some of the personnel manning the outer perimeter there, will be sacked… and with good reason too!

But it was ridiculous on the part of the three idiots who had no business trying to drive up to the Prime Minister’s residence thinking they could just meet him. The interviews that they gave to the news channels were so ridiculously naive and stupid that little kids in their right minds wouldn’t say what those two girls said on TV.
It scares me that I put my safety and comfort in the hands of such idiots when I’m flying!!

If the fax sent by Bharti Yadav had her UK address on it, why on earth did news channels like CNN-IBN and Star News triumphantly and gloatingly announce that they had managed to track down the house?! Given the postcode, a kid can find exact location of an address in the UK sitting a zillion miles away, using any of the online services like for example, Google Earth! You don’t need to be an ‘investigative’ journalist to do that.
I guess the lure of breaking a news story leads the news channels to break their ties with common sense!

Of course, it’s a completely different matter that most of these channels haven’t been able to grasp the meaning of “Breaking News” yet!

Three years ago, Kynhun, a Yahoo! group caused a storm in a teacup when a CERT-In directive to Indian ISPs to block it, resulted in a blanket ban on the entire Yahoo! Groups.

Whether the government, acting through CERT-In, was justified in its request to block a website, is a matter for another debate as it involves the volatile issue of freedom of expression or an individual’s right to make an independent choice as opposed to the government making it for her.

But it was clear that CERT-In had asked for blocking only the Kynhun group and not the entire Yahoo! Groups. Indian ISPs, claiming they did not have the expertise to block individual sites, went ahead an blocked the entire domain resulting in a blanket ban. A classic case of throwing away the baby with the bath water!

Everyone granted the ISPs a benefit of the doubt since this was the first ‘known’ case of such nature. And the ISPs, a chastised lot, had claimed they would work with CERT-In to rectify their mistakes and ensure they wouldn’t happen again.

And now… history repeats itself!! After CERT-In asked the ISPs to block 18 websites (some of them blogs hosted on blogspot and typepad) due to their communal nature, given the curent climate in India, the ISPs went ahead and brought out their blankets!!

Haven’t they learned anything in the intervening 3 years? Hasn’t technology improved since 2003? Do the ISPs have any clue?

Anyone who’s had the mis-fortune of interacting with ISP helpdesks in India can vouch for the fact that  ISPs don’t give a damn! … about their customers… or about technology!

And here, there is no private versus government-owned distinction. Private doesn’t mean better. We have seen that last year in Mumbai when Reliance Energy left their customers high and dry when mumbai was soaked under a deluge. And Reliance, MTNL, etc. have shown it once again… by their incompetence… this time around!!