Today I found myself in the most awkward position at work, defending India's honor due to the government's absolutely stupid move to block blogs on Indian bandwidth : http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200607181922.htm

Not only do I whole heartedly disagree with the DoT's decision, I question the government's commitment to honoring our pledge for democracy. Freedom of speech is the fundamental foundation and more importantly birth right of every human born in a democracy. The government meddling with a set of rules supposedly immune from tampering, leaves me a tad concerned with Indian policy makers and their minions.

How dare they block a medium of thought? This is why time and again George Orwell's 1984 scares the crap out of me. The largest powers in the world are slowly moving towards Big brotherdom. Claiming that terrorists carry out their propoganda through blogs and hence they should be blocked borders on retarded. Terrorists can use phones, instant messaging, email, websites, message boards, news fliers, and a loud mouth to spread their words. Are we going to block all of this? Furthur more, blocking specific blogging services like blogspot and typepad is really silly because hey, they can get around this! Just get your own proxy.

Back to my rant - wall street is keenly watching India. She is like a rising star and all eyes are on her. While the praises are lavish, every mistake brings on scathing criticism. Today's accusations over the blocked blogging issues have dealt almost wholely on double standards, hypocrisy, designer democracy and such. While I strongly denounce the government's actions, sometimes I get the feeling that I am an ambassador for India at my company having to be politcally correct so that my colleagues don't get a wrong idea about India. Tough call. I need a beer. Mmmmm, beer...