India directs Internet providers to block access to blogs

NEW DELHI, India — As India's financial capital, Mumbai, observed a moment of silence on Tuesday to commemorate the seven bombings of commuter trains seven days ago, a blistering silence blanketed the Indian blogosphere.

For reasons yet to be articulated by the authorities, the government has directed local Internet service providers to block access to a handful of Web sites that are hosts to blogs, including the popular blogspot.com, according to government officials and some of the providers.

The move has sown anger and confusion among Indian bloggers, who accuse the government of censorship and demand to know why their sites have been jammed.

Nilanjana Roy, a Delhi-based writer who runs kitabkhana.blogspot.com, a literary blog, called it "a dangerous precedent."

"You have a right to know what is being banned and why it's being banned," she said. "I can understand if it's China or Iran or Saudi Arabia. I'm truly appalled when it's my country doing this."

The ban, which has come into effect in recent days, means that people living in India are, in theory, kept from reading anything that appears on the blocked platforms, whether Indian blogs or otherwise.

But the ban seems far from effective. Some Internet providers have blocked access. Others have not, and many more blog aficionados have figured out how to continue reading their favorite sites.

One Web site offers help, by way of a free blog "gateway." "Is your blog blocked in India, Pakistan, Iran or China?" it asks, and goes on to offer instructions for outwitting the restrictions.

That site was prompted by the efforts of the Pakistan Telecom Authority to block blogspot.com in February, as a way to prevent the proliferation of Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad.

On Thursday, a technician at a Bangalore-based service center of one Internet provider said the government had ordered the block of blogspot.com "due to security reasons." Another service provider in Delhi said the government, without explanation, had directed his company to block access to fewer than a dozen sites; he could offer no details on the nature of those sites.

Officials at the Ministry of Communications did not return repeated calls. Gulshan Rai, an official at the ministry's department of information and technology, said he was aware of "two pages" that had been blocked for spreading what he called anti-national sentiments, but did not provide details.