I’ve heard that many users in India can’t access BlogSpot pages these days, the sites don’t open. They can access Blogger, use the Dashboard, even publish posts, but they can’t view blogs, not even their own.
The reason behind this is astounding – apparently, on contacting their ISPs, many users were told that the ISPs have been ordered by the Ministry of Communications, India to block all BlogSpot addresses, from what I’ve heard, to curb online anti-reservation protests. This is RIDICULOUS. Most ISPs in India, like MTNL, BSNL, Spectranet, Reliance etc. have blocked all BlogSpot domains. The only ISPs that haven’t implemented the order are Airtel and Sify (that’s my ISP). Kudos to them and hurray for standing up, at least for some time, to this idiocy.
A quick search told me that the same has happened in Pakistan too. Also, other blogging services like WordPress and Typepad have been partially blocked too.
We MUST fight against this. India isn’t a dictatorship like Pakistan, or a like China, We are the world’s largest democracy and it MUST stay that way. Can’t access your blog? Use a proxy server, like pkblogs.com, or hidemyass.com (this one also has a list of servers to configure your proxy manually). Or just search for the term ‘free anonymous web browsing’ or ‘free web proxy’ on any search engine. For a more permanent solution, you can also download this software from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (based on ‘onion servers’ concept; but I don’t think you’re interested in that now).
And foremost, SPEAK OUT against this! Use proxies and keep on using BlogSpot. Don’t let India become China.