Ripples on the brain

Though the decision of blocking blogspot.com in India seems ludicrous at the moment going by the means the government adopted, I think the reaction from the blogging community has also been way too much. I know that some people consider blogging and blog-browsing an important part of their daily activity, but if the Indian government has considered blocking them for security purposes, I think the bloggers can wait for a few days before raising a storm over it.

My memory goes back by a couple of years when one of my colleagues’ mother was diagnosed with cancer. My colleague was working in Chennai, but her parents stayed in Kashmir. After the diagnosis, her father wanted to take a second opinion and consider bringing her to Chennai or some other place for treatment as the doctors there had declared that she wouldn’t survive beyond 30days. My colleague approached some hospitals in Chennai and they suggested sending the scan report of her mother through fax as soon as possible given the severity of the first diagnosis so that they can look at any possible treatment. But STD/ISD/PCO/FAX and probably internet were banned in Kashmir at that time to avoid communication between the millitants and there was no way they could take a second opinion. Though many of us tried some other ways of passing the scan report as soon as possible to Chennai it didn’t work out and sadly the mother died within the 30-day deadline.

I am sure bloggers don’t need to blog as much as my colleague needed a FAX machine that day. The government would have definitely considered the pros and cons before making the decision. It might turn out to be a completely wrong decision in the end, but my only advice to the fellow-bloggers is to just be a little patient for a couple of days.