The Wire says website unblocked after portal removed article
While the site has taken the article down, it noted that the original CNN story remained available, and said it would challenge the decision. The website's blocking had drawn condemnation from multiple journalistic bodies, including the Press Club of India, DIGIPUB Foundation, and the Editors' Guild of India.
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'I am constrained to note that under the IT Act, the procedure your ministry should have followed was to first issue notice about the news story in question, then give The Wire a chance to present its views before the inter departmental committee and only then, in the event that the IDC insists on the story's deletion, could you have taken the extreme step of blocking our website if we remained non-compliant,' the site's founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan wrote to the government.
The committee Mr. Varadarajan was referring to is set up by the government, led by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, to adjudicate on blocking orders.
Also Read | SC to hear plea challenging blocking of YouTube channel '4PM' on May 13
'The impugned story was published at 0347 on May 8 and the information it reported about was widely available at least 12 hours earlier, from CNN, whose story has remained widely available in India since then. I fail to see why the government wants our story deleted and treated it as such a matter of emergency more than 24 hours after publication that no notice was even served to us and our entire website blocked,' Mr. Varadarajan said in his letter.
'Shortly after we sent this reply, MIB officials informed us that orders had been issued to Internet Service Providers to unblock the site,' Mr. Varadarajan said. 'However, despite the fact that more than 12 hours have passed since then, readers on various networks in different parts of the country are still unable to access The Wire's website.'
Most modern websites use a Secure Socket Layer, indicated with https in their web addresses, to prevent interception of their traffic. This technique makes the specific content under a website any individual user is viewing inaccessible, and by extension, unblockable. However, full websites can be blocked instead of individual pages.
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The Hindu
15 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Takeaways for India from Trump moment: strategic autonomy is alive, neoliberalism is dead
Donald J. Trump can be brutally forthright and publicly so. It is partly innate and partly a strategy to throw his interlocutors off balance. In a 1989 interview on CNN's Larry King Live, Mr. Trump was asked by the host about his strategies for gaining an edge in negotiations. Mr. Trump responded not with a direct answer, but with a startling personal comment: 'Can I move my chair? Because your breath is very bad. It really is... Has this ever been told to you before?' Years later, Mr. Trump explained that it was a demonstration of his negotiation tactics. Mr. Trump's outspokenness can be unsettling, but it can also be helpful. There are a few valuable lessons that Indian strategy could learn, thanks to the manner in which Mr. Trump conducts U.S. diplomacy. Donald Trump's worldview Key elements of his worldview have largely remained consistent for decades. Even before he made an entry into politics, Mr. Trump was anti-trade, anti-war, cognizant of the economic and social challenges within the American society, and believed that all other countries were taking advantage of the U.S. He is trying to turn all those beliefs into policies with varying levels of success. However, what is remarkable is his ongoing exposition of American policy, which is too candid to be comforting for partners abroad. For his critics at home, it is what he says rather than what he does that is infuriating. All countries are scurrying to reposition themselves. It is a moment of reckoning for India. Editorial | Soured relations: On Trump's 25% tariff, 'penalty' The idea that India's hesitation to go into a complete strategic lock-in with the U.S. and to completely open its market is hindering progress in bilateral ties is commonplace because its proponents are influential. 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Both strategic autonomy and strategic subservience carry costs. India appears increasingly prepared to bear the cost of autonomy — rather than of subservience. Turning into a frontline of any U.S. strategy for containment of another country or expansion of its own interest can be fatal — ask Ukraine. Mr. Trump has done India a favour by silencing the call for abandoning strategic autonomy. If there was any doubt about strategic autonomy, the Trump moment has clarified it. Mr. Trump wants to restore manufacturing and jobs in the U.S. and has, in the process, unsettled global trade. Access to its market has been a lever of American power for long, and Mr. Trump is just blunt about it. A trade deal may resolve some immediate issues, but India cannot ignore the reality that in a world where every country has turned protectionist, export-driven growth is a narrow and difficult path. Mr. Trump has made it amply clear that he does not want China being replaced by any country in U.S. supply chains. It will be foolhardy to assume that any future U.S. President will be fine with that either. It is as if no country wants to import anything other than plastic toys and T-shirts. India could pay more attention to leveraging its domestic market to build its economy and manufacturing. Considering the rapid automation and the consequent limits of job growth in manufacturing, 'making for the world' is not sustainable for India, economist Raghuram Rajan has pointed out. Mr. Modi on Sunday exhorted Indians to augment domestic consumption. A domestic market-driven development model needs to be articulated strongly. The priority and the emphasis need to shift. Ties with the U.S. The Trump moment tells India two things — strategic autonomy is alive; and neoliberalism is dead. India has to navigate the path ahead, and the U.S. remains a key partner in that. 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First Post
an hour ago
- First Post
Pahalgam attack: Agencies identify terrorists' handler in Pakistan, trace their route from Baisaran to Dachigam
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Time of India
5 hours ago
- Time of India
Putin Widens Effort to Control Russia's Internet
. Russia is escalating its efforts to curtail online freedom, taking new steps toward a draconian state-controlled internet. Authorities are cracking down on workarounds that Russians have been using for access to foreign apps and banned content, including through new laws signed by President Vladimir Putin last week. Moscow has also been impeding the function of services from U.S. tech companies, like YouTube, that Russians have used for years. At the same time, the Kremlin is building out a domestic ecosystem of easily monitored and censored Russian alternatives to Western tech products. That includes a new state-approved messaging service, MAX, which will come preinstalled by law on all new smartphones sold in Russia starting next month. The idea, experts say, is to migrate more Russians from an open internet dominated by the products of Western tech giants to a censored online ecosystem, where Russians primarily use software under the gaze and influence of the state. 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Operating with virtually no barriers, millions of Russians flocked to Western tech platforms, posted critical news and freely expressed their thoughts on the web. The Kremlin began to see that freedom as a threat, particularly after the rise of opposition activist Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last year. His exposes of the Putin elite, initially publicized in Live Journal blog posts and later in popular YouTube videos, gave him millions of followers online and the power to mobilize mass protests on the street. Since the first decade of Putin's rule, Moscow had been articulating a vision for what it called a "sovereign" internet that would sever Russia as much as possible from the rest of the online world and strip power from foreign tech companies, which didn't always give in to the Kremlin's demands. But Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 gave the government the opportunity to accelerate the plan. On the eve of the invasion, the state indirectly took over VK, the country's biggest social network, harnessing a platform with millions of existing users to popularize Russian alternatives to Western tech products. The son of Putin's powerful first deputy chief of staff, Sergei V. Kiriyenko, was tapped to run the company. Moscow banned Facebook, Instagram and Twitter outright and took steps that caused TikTok to disable functions in Russia. Lawmakers passed draconian laws stifling free expression in the streets and online. Last year, after creating a video-streaming service on VK, Russia began throttling YouTube, pushing users toward the domestic alternative, though with mixed success. Now, with the introduction of MAX, authorities have signaled they may take aim at foreign messaging apps, in particular WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta and counts nearly 100 million monthly users in Russia. Telegram could be a target as well. Anton V. Gorelkin, deputy head of the information technology committee in Russia's lower house of parliament, said last month that WhatsApp should "prepare to leave the Russian market." He said Russians would replace the app with MAX. At an economic forum in June, Gorelkin also called Telegram, based in the United Arab Emirates and owned by Russian-born internet entrepreneur Pavel Durov, "an entity that worries the state." But he said previously that the app would not be banned. "I am very afraid that other methods of communication are going to be blocked," said Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society, an exiled Russian digital-rights group. Beyond messaging, Telegram allows Russians access to content from exiled journalists, activists and artists, who post in channels. At the same time, the Kremlin uses Telegram to distribute its propaganda, giving the app a chance of survival. Klimarev said a Telegram blockage would devastate the Russian internet. "Russia will turn into Mordor," he said, referring to the dark realm ruled by evil in the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. The Russian WeChat Through MAX, Russian officials are hoping to create their own version of China's WeChat, an app that remains indispensable for millions of Chinese despite being both censored and monitored. Apart from messaging and uploading posts, WeChat users can pay utility bills, book train tickets, make payments for goods and services, apply for marriage licenses and in some places even file for divorce. Moscow is following that model. A new law says government services must be offered through MAX. Officials across all levels of Russian government are being told to install the app. Already, local authorities have been testing the use of MAX by schools and signaling that teachers will be required to use it to communicate with students and parents. "You need to bring it into the daily life of people to the extent that you cannot avoid this app anymore," said Philipp Dietrich, an analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations. "The whole point of doing this is the same reason China is doing WeChat: the more information you can gather against your citizens, the better," Dietrich added. (STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.) MAX's future in part will boil down to how well it functions. Already, Russian internet users have parodied its rollout with memes. A well-known Russian singer and influencer was ridiculed for touting the app to her 5.3 million followers on Instagram -- which is itself banned -- and boasting about its ability to get service "even in the parking garage." Klimarev noted that Russia had tried to push its own messaging apps before and failed. He also expressed skepticism that Russians, who are aware of government surveillance, will start speaking, messaging or posting freely on MAX. If WhatsApp and Telegram are blocked, Klimarev said, Russians may still gain access to them using virtual private networks, or VPNs, services that reroute internet traffic to circumvent restrictions. Many Russians still use YouTube, Instagram and Facebook through VPNs, though the blockage has significantly dented Russian traffic to the services. Although VPNs are not explicitly illegal, Moscow is expanding an effort to block them and prevent their usage by everyday Russians. As of late last year, Russian authorities had blocked nearly 200 VPNs, Human Rights Watch said, in what has become a regular cat-and-mouse game between authorities and nimble providers. Authorities have also pressured foreign companies like Apple to remove VPN software from app stores. And they have begun exploring new ways to identify and block VPN traffic deeper in the internet's infrastructure, according to Human Rights Watch. Putin signed a new law Thursday that bans the advertisement of VPN services, making it harder for Russians to find out about new ones as old ones are blocked. New rules also make using a VPN to commit a crime an "aggravating circumstance" that will increase fines and prison sentences. The Russian leader signed another broad law Thursday that criminalizes the act of searching for "extremist" content. Videos from Navalny's anti-corruption group, for example, are labeled "extremist" in Russia. Even without banning Telegram, Russia has found ways to limit critical content on the platform. Igor Girkin, an ultranationalist who developed a following on Telegram and criticized the Russian military, was sentenced to four years in prison on extremism charges, chilling other criticism from extreme pro-war military bloggers. In recent days, authorities arrested the head of the tabloid-style Telegram channel Baza, known for publishing videos of Russian law-enforcement raids, and accused him of paying off Russian officials for exclusive information. He denied the charges. Russian authorities once sought to pressure foreign tech giants into obeying Kremlin demands with threats, fines and other penalties, said Andrey Zakharov, the author of a new book about the Russian internet. But the approach has changed with the war. "Now the tactic is to block them, kill them and provide an alternative," Zakharov said, noting also that corruption and incompetence often undermined the follow-through. "MAX is a continuation of that story." This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
