Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
You mean the one involving outsourcing IP law enforcement to private cartels amid increasing calls to remove 230 protections from public-facing internet companies?
Yes some things need a lot of work, but it's hardly "cut off everyone from the internet" level... not even close.
But it takes strong laws, a strong / independent judiciary... and politicians who want to maintain the rule of law regardless of how convenient it is for them personally. Sadly it's not just a thing you "have" and keep.
India and China don't have those things.
India and China both face a significantly more difficult geopolitical reality than the USA.
Some of the world's most westernized and developed countries (Spain, Israel) are starting to use violence and suppressive tactics now that they are faced with even the smallest amount of secessionist unrest.
Kashmir is one of the most militarized border zones alongside the West Bank. I fully agree that there might be better and less suppressive methods that the Govt. can use to deal with the Kashmir issue, but to act as though a USA like policy would work in countries with very different ground realities is being willfully arrogant.
At the risk of sounding too cold, if the choice was between death of a few million people (which India has a long history of) and complete destruction of communication frameworks. I would choose that latter.
Now the big problem with what the Indian Govt. is doing, is that this has been going on for almost a year and they are making no efforts to bring Kashmir back to "normalcy". Such draconian policies should only come into place for very short durations with measures for removal, the second unrest goes below a certain point.
We have?
I'm not convinced one is being traded for another... possibly quite the opposite.
One of the problems when giving a government powers like this for a “short duration” is they tend to end up sticking a lot longer than that.
Shutdown hundreds of critical newspapers. Suspended habeus corpus. And war.
https://wiki.lincolntelegrams.com/index.php?title=Lincoln_an...
Not to mention an unrealistic threat of secession led to the deportation of up to 2 million mexican americans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation
Which was tied to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram
and accelerated due to the Great Depression.
Of course the fear that japanese americans may try to secede and align with japan got them put in concentration camps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...
> India and China both face a significantly more difficult geopolitical reality than the USA.
Both of them face separatism funded by foreign nations which adds an extra level of concern.
> but to act as though a USA like policy would work in countries with very different ground realities is being willfully arrogant.
If you think this is ignorant, go look up US views on free trade and protectionism. In the media, you'll see everyone say the US has always been pro-free trade. History shows otherwise.
President Abraham Lincoln declared, "Give us a protective tariff and we will have the greatest nation on earth." Lincoln warned that "the abandonment of the protective policy by the American Government ... must produce want and ruin among our people."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism_in_the_United_St...
Almost all the commonly held beliefs we've been brainwashed to accept by the media are simply lies. Democracy? Ask the bolivians, venezuelans, iranians, etc. Freedom? Ask the slaves in libya or the poor slaving away in saudi arabia, kuwait, etc.
We are much more connected now than he was in the 1800s, so the stupid people have enough voice to demand the freedom to make secession speeches. It is an unheard of concept in history and until we kill the idea of a nation state, secession is always a threat to societal fabric. But try to make a rabid liberal "muhhh democracy" crier understand this and they'll retort with nonsensical and false moral equivalents.
The American formula allows foreign agents to conduct elaborate, micro-targeted psyops campaigns to manipulate our elections; enables a dramatic resurgence in previously fading extremist ideologies; and facilitates one of the largest expansions of economic and regional inequality in American history?
I don't know if we can really assert we have this figured out. These are all especially areas of concern for governments like India and China, where fear of balkanization, civil war, and severe communitarian violence are either contemporary problems or have been fairly recently in their political histories.
Let's not associate the third-world with authoritarian or fascist.
In addition, the term itself is outdated.
Even the wrong-yet-common definition of "poor" doesn't fit here, because internet censorship isn't a function of wealth: Saudi Arabia is rather rich yet unfree. Russia and China area also not "third world".
Russia, a leading internet censor, actually happens to be the (current version of) a country that used to be the definition of either "first" or "second" world.
Random arrests and extra-judicial killings of Kashmiris by the Indian state is a quite regular occurrence. A laughable narrative around how they were "Pakistan sponsored terrorists" is usually spun by the media/police nexus.
Because of the media/telecom gag my non-Kashmir friends find it hard to believe absurd laws imposed by the Indian state, like AFSPA, PSA, etc
So who conducted the Pulwama terror attack? Have you seen the video of the terrorist and the filth that he utters against Hindus? It is obvious that Pakistan is involved in sponsoring terror. They are in the grey list in FATF for a reason and have two of the World's most dangerous terrorists: Masood Azhar (who has gone missing! how does a high profile UN designated terrorist go missing?) and Hafiz Saeed (who was roaming free till recently and was only thrown in jail because of FATF pressures). These two individuals, who are Chiefs of their organizations: Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-E-Toiba, respectively are the main conspirators in the 26/11 Mumbai Attack and the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001.
And shall we forget how Pakistan provided Osama Bin Laden a safe haven right next to its own Military HQ?
We are not stupid.
There have been a stream of terror attacks in Kashmir ever since the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s. But since India Abrogated Article 370 on August 5th, there has been actual peace after a long time.
There are many factors that make the abrogation the right move. We shouldn't be dividing a secular country for another Islamic state. Jammu and Leh should not be held back by religious based separatism. Even if Kashmir turns more violent, not giving into theocratic demands for another Islamic state is the right thing to do.
Maybe cutting off internet and house arrest of politicians was not the right moves, but neither was the status quo of perpetual autonomy and jihadi separatists.
Disclaimer, as I should add one. I'm no bjp supporter, and i hate the hindutva guys the same as I do the islamist crowd. After all, we call bjp making india a hindu pakistan. The word pakistan is derogatory here.
As the parent comment appears to assume that the decisions taken by the government in Kashmir are tied to the terrorism in the valley as opposed to being mere line items in their manifesto that stems from their political ideology. So assuming what they're saying is correct, I only wish to understand the metric for peace.
India is over reaching in Kashmir without question. But to imply that there aren't terrorist actors from Pakistan in the region is completely false. It has been borne out time and again that even if they don't physically cross the border, they train and indoctrinate the youth in the region somehow.
This is the problem with everyone opposing this govt. There are egregious violations of privacy happening in Kashmir but the talk revolves around how they're creating a smokescreen with terrorists. This is both true and false. They are creating a smokescreen but no Indian will ever disagree that the ISI is sending over jihadis on the regular to this day and that Imran Khan is a puppet with the strings in the hands of the Pakistani army. If you throw out the latter, you can attack and criticise the govt for its draconian laws. But they'd rather fight using that stupid crutch.
These are all good things, but we in tech, oftentimes think we can program our way out of bad physical governance. We can't! We need now more than ever to engage with everyone to make sure that we have good physical governments.
The world is hitting a breaking point where this has to be solved by fixing governments/legislation/what have you, not by programming more.
(Edit: a typo)
I'm of the opinion that a voice (such as yours), if it's so much of an expert, would be better off in advocacy and consulting rather than tinkering with more tools. Not everyone has to agree with me, but I agree with OP's comment and I maintain that your response is emblematic of the issue.
I probably won't respond further to this, given we disagree (which is fine) and I've said my piece.
The OP's comment make me feel that they are requesting that we be experts in everything. While I believe this is a popular belief (I think it is especially common among us nerdy types that we _have_ to be experts on everything), it is also unhealthy and makes us weaker as a society. Instead lets form coalitions. Coalitions are stronger than their individual parts.
Yes, this is a tech forum, but it's entirely reasonable to argue that in some cases, a tech solution is by its very nature not the right solution.
I 100% agree? But we're trying to build a house here. We may not want to hammer nails into those boards, but there are plenty of places we want to. We also don't want to hammer into steel or into live wires.
Maybe my analogy didn't work. I'm saying form coalitions and we apply our domain knowledge to the domain of the problem where our knowledge is most effective. We leave the other domains up to the other domain experts. I'm not saying we shouldn't be aware and help where we can with those issues, but that we also aren't the experts there and shouldn't be leading the conversations (again, participate, but not leading).
There's currently a lot of apathy because people feel defeated. But as the tech literate I feel it is our place to lead these conversations.
True, but my question here is: given that VPNs are pretty much essential for the way many large corporations work (they're not going to let employees access sensitive data over the internet in the clear), how does India, a country with a large tech presence and which promotes itself as a good place for software development, handle this?
Use-cases like these makes cryptocurrency so much appealing. Where I can potentially spend my money like normal physical cash.
It's very fun how Kazakhstan government worked against himself. They blocked a lot of websites including harmless ones (like pornhub) and plenty of useful ones (probably by mistake) along with opposition websites. So basically most of computer-literate people now have VPN ready to use and many people use it all the time, myself included. Government tried to block Tor and some major VPNs, but I don't think that it worked out. For example Cloudflare VPN works just fine.
Now even if they wanted to find out who reads opposition websites, they have no way to do that, because a lot of people use VPN every day. Again, thanks to Cloudflare, I just install and enable VPN for everyone I know to improve their browsing experience.
From the perspective of a hostile government it's safe to assume that people VPN'ing to known CIDRs of VPNs are doing something subversive. I don't think this is really giving people much security as far as casual visiting goes.
Finding out what they're doing on opposition websites is a much better argument though.
But we can make sure that the rubber hose is required. The government going around beating people on no evidence is a completely different situation than they knowing beforehand everything they need to do.
If you set the filesystem permissions right on the SFTP server, then even if they beat the username / pw out of you, then all they will find is cat videos on the chroot SFTP server. Your friend will see the tarball of objectionable content in a hidden directory. Remember to sanitize EXIF data from pictures first as that has your GPS location and in some cases your cell phone serial number. Someone will suggest ssh keys over password, but they should not in this case. No data must be persisted on the India side of this scenario.
I will be the first to admit, this process is tedious. I am only suggesting it as a last resort when all else fails.
This process is predicated on the idea that you want to get the word out about things occurring in your country and that you do not need to take credit for it.
I wish it was an isolated incident, but the more politicians you hear, the more it becomes apparent that it is all about the side you are on.
A bit worrying, no?
My theory for this is that such people (relatives of mine included, sadly) are just higher on Maslow's heirarchy of needs. At the bottom you need roti-kapda-makaan (food, clothing, shelter), followed by bijli-sadak-paani (electricity, roads, water) and higher up health and education. If you've had all of this all your life, you take them for granted. When Modi comes along and peddles a grand vision to Make India Great Again, like it was in Vedic times, that captures the imagination and inspires us. When the BJP tells us that all of our problems are because of Muslims and that we need to put them in their place to fix everything, we're only too willing to listen.
- In 2014, Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister on a plank of "development for all". Since the BJP's pedigree was one of Hindu nationalism (aka Hindutva), this was a change welcomed by many. He had a good track record of development as Chief Minister (equivalent of Governor in America).
- After a couple of major missteps (invalidating all high value currency notes, tax changes), growth started to slow. While it had been 7-9% between 2004 and 2014, it was now 5% or less.
- The BJP started to capture and subvert institutions that make India function as a democracy including the Courts[1] and the Election Commission[2]. They intimidated and coerced the media into toeing the BJP line [3].
- In 2019, the BJP won re-election. In this campaign, there was no talk of development (because there was precious little of it), no discussion of rampant unemployment. The BJP tried to convince us that the main issue was Pakistan (it wasn't) and how they were an existential threat to the nation (they weren't) and how Modi had "taught them a lesson" (he hadn't).
- Since then, Hindutva has made a big comeback. It is now priority #1, above unemployment, above low growth.
- The BJP is staking everything on killing the separatist movement in Kashmir and removing all special privileges of Kashmiris, building a temple over a destroyed mosque, and removing illegal Muslim immigrants. Though seemingly disparate, all of these facilitate the broader goal of establishing a Hindu Rashtra - a nation of Hindus, by Hindus, for Hindus. One where the secular Constitution of India is no longer valid.
- To enforce this, the BJP has resorted to totalitarian tactics, including the effective house arrest of millions of Kashmiris, coupled with an internet blackout. Thanks to the aforementioned capture of the Courts, the Supreme Court has done nothing to right this injustice [4].
That's where we are now.
On a personal note, writing this down broke my heart. I love my country and I grieve to see what is being done to it.
[1] - https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/judging-the-judges/ci...
[2] - https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article29618205.e...
[3] - https://thewire.in/media/punya-prasun-bajpai-bjp-media
[4] - https://scroll.in/article/935432/analysis-supreme-court-orde...
Wasn't this a Supreme Court order both parties accepted? The BJP isn't forcing this, although this has been their goal for decades and they will certainly claim credit for it.
You're right about the BJP claiming credit for it. We're going to hear about nothing else for the next four years, especially during state election periods.
Even if it's true, it doesn't mean the BJP influenced this court decision. You don't have proof for it, so you shouldn't speculate.
> Worst of all, the destruction of the mosque was unlawful even according to judges themselves and yet they saw fit to compound that injury by taking away the land under the mosque and awarding it to groups allied with the original destroyers of the mosque.
They awarded the land to build the temple because they found archeological evidence that the mosque was built on a non-Islamic structure which is recorded in history as Hindu. The case wasn't about whether the mosque demolition was illegal or not (it was). It was about resolving who the disputed land belongs to. The mosque superseded a Hindu place of worship of huge significance. There was no "perfect" decision here; it was always going to compromise one party over the other.
They've banned VPNs. They'll chuck you in prison if you speak against the government or a politician. Then they'll brand you as an "anti-nationalist" and openly say to their supporters that you deserve to be shot.
Facial recognition is now being used to identify protestors. Bots and deepfakes are being used to spread propoganda.
Many people are upset, but there's nothing we can do. We can't speak out without fear of being reprimanded. We can vote for other parties, but there's no way that they'll ever win. The majority of the population has blind faith in BJP. The only demographic that appears to realise the implications well enough is the youth in urban areas - a very insignificant fraction of the nation's population.
Even the media is afraid to speak out against BJP because if they do then they get attacked by physical and virtual mobs.
It's a shame. So much potential.
Patriotism is love for one’s country. Nationalism is the belief that one’s country (and often ethnic subset) is supreme (and more deserving of prosperity), speaking generally.
Trump’s campaign rhetoric is emblematic of nationalist themes. Anti immigrant. Playing up cultural mythos. Bragging about military capabilities. Blaming foreign nations for most problems. Implying that a return to core values will bring greatness. Lots of fear and anger.
Tends to be very effective for groups of people that used to be powerful but are no longer.
If that's too much recursion, consider the World War I and II (among many others), both being based essentially in nationalism.
By my estimation India is an empire, and nationalism makes no sense in its context. Patriotism maybe, or political loyalty.
Just seems like a weird choice of political propaganda. I do understand there's a strong anti-Muslim attitude in India, which might be what they're calling nationalism. But it doesn't seem right.
nation is defined as:
na•tion n. A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country. n. The territory occupied by such a group of people.
The core of Hinduism remains the vedas, gita, the puranas and the upanishads. They lay out a very deep philosophy that theologians much more educated than I am have been investigating for centuries. It is a highly rigid system at its core (contrary to the freewheeling morass image Indians themselves have projected to appear non religious).
This is why India is a nation. From the tip of Jammu till the edge of Kanyakumari, people thought of the vedas as the progenitor scripture of all civilisation. They heard the exact same stories of the Mahabharatha and Ramayana for millennia. The fact that they were free to adapt it and retell or embellish it does not mean they broke away from the system itself or that the system emerged later than the stories did.
That is a bad and definitely wrong definition
Do you have examples for us? Okay if it is in Arabic/Hindi/etc. We talk about the potential for damage here (on HN) and so I think it is important to have examples of this happening in the wild.
Is it fake when a pol speaks token sentences to an audience in a language the pol is very limited in?
Is it unfair if a multilingual pol has command of many languages vs one who doesn’t have such command?
What is an even field? Natural ability, happenstance of wealth (opportunity to learn) or happenstance of exposure (and natural learning).
Ergo, it is fake. Overdubbing a person's voice? Questionable.
Making someone look like they're speaking a language they don't know? That's faking it.
Using AI to help out with your fakery? That's deep down the rabbit hole
If these exist, I think it is important to show them and track how they are being used. Hopefully it can help us avoid similar pitfalls in the future by learning how they are used.
Please, also tell us how exactly this is bringing peace to the valley and if banning phones and internet for months has been so effective, then why did 1988-95 see the most unrest? If I remember correctly, mobile phones with EDGE/GPRS were introduced to Kashmir around what year? 2002? 2000 to ~2010 were also some of the most peaceful years in Kashmir in the last 3 decades.
Plus, OP implied that Kashmir is peaceful now because of people not having internet access. Are you now saying until Pandits return, Kashmir will have no internet access?
- per the media reports that I've seen, no Kashmiri Pandits have dared to return. The only few that are in the valley are the ones who could not migrate, primarily due to economic reasons. Rest have been living as refugees in their own country
- Internet had been used by terrorists and their sympathizors, and that is a fact
Don't include Jammu, Leh and Ladakh into this as they want to be with India in totality. Even the Kashmiris you talk about are incomplete without the 5 lakh Kashmiri Pandits who were forcibly made to leave from the Valley. The popular slogan : Raliv, Galiv, Chaliv (Convert, Die or Leave) and the fact that they wanted the Pandits to "leave their women behind" shows what kind of Religious hysteria was fanned up to dislodge the original inhabitants: Kashmiri Pandits, from their homes. Have some shame. Repent for the sins committed on the Pandits community that gave shelter, only to turn against them in the end. Kashmiri Pandits are living as refugees in their own country. What can be more shameful than that? No matter how much you justify the Kashmiri cause the Genocide and Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits will remain a big blot on Kashmiriyat. You cannot suppress Truth for long.
And here's the kicker - everyone thinks the civilisation is anti muslim. The reason I went to Jammu many times is to visit a Hindu temple there. It sits atop a mountain and you have to climb it by foot. Nowadays they have costly helicopter rides to get to the top, but back in the day all you had were either horses (kinda limited) or manual labourers who offered to carry you up / down in palanquins or directly on their backs. Literally all of them have always been muslims.
The temple and its surrounding areas are completely smothered by the army because they know that this is a very holy ground for the Hindus. If there ever were a terrorist attack aimed at it (or even the whiff of it), there will be blind violence on the streets against all muslims and immediate call for war against pakistan. The same army people know most of these muslim labourers and don't give a shit about them.
Does that mean that the army does not at all attack based on religious profiling? No. The army has done very unethical profiling based on religion in the region in the past. My point is if I didn't include this disclaimer, I can also make up stories of any given bent and literally all of my facts would be true.
If your contribution is "people are biased", that's not too helpful.
Interestingly Pakistan demands/consider all of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to be Pakistani territory. There is maybe a case for the Sunni Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley joining Pakistan but I don't think other parts of J&K will join them.
Actual News ----------- The FIR has been registered while taking cognisance of the social media posts by miscreants by using different VPNs, which are propagating rumours with regard to the current security scenario in the Kashmir valley, secessionist ideology and glorifying terrorists, the police said.
Thank you for sharing this information. How were you, in your comment above, able to safely criticise the government while in India?
(If you are not able to disclose how you did, that's understandable to me. We all know about methods like Tor and obfs4 bridges. I run a Tor bridge to help people in China, hopefully. And now thanks to you, I'm thinking of India too.)
This is extremely sad and I am hoping things will correct before everything worsens further.
> Many people are upset, but there's nothing we can do.
I remember people (not to point to anyone in particular but generally) even the educated ones making fun of a new engineer politician on the rise. There was news about slapping the newbie on their roadshows and rallies where this politician was trying to connect personally with the people.
What do you think of that?
For someone like me with an outside-in view I feel that we have a 'karma problem' with the general citizenry of India. Not to come off as a prude American (this is also true now for my own country as well-–Trump nation) but democracy is so much like a mirror––and in the end we all get what we deserve.
AAP doesn't have a lot of support outside of Delhi and a couple other states, and the same can be said for all other regional parties. None of them can step up to and beat BJP. It's the unfortunate truth.
The police shoot at and kill protestors with no mercy. They will not face any repercussions. A case from just 2018: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoothukudi_massacre
The nation is dying.
https://india.mongabay.com/2020/01/tribal-population-of-jamm...
- Kanhaiya Kumar (cited above), hundreds of students and even 10 year olds have sedition cases against them.
- The competition has been decimated. BJP spends 3X more than all of the other parties combined together in Elections
- Section 144 (prohibiting assembly of 4 or more people) has been arbitrarily applied across India.
- Free press has been demolished and right wing mouthpieces are both propped up and given a free run. False cases against The Hindu, NDTV, Hostile takeover of CNN-IBN etc.. I can cite a dozen more examples
- BJP losing state elections mean noting. Modi's role model is Xi. He wants to be benovalent dictator of life.
- State sponsored violence in India is the norm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq-HQ7boPvE
> The competition has been decimated. BJP spends 3X more than all of the other parties combined together in Elections
How is this an atrocity? This is legitimate right of every party to spend how much ever it gets as donations from the public. The Congress held the ubiquitous position for 60 years. No one questioned political spending then. Why is BJP being questioned for the same now? Just because the public resonate with BJP's National policies and donate to the party? Now will this also be termed as an atrocity? Can't believe the nuts that exist in India.
> Section 144 (prohibiting assembly of 4 or more people) has been arbitrarily applied across India.
Section 144 cannot be arbitrarily applied. Section 144 is imposed by a Magistrate who is an Administrator not an elected official. And a Magistrate will never apply Section 144 arbitrarily without there being a valid cause. And Section 144 is better than riots. Prevention is better than cure. When it comes to choosing between disorder, damage to public property, rioting protestors, communal clashes and Section 144, I would choose Section 144 any day.
Modi is one of those individuals who has been vilified by one community for almost 20 odd years now. It's nothing new. And the amount of media bashing he gets every day even Manmohan Singh did not get the same treatment. No matter how much you lie that there is no freedom to express in India it is infact the exact opposite. Media that is anti-Modi and anti-BJP: NDTV, The Wire, Quint, The Hindu, Indian Express, Newslaundery, ABP News, Aaj Tak, India Today and countless other regional news channels and smaller outlets. The cases filed against some of the media houses are not "false". They are involved in money laundering and are being investigated for the same. No court has said that the cases are "false". This is again malicious propaganda. Show me on case which the Indian Courts have ruled as "fake". Not one.
Sedition cases are slapped against those who have called for break up of the country. It is a case. It is not a conviction. It is a legitimate right of the Government to file cases against those who indulge in Anti-India activities. If Modi was emulating Xi he would have gotten Kanhaiya Kumar killed not have some sedition case slapped on him. Why would he bother taking the legal route if he was a Dictator? Never heard of a Dictator filing legal cases. If this is what you call as "Modi emulating Xi" then I say it is a pathetic attempt at emulating Xi.
Your own arguments fall flat the moment you start dig into the facts instead of becoming emotional!
What is happening in Shaheen Bagh? A protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act that has been going on for more than 40 days where a public road has been blocked. Any other country you would have had riot police beat up the protestors and have them evacuated for causing nuisance to public. We can understand 1 or 2 days of protests but 40 days? This is ridiculous. 40 days of public road being blocked! Which Dictator will allow that? Have some shame.
To prevent riots government needs to produce better policies, so that there would be no need for a riot in the first place. Preventing peaceful assembly is not one of these policies.
Apart from better policies, they also need enforceable ones, where local law enforcement is empowered to deal and contain where necessary.
No one prevented peaceful assembly. Shaheen Bagh is the best example where protestors have captured a public road illegally for 60+ days and neither the Government nor the Police are doing anything about it. Police and Administration only take action against rioters or those who indulge in vandalism of public property. The Deputy Commissioner of the local district gets first hand information on everything that happens in the district. The DC knows beyond doubt if the gathering is going to be peaceful or violent. We have highest levels of intelligence gathering and that has only increased and strengthened manifold after various terror attacks. Hence why the Supreme Court doesn't take the Centre to task neither does the High Court take the State to task over imposition of Section 144. The judges instead just give a rap on the fingers. That is because the administration has all details about the nature of protests and can provide adequate proof. If you really want to understand all this you should spend sometime with retired IAS officers and if they get to like you will tell you the workings of the system. You can't fool the administration into thinking that you can riot in the guise of "peaceful protests". The administration has various ways of intelligence gathering and knows exactly what the outcome of the gathering would be.
That is a lie. The Indian media is not afraid to criticize the BJP.
I'm not Indian but I am from the same subcontinent and have seen a constant stream of Indian news that are very critical of the current BJP government.
Here are some Indian media that constantly criticize the current BJP government:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quint
That's true, the left opposition has become a lame duck because they choose to be dynastic sycophants rather than an actual democracy / meritocracy.
> They've banned VPNs. They'll chuck you in prison if you speak against the government or a politician
Yes, but mostly No. The BJP is more petty than the last congress govt. But, my social media is filled with anti-Modi posts posted by public profiles and not a single one of them has faced any repercussions.
Also VPNs are only banned in Kashmir.
You can criticize something you don't like, without using hyperbole. The hyperbole, when not obvious, only makes your point look weaker.
> We can vote for other parties, but there's no way that they'll ever win
The congress has literally been in power here for 60/70 years of independence. If for a second, they can stop acting like the most incompetent political organization in the world and actually put a half-decent leader in power, then they can mount some proper opposition.
Also, the BJP just lost 4 consecutive state elections and Delhi was lost 60-8. The country is hardly falling in line with Modi. The only problem is the Congress has basically imploded into itself.
> Even the media is afraid to speak out against BJP because if they do then they get attacked by physical and virtual mobs.
Just saying. This has always been true with MSM in most parts of the world. TOI was notorious for falling in line with whoever was in power. Many older news channels acted like Propaganda tools for the Congress too. I am not surprised at all, that they have all moved over to BJP now that the hand that feeds them has changed.
I personally love Shekhar Gupta's work on The Print. He is one of the few journalists disliked by both Congress and BJP, and there is no greater honor in India. I have followed him since his time as Editor in chief of the Indian Express. It was always very high quality, unbiased or the type that declared its bias quite clearly. (like his fondness for Vajpayee)
> It's a shame. So much potential.
Agreed.
Sounds all too familiar here in the US. We are effectively held hostage by rural voters, and the obvious remedy for this state of affairs -- abolishing the Electoral College -- will mean that those voters have the same legitimate grounds for complaint against us.
At some point we have to start re-evaluating the conventional wisdom that democracy is the best possible form of government at all possible scales.
Because the people who run governments often think in terms of maximizing power because that is what it takes to be a successful career politician. When you think that way of course it seems stupid to give up a bunch of people and land who pay taxes to you, count toward your population but aren't actually numerous enough to over-rule the majority party even if the presence of those people is not liked by them and your base. While no particular leader may see themselves as holding the minority group hostage political map lines never get re drawn because there are bigger fires to fight and broaching an topic involving re-drawing the political map has many, many ways to go wrong and maybe a couple to go right.
I'm stretching your analogy to its limits here but both parties can claim to be held hostage to some degree.
If you don't like Trump, I have sympathy, I also hate the guy. But the Democratic Party used superdelegates to pick a notoriously unelectable candidate who was never going to win over moderates, and employed slogans like "it's not rigged, you just lost". And then they tried to blame the loss on the Great Compromise, which is kind of like superdelegates but not as arbitrary. For that, I'm afraid, I have no sympathy.
So "great" is really a question of great for who.
Also corruption is a much deeper issue that has to do with popular perception and the vast amounts of money in politics. It needs to be solved starting in local elections and work its way up. There's nothing the EC can do about that.
I live in a flyover state and I like living here just fine, but I find the idea that California is going to crumble if North Dakota stops supporting it to be hilarious.
As a 20 year resident of California, this state is absolutely broke and barely survives as it is. It would be a failed nation-state if it was on its own.
Curious why you've lived for so long in a state you apparently have a lot of disdain for. There must be something keeping you there.
Family keeps my primary residence here, but that's irrelevant to the discussion.
Here's an exercise: ask a CA resident to name 10 things that have gotten better over the last decade in this state. I'd be surprised if they name 1.
What state do you think is just full to the brim with people waiting to talk about how good things are?
The East India company would've agreed with you :p
The lesson for countries like US that are cutting education in favor of tax cuts is that lack of education in a electoral democracy is a self-fulfilling disaster.
This is a law in India, as there were instances of riots caused by social media rumor.
Actual News ----------- The FIR has been registered while taking cognisance of the social media posts by miscreants by using different VPNs, which are propagating rumours with regard to the current security scenario in the Kashmir valley, secessionist ideology and glorifying terrorists, the police said.
I am young Techie from India too and I totally support it.
As someone who conceivably sees this happening to his country in the relatively near future (English; Scotland leaving the UK), I'm not sure it's my right to prevent the secession of an identifiable group/country/region (the special status under Article 370 seems to suggest Jammu and Kashmir _might_ be such) against their will.
> Since the day India Abrogated Article 370 there hasn't been one major terror attack in Kashmir.
Only six months on from abrogation I'd be somewhat reluctant to draw any firm conclusions. Based on my limited understanding, major attacks do not seem to be have been of such a frequency that you would necessarily expect one to occur within that six month period.
Nope. Article 370 was always a temporary provision. It was not permanent Special Status. The Act itself said that the provision was temporary and could be lifted by just Presidential Consent. And the will of the people cannot be taken into account without considering Kashmiri Pandits who are the original inhabitants of Kashmir but were kicked out by Jihadis in the 90s. Read up on Exodus and Genocide of Kashmiri Pandits. They are living as refugees in their own country. For past 30 years. Has there been a greater injustice than this? And you can see the vitriol against the Pandits in the comment section for yourself. See your sibling comment on how ridiculous some can get when it comes to the treatment meted out to the Pandits. If this is how their reaction is towards Kashmiri Pandits in the virtual world imagine what it is like on ground. They were given 3 options: Raliv, Galiv ya Chaliv which translates to Convert, Die or Leave. Another popular slogan: "Leave your women behind". You may have calls for separatism in your country but it was never on religious lines. You will never understand that pain.
I'm not sure I would otherwise bring this up, as it's of tangential relevancy at best, but to return to GP's point, could the prelude to Indian independence (c. 1900-1920), and the response of the colonial government, not be described in similar terms?
http://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-violence-that-helpe...
P.S. Your English is very deep.
And when you say you totally support it, do you support everything the BJP has done?
From the article:
> Mishi Choudhary, executive director of New Delhi-based Software Law and Freedom Centre, said that the authority did not need to chase people who are using VPNs, and should restore internet access like any other democratic society.
“Any alleged rumors can be addressed by putting out accurate and more information through the same social media platforms. Content-based restrictions on speech can only be allowed within the restrictions established by the Constitution and not in an ad hoc manner,” she said.
I really don't understand this mindset of a default behavior (e.g. use of cookies) is equivalent to _forcing_ something on someone. You have lots of choices around cookies because the program that stores and shares them is under your own control. Which sites you visit is under your control. Your Internet connection is under your control.
God knows why we need a nanny state that represents a small minority of the world to decide how the world wide web should work.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-02-14/india-...
or
Choose not to visit.
or
Delete your cookie
or use curl
or go private browser mode
or hunt in google for the title to read the cache page
or pay someone to copy over the contents to text.
Plenty of choices. I'd go private browser mode in your case. Well I would just accept the cookie.
That's not reasonable. Consent must be freely given (and if provision of services is conditional on consent, then it shall be deemed not freely given), it must be opt-in and it shall be as easy to withdraw consent as it was to give it. And if your legal basis for processing data is something other than consent, then don't ask to "agree" to it, implying that this happens with consent - but in their case their privacy policy does list consent as the basis for processing this data.
Their current behavior of "surely you'll permit us to track everything" is both immoral and illegal, and it should be eliminated, not tolerated.
It's worth noting that they are an exception. While various "GDPR-banners" are quite popular, as a matter of principle, I never agree to anything on them and refuse consent to everything, and it turns out that it's not a problem for most sites, they note the preference, follow the law and it ends at that. GDPR has no issues with storing a non-personalized cookie noting that preference, which some sites do, so as not to ask every time. So the fact that Verizon Media is agressively flounting the law is not appropriate. Most of the fault probably lies with the Irish regulator, which has been far too lax in proactively policing the many international companies (including Verizon Media) which have their EU operations and their GDPR compliance domiciled in Ireland, but I'm sure we'll force things to change eventually.
They ask for consent. You choose to provide it.
If you are putting forward the idea that you should be able to not consent but still use the service or view the content. Anyone not providing access is doing an illegal act in Europe. I'm not sure that's fair either. You choose to visit the site.
GDPR permits multiple legal basis of processing data (e.g. the need for data to fulfil a specific contract), but they generally don't apply to processing all kinds of semi-relevant data for targeting advertising. Consent is a legal basis under GDPR if and only if it's truly voluntary; one of the key criteria is consent being feely given. You can't "trade" something for that permission (give me consent and I'll give you X, refuse consent and I'll refuse X), it must be freely given because the user wants to give that data, because they believe that it's good for them for the service provider to have and use that data. I.e. you can voluntarily choose to allow tracking for advertising purposes because in that case the ads are more relevant to you, or you can refuse that tracking if you think that this is not what you want.
So the idea is that privacy and consent to violations of privacy is not something that I can trade away (e.g. by choosing to visit a site) - it's not for sale, they can't buy it, I can't sell it. Offering something in return (e.g. the ability to visit the site) can not be a way to obtain consent. If refusing consent will result in access being revoked or some other bad consequences (e.g. losing discounts) then it's not considered a free choice. (GDPR recital 42 "... Consent should not be regarded as freely given if the data subject has no genuine or free choice or is unable to refuse or withdraw consent without detriment.)
They can deny people access to the site. But if they extract a click on "I agree" by forcing to choose to click there or go away, then that click does not and should not be counted as a consent to violate people's privacy; these rights are fundamental and they can't be given away with a click or sold for some money or traded away as a point in, for example, an employment contract. Revoking access (or threatening to revoke access) to a site is not a legally (and morally) valid way to gain permission to violate the privacy all their users.
And that is the intended point of GDPR - there should be no way for web companies to structure their legal or technical mechanisms in a way where they somehow obtain a permission to abuse the data of all their users. They can use some data of everyone for specific limited purposes (e.g. the legitimate need clause). They can use data for whatever purposes specific people choose to volunteer. But they do not, and should not have a way to "extract permission" to simply sell all their users privacy to third parties; nothing they can do in their privacy policy or terms and conditions or web click-throughs can provide that - the intended result is that they can't get the permission from everyone to do everything, and they actually have to stop doing many of the things they currently list in their privacy policy.
And that's what I want Verizon Media to do - it's not that they haven't done some ritual to legitimize their tracking, it's that their current tracking is fundamentally illegitimate no matter what legalese they write in their terms and conditions, and they should stop the mass invasive tracking of all their users except the minority who might intentionally opt-in for whatever reason. And if they don't stop it, they need to be forced to stop.