India invokes emergency laws to ban BBC Modi documentary | Hacker News Reader

India invokes emergency laws to ban BBC Modi documentary

theguardian.com

71 pointsvinni231 comments

The article references a 2021 information security law,[0] which itself refers to a law from 2000.[1]

Combined, it say that authorities "in any case of emergency nature, for which no delay is acceptable, shall examine the relevant content and consider whether... it is necessary or expedient and justifiable to block such information... in the interest of the sovereignty or integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offenses."

Sounds incredibly vague and far-reaching.

[0] (page 12, bold section 16): https://mib.gov.in/sites/default/files/IT%28Intermediary%20G...

[1] (page 22, bold section 69): https://eprocure.gov.in/cppp/rulesandprocs/kbadqkdlcswfjdelr...

Fun facts, Modi was banned US visa in 2005 and the ban was lifted when he became PM of India:

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/narendra-modi-shal...

They forgot the ban and all reasons behind since Modi would be a good bulwark against China.

That strategy of backing an unkempt leader to protect against someone worse never backfired for the US before, right?

That's for the next generation leaders elected in the future. Leader is only responsible for their terms (and terms-limited anyway) after all.

Here's the documentary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dkb144/india-the-mod...

Or for the of people who don't live in the UK i.e the majority of the world population:

    Episode 1 - magnet:?xt=urn:btih:3C378A82CF67A1107523CA6C647077403A1EF74D&dn=India+The+Modi+Question+S01E01+1080p+HDTV+H264-DARKFLiX&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.opentrackr.org%3A1337&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.leechers-paradise.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.dler.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopentracker.i2p.rocks%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2F47.ip-51-68-199.eu%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.internetwarriors.net%3A1337%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2F9.rarbg.to%3A2920%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.pirateparty.gr%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.cyberia.is%3A6969%2Fannounce

    Episode 2 - magnet:?xt=urn:btih:F55992F922B9A0E49C09E198835F0F06EE07635B&dn=India+The+Modi+Question+S01E02+1080p+HDTV+H264-DARKFLiX&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.opentrackr.org%3A1337&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.leechers-paradise.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.dler.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopentracker.i2p.rocks%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2F47.ip-51-68-199.eu%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.internetwarriors.net%3A1337%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2F9.rarbg.to%3A2920%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.pirateparty.gr%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.cyberia.is%3A6969%2Fannounce

Would never have watched if it wasn't banned, the irony :)

Streisand...

based, will be seeding over the night

>Kanchan Gupta, an adviser at the ministry, said the government had ordered Twitter and YouTube to take down dozens of accounts that had been airing clips of the Modi documentary on the basis that it was “undermining the sovereignty and integrity of India” and “making unsubstantiated allegations”.

>“Videos sharing BBC World hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage, disguised as ‘documentary’ on YouTube, and tweets sharing links to the BBC documentary have been blocked under India’s sovereign laws and rules,” Gupta said in a tweet.

I have not seen it. BBC rarely, although sometimes, makes crap. Not sure if this is Modi not being open for critique or really a threat to India's sovereignity.

India must be really brittle if a BBC documentary can threaten its sovereignty.

But so it is always with these leaders - sometimes portrayed as so very strong, sometimes so easily bruised.

IMHO the strategy behind banning is mainly not to "censor" or prevent Indians knowing about it. Instead it serve as a rallying point and arouse siege mentality to his supporters.

Wow this is some Chinese level of censorship. Never understood why a country needs to bother with maintaining its perceived image. Just issue a statement & move on.

All normal actions for someone with nothing to hide...

triple Streisand alert--woop woop woop!

Lurking at the twitter, it's just agitating Modi supporters instead.

Reading Reddit it seems that this is now being viewed and reviewed by nearly all Indian university students.

It seems so, and Twitter responses already accused Unis being leftist bastions. The whole point is to introduce us/them mentality better than your opponents.

It is actually about holding authorities responsible for enforcing the peace instead of allowing riots. You are junking up some basic moral issues with political and social media foolishness.

The documentary is now screened in many college campuses across India.

Interestingly, pornography is banned there as well. It would seem that in order to have truly free speech, a culture must tolerate some form of degeneracy. As we do in the United States.

Modi, meet Streisand...

The Streisand effect only works when the censor lacks power and popularity.

India, and Britain, and Canada do not have freedom of speech.

Better luck next time, BBC.

It's hard to see how democracies are any better than the Chinese authoritarian system when stuff like this happens.

I want to believe in democracy, but most real democracies seem to be intent on self-destruction and devolving to authoritarian states.

There is real opposition to Modi's authoritarianism in India, since as a democracy, states have some relative autonomy. Tamil Nadu's DMK party is really interesting in this regard, and have a history pushing back against Modi's hindi/hindutva nationalism.

IMO, the closer political polarization of a democracy gets to the 50/50 mark the more authoritarian it seems because half of the population is being ruled by another half it vehemently disagrees with.

India following PRC footsteps in cracking down foreign influence from NGO funding to state media, which BBC functionally is. Being ostensibly democratic doesn't mean accepting society to ideological influence from other democracies especially for civilzational states. She's just going to have much harder time with domestic english fluency among elites and large diasphora abroad vunerable to ideological capture. Modi done surprisingly decent job rallying the latter.

Where is this civilizational state in preamble to Indian constitution?

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