Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 244 posts

Re: Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN

#131

Post by owaislone »

connectsnk wrote: post #90
definitelyRobot wrote: post #20

As a young tech person in India, this stuff makes me so angry. The ruling party here (BJP) doesn't have any real competition. Which means they can get away with pretty much anything. 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 n…

I am in Jammu(India) right now and can attest that comments like above are only opinions and not facts. As goes for any country, people keep inventing stuff / leaving crucial details because of their own biases and self interests. The same goes for people who support BJP.

Anyone remotely familiar with the region would know that Jammu is virtually the same as rest of India when it comes to Indian state policies regarding the state of J&K. Kashmir is an entirely different story and that is what is being discussed.

Re: Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN

#132

Post by owaislone »

shripadk wrote: post #117
connectsnk wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in Jammu(India) right now and can attest that comments like above are only opinions and not facts. As goes for any country, people keep inventing stuff / leaving crucial details because of their own biases and self interests. The same goes for people who support BJP.

Absolutely right. It is ridiculous to think that the Government will not restrict communications in a region that has seen nothing but violence and terrorism for the past 30 years since the Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. For the first time in 3 decades the Valley is peaceful. If it comes down to choosing between deaths of innocents by deranged terrorists and cutting communication I would always choose the latter. The Pu…

How many times did you visit the valley in the last 30 years? Please tell us how peaceful or violent it was during your last 5 visits.

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.

Re: Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN

#133

Post by champagneben »

throwawayhhakdl wrote: post #54
friendly_fren wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think nationalism is bad?

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/an-important-distinction 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.

Would the formation of Israel be an expression of nationalism? Can it in that light be seen as the belief that one's country or ethnic group is just as deserving as others'? Or to take a more recent example of Kurdish nationalism.

Re: Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN

#134

Post by definitelyRobot »

mindfulhack wrote: post #115
definitelyRobot wrote: post #20

As a young tech person in India, this stuff makes me so angry. The ruling party here (BJP) doesn't have any real competition. Which means they can get away with pretty much anything. 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 n…

> They've banned VPNs. They'll chuck you in prison if you speak against the government or a politician. 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.…

HTTPS, and a throwaway account that cannot be linked to me. I live in an urban area where the internet isn't very restricted (other than DNS-level blocks for porn and piracy sites). The same is not there for the people in Kashmir, who have had very little (and severely restricted) access to the internet in the past eight months or so.

Re: Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN

#135

Post by pscz »

definitelyRobot wrote: post #20

As a young tech person in India, this stuff makes me so angry. The ruling party here (BJP) doesn't have any real competition. Which means they can get away with pretty much anything. 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 n…

>Even the media is afraid to speak out against BJP

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hindu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire_(India)

Re: Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN

#136

Post by _-david-_ »

_jgdh wrote: post #86
legolas2412 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're calling you anti-national. Basically a traitor.

For Americans, this is identical to when Sen. Joseph McCarthy was branding people "Unamerican". The BJP have succeeded in establishing their brand of hatred and stupidity as the only valid form of patriotism.

[flagged]

Re: Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN

#137

Post by _jgdh »

Quick summary of the situation in India

- 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...

Re: Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN

#138

Post by truncate »

_jgdh wrote: post #87
magduf wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Clever circumvention technologies such as VPN won't save you when they arrest your for using circumvention technologies. 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 plac…

You can use VPNs in other parts of the country, just not in the areas where internet access has been banned. While this is an egregious abuse of power and a gross violation of the rights of Kashmiris, it is not happening in the rest of the country.

How is use of VPN is enforced? Looking at credit card transactions?

Use-cases like these makes cryptocurrency so much appealing. Where I can potentially spend my money like normal physical cash.

Re: Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN

#139

Post by happygolucky_in »

_jgdh wrote: post #103
thbr99 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literacy is key to eradicate authoritarian BJP in India. Because the last standing state is the most literate state in India which is Kerala.

I don't think this is true. Some of the most educated and wealthy people support the BJP, fascist though the party may be. Look at the vote split in the recent Delhi election. All upper caste voters flocked to the BJP by margins of 20%+. Dalits and Muslims voted AAP. Upper castes are disproportionately wealthy and educated. My theory for this is that such people (relatives of mine included, sadly) are just higher on…

This is pretty spot on. Something as simple and basic as the Maslow's hierarchy explains the voting pattern in India. It is no coincidence that rising middle class has coincided with the rise in BJP's electoral returns. With their basic needs met, their worry now is to protect their Gods, reconstructing a temple that was supposedly demolished 500 years ago and goddam cows! They really do not care about the plight of the less fortunate around them. Concepts like freedom of expression, individual liberty, equality etc. are of not much importance to them.

Re: Indian police open case against hundreds in Kashmir for using VPN

#140

Post by untempered »

definitelyRobot wrote: post #20

As a young tech person in India, this stuff makes me so angry. The ruling party here (BJP) doesn't have any real competition. Which means they can get away with pretty much anything. 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 n…

BJP lost several elections recently- so they do have a competition in politics.

I'm in India and use VPN. VPN is not banned. What are you smoking. If speaking against the government lands you in prison then why are you not in a jail right now - Spreading false information and propoganda.

If someone like Sharjeel or Kanhaiya want to break India into pieces using political activism then it IS ANTI-NATIONAL.

Protestors whothrow rocks or petrol bombs at police should be identofied and put in jail.

What propoganda is BJP serving, where can I get it?

You spoke your mind on an anonymous forum. Go to Twitter and you can see thousands if not Lakhs of people bashing the government for various issues and nothing happens to them.

You have not met the majority, you do not know about them why do you generalise the entire population of India as some mindless robots that BJP uses for elections.

You know how much work has been done in terms of stopping terror attacks in the past 6 years. There were blasts in the metro cities once or twice by some random terrorist organisations, now except some hotspots like JK things are relatively calm.

Media as usual with their bias is either in bed with the government or bashing them on every single issues.

The only issue is that you don't see the full picture resort to falsification to suit your agenda and spread lies.

Post reply on HN