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India’s Downward Spiral

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Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#71

Post by skrebbel »

virtuabhi wrote: post #22
RealGeek wrote: post #2

In India, people are being arrested for voicing disagreement with politicians and influential people on social media. You could even be arrested for liking a Facebook post criticizing a politician. http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/19/indian-woman-arrested-ov...

Yes, this is true. We are definitely not near the US standard on the defense of free speech. But the case you mentioned is one of the small number of such cases (I remember one from the state of West Bengal). And in this case, the over eagerness of local authorities was criticized by both the government and public. As of now, I would place India somewhere between UK (with its defamation laws) and US (gold standard of…

I think it's absolutely nuts that you're being downvoted into oblivion. The fact that these crackdowns were criticized widely is a good contribution to the debate.

It appears that there's people in this thread who downvote anyone who's from India and doesn't think things are as bad as suggested.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#72

Post by netcan »

leephillips wrote: post #3

This is an unsurprising extension into the electronic realm of India's notoriously weak support of free expression. They were the first country to ban the Satanic Verses ; its import, I believe, is still illegal there. Citizens are routinely persecuted under laws that literally prohibit hurting people's religious feelings (recently invoked against a researcher who exposed another fake Catholic miracle[0]). India is t…

I seriously believe we are today reaping the fruits of many of the fruits of feeble defense given to Salman Rushdie following that episode. A murder was commissioned by a head of state and the response was to perhaps consider that some people might be theologically offended by this work of art by a soft spoken man.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#73

Post by estebank »

thewarrior wrote: post #55
rayiner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confusing "democracy" with "secular humanism." India is a deeply conservative, religious place. The people voting don't have any problems with laws that prohibit hurting peoples' religious feelings.

Westerners don't understand that Eastern societies place far greater emphasis on respecting existing social norms/ structures and the idea of "order" . This is there even in the Indian Constitution. The govt. is allowed to impose restrictions on fundamental rights in order to maintain order and harmony. First Amendment absolutism is totally out of the question in the Indian context.

Even if I could understand disagreeing with "first ammendment absolutism", there are few words that scare me as much as "harmony" when uttered as the reason behind "actions to maintain order".

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#74

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

3838 wrote: post #36
virtuabhi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I have seen UID scheme being mentioned as a surveillance tool. The aim of the scheme is to replace the outdated mechanisms - signature, name and address papers which can easily be forged. Why poor people are encouraged to register under the UID scheme? So that the benefits provided by India's socialist governments (central and state) can reach them without any corruption or delay. The fear of i…

other governments have proposed similar things - in europe there is a widespread distrust of these systems because they were used very effectively by the Nazi's - record keeping in the Netherlands was very good - 75% of jews were killed, in france the people collecting data conspired to protect jews by not punching the jew slot on the punched card and only 25% were killed a belgian company sold an ID system to the rw…

The Nazis didn't need IDs, they just used census data.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#75

Post by bipin-nag »

skrebbel wrote: post #70
bipin-nag wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a community meet, hosted by Europe's largest association of hacker. It is not an official gathering of human right leaders, they act on selfish interests. Are they known for their humanitarian efforts, certainly not. If anything they would break and work against the security measures, malicious or not depends on them. Through the entire meeting, they mocked the laws, quoting from handful cases which you have be…

May I remind you that you are posting on a site called "Hacker News"?

Hacker News has nothing to do with hacking, you certainly know it. Can you prove the same for that community. Can you? Everyone reading the post is hung up on word hackers. People keep playing the word loose. Even if it is for fun can you deny they can do no harm. Kindly imagine the hypocrisy and the irony of them suggesting how we should manage freedom of expression by mocking our internet safeguard. Come on. I believed in Hacker News being a place where you could discuss with open mind, why is it so hard for other people to accept this point.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#76

Post by [deleted] »

skrebbel wrote: post #70
bipin-nag wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a community meet, hosted by Europe's largest association of hacker. It is not an official gathering of human right leaders, they act on selfish interests. Are they known for their humanitarian efforts, certainly not. If anything they would break and work against the security measures, malicious or not depends on them. Through the entire meeting, they mocked the laws, quoting from handful cases which you have be…

May I remind you that you are posting on a site called "Hacker News"?

[deleted]

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#80

Post by infinity0 »

thewarrior wrote: post #55
rayiner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confusing "democracy" with "secular humanism." India is a deeply conservative, religious place. The people voting don't have any problems with laws that prohibit hurting peoples' religious feelings.

Westerners don't understand that Eastern societies place far greater emphasis on respecting existing social norms/ structures and the idea of "order" . This is there even in the Indian Constitution. The govt. is allowed to impose restrictions on fundamental rights in order to maintain order and harmony. First Amendment absolutism is totally out of the question in the Indian context.

No, we understand it. It doesn't mean it's a good thing to do, or that we agree with it and won't criticise it.

Also, I am from the East though I grew up in the West, and the attempt to deflect criticism just on the basis of "it's a different society" is disgusting, a hindrance to progress, and frankly quite racist. There is an ongoing campaign in India against the practice of dowry, I guess you also want to argue "Westerners don't understand that India just traditionally has dowry"??

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