BSNL - Illegal Blockade of MediaCrooks

‘Connecting India’! That’s the tag-line of the government telecommunication company called Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). Lately, it seems to do a lot more than connecting India. It also seems to secretly and illegally disconnect India. From the evening of July 17 I have been receiving messages, even complaints, from regular readers of this blog that they haven’t been able to access MediaCrooks. It was initially surprising since I was able to access it and I had posted a fresh article early the next day on July 19. I thought it must be some temporary problems with the connection or the service providers of those readers. 

Then the messages kept growing and on checking I found that all of these readers were using internet services provided by BSNL. On the evening of July 18 I put out the following message through a tweet stating options readers could use to access the MediaCrooks articles: (Please click and open tweet images on a separate tab and enlarge to read)

I chose not to assume BSNL had blocked MediaCrooks or that there was a Central govt order of any kind to ban this site since it was accessible to users through other Internet service providers in India. I have been able to access the site, review comments and post articles (including this one) without any problems. But it does appear that BSNL has blocked access to the site. I wish to state in no uncertain terms to BSNL or any govt authority that this site does not contain any content that breaks any law of the land, does not contain any pornographic material, it’s not a commentary on religion that can disturb peace and harmony or result in riots, it is not even political in nature.

The objective of the site is to critique and expose the Indian mainstream media. In that, it surely does include politics, politicians and other people and entities in the context of media and their reporting and coverage of issues. Does this site offend certain sections of people and entities? Yes, it probably does and delights in the consequence of its articles! It delights in criticising the media when they act in an indiscriminate manner, when they lie, when they distort facts. It offends media personalities for their glaring blunders and deliberate manipulation of facts. MediaCrooks delights in criticising politicians when they utter nonsense or appear to support injustice. This will continue and it will not stop.

I have not received any notification or information of any kind on whether BSNL has blocked the site and, if so, for what reason. Now that BSNL users have not been able to access the site for over 3 days it would be fair to assume that some govt official must have passed on a clandestine, unwritten and illegal order to BSNL to block the site. If the govt has done so and if BSNL has obliged them then both are in serious violation of the law and my rights to publish my views. I also presume there has been no advice to Google, which hosts this site, on any objections to the content on this site else I am sure I would have heard from them. Thus it seems quite obvious and fair to assume the illegal blockage by BSNL has been instigated by some govt quarters. They were probably unhappy over criticism of some official, minister or politician precious to the govt.

On July 20 I wrote the following email (cvo@bsnl.co.in) to BSNL requesting an explanation of this blockage. I await a response:

I publish a site titled www.mediacrooks.com. Since the evening of July 18, 2012 I have been receiving complaints from readers through Twitter and by Email that those who were accessing the site through the Internet services of BSNL have not been able to access my site. I would request you to note the following points:

1. The complaints from readers through various sources have raised suspicion that BSNL has BLOCKED access to my site as a Censorship act and measure.

2. Please confirm if the blocking of my site is true and correct. In case access to my site has been blocked I have to state that I have no intimation from any government sources or your own organisation for the same. I wish to add that blocking access to my site is illegal and breaches the fundamental right of free speech and access to such content.

3. My site is essentially a critique of issues in the Mainstream Media and does not in any way break any law whatsoever.

I would request you to restore access to my website for users of BSNL's Internet service. In case you still continue to block access to the site as suspected by many readers please let me know on what grounds and for what reasons such access is blocked. A screenshot of complaints that were noticed on Twitter is also attached for your reference. This is being written without any prejudice to my legal rights.

While I wait for a response from BSNL I wish to assure readers that they can access content of MediaCrooks through other options in my tweet mentioned earlier. I also wish to state that if BSNL has indeed carried out the blockage then we must estimate what a dangerous tool it is in the hands of the govt and politicians. This is a good reason why govt must not be in control of any business, especially not a communication organisation. It is clearly a grave danger in a democracy. This is not an issue relating to a single blog site. This does bear a serious threat to every blogger and writer. Am I going to stop writing? Fat chance! I must mention though, that if I do not receive a satisfactory response from BSNL to my mail the issue won’t rest. As govt officials, politicians, media and ministers are so fond of quoting, I will use the same line that they do: “The issue will reach its logical conclusion and the law will take its own course”. In the meantime, I have a modest suggestion for BSNL. “Change your tag line, Change it to Dis-Connecting India”! 

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Shekhar Gupta Lays An Egg

General Douglas MacArthur was easily one of the most powerful army generals there ever was. He was the youngest Chief of Staff of the US Army. He was the one that oversaw the surrender of Japan in 1945 as WWII ended. For many years he was effectively the ruler of Japan. He was Field Marshall of the Philippine army as also the Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific area. In 1951, in a continuing confrontation with his boss, President Harry Truman, he was fired. Gen. MacArthur remains a celebrated hero in the US. Parks and monuments are named after him. Stories about him are told in classrooms. Songs have been written and sung about him. Films have been made about him.

Gen. MacArthur left the army in honour. But if you go by the imagination of the likes of Shekhar Gupta the general would have conducted strange manoeuvres to battle the President instead of leaving and almost staged a coup. Maybe he would have even declared himself permanent emperor of Japan and Philippines This is what journalism has fallen to at the Indian Express. Turning incidents of ‘un-notified’ troop movement into fear-mongering and misleading the nation to believe there was grave danger of a coup. We will come to all of that in a bit.

Before you proceed maybe you would like to look up a bit of history. Here are some posts on this site about Gupta’s passionate skulduggery for the Congress party. ‘Shekhar Gupta's Summer Freeze’, ‘Shekhar Gupta - Doctoring & Nursing The Congress’ and ‘Saving Shekhar’s Indian Express’. Nobody can recall how a newspaper that was famous for its bold anti-establishment stance and standing up for freedom of the press has come to be a doormat for a political party. In the recent past Gupta and his pitiful rag, including writers like Tavleen Singh, have done hit jobs on anyone that has had a confrontation with the Congress-UPA govt. This includes Anna Hazare and Team Anna, particularly Kiran Bedi, Baba Ramdev and now comes the turn of the Army chief Gen.VK Singh.

So today, April 4, the Indian Express splashes a front page story with screaming headlines: “The January night Raisina Hill was spooked: Two key Army units moved towards Delhi without notifying Govt.” This is about the night of January 16 when the Army chief and the govt. were in a confrontation over the General’s age issue. On January 16 the army chief had filed a petition in the Supreme Court in the issue of his date of birth. Strange co-incidence at best you might say. What’s the story? Intel agencies reported an unexpected, un-notified movement by key military units, from infantry units based in Hisar (Haryana) in the direction of Delhi, about 150 km away. Following this, there was a flurry of activities in the defence department with even a Defence Secretary being recalled from a foreign tour. That the troops were stopped outside Delhi. To add to the drama, as IE states: “..The situation changed rapidly, though. Reports came in of yet another military movement “towards” Delhi. This unit was identified as a large element of the airborne 50 Para Brigade based at Agra”. The govt. didn’t know and according to the IE report army spokesperson had clarified that these were routine exercises.

But the mischief is not in the event or the incident of January 16 itself. The mischief is in the headline of IE, especially when read in the background of recent bad-blood between the Army and the Defence Ministry and the govt. It clearly led all other news outlets and the general public to believe that there was a possible ‘coup’ attempt that night. Clever! And throughout the day news channels have been busy discussing if it was indeed a coup attempt and what could have been the possible outcomes of such troop movements. Somewhere in his dark, dusty office at the IE building in Delhi Shekhar Gupta and his co-writers of the article, Ritu Sarin and Pranab Samanta must have had a good laugh over having fooled everybody, including their competitors. And if all that wasn’t enough you will have Sagarika Ghose, India’s best Defence expert, debating if reporting on ‘sensitive’ matters relating to the Army is  ‘anti-national’ on her show FTN on CNN-IBN. Bravo!

So what exactly was the motive for Shekhar Gupta’s mischief? Let’s read the opening lines of his article: “This is a story you would tell with extreme care and caution. But it so starkly characterises the current state of top-level politico-military relations that it is a folly to keep it under wraps, as the entire establishment has tried to do for a full 11 weeks now”. So you read that and tighten your belts to read the biggest scandal or potential threat. But the article hits the peak in the first few lines and then its downhill all the way. For all the experts who speculated on a possible coup the IE cleverly doesn’t even mention the word even once. That is great trickery at its best because it leaves so much to your imagination. At a press conference reporters even asked A.K. Antony if there were threats of a coup and he dismissed the IE report as ‘baseless’. The PM dismissed the IE report as ‘alarmist’ and TimesNow had to call in expert Mahroof Raza to explain the coup possibilities. In his usual candid assessment Raza dismissed the possibilities as ‘nonsense’ without actually saying so. Another past senior army officer called the report “planted by anti-national elements”. I would tend to agree with him. So essentially the IE article was sensationalism at best and utter nonsense at worse. Other than the spooky headline there is actually nothing in the article that is worth being alarmed.

Given that the Army chief has had confrontations with the defence ministry, there is a stinging letter by him to the PM which was leaked (and exposed by DNA), and this has resulted in the govt cutting a sorry figure in the continuing episodes, something had to be done. That seems to be the motive behind the sensational headline by Shekhar Gupta which makes it sound as if the Army had nearly run over an elected govt in India. Secondly, the article also clandestinely casts a shadow over Gen. VK Singh and makes it sound like he may have gone to the extent of over-throwing the govt on account of his fight with the govt. Of course, it doesn’t say all this in so many words but let’s you draw that conclusion. So like with Team Anna and Kiran Bedi and others Shekhar Gupta attempted another hit job on the Army and the Army Chief. Unfortunately, his attempt can be best described as a ‘failed coup’.

Despite his confrontations with President Truman, Gen.MacArthur was and remains forever a very popular General. The govt. probably realised that there is little they could do with Gen. VK Singh considering the immense popularity he has acquired as he took on corruption and the corrupt in the Army. Had they so desired they could have removed Gen. Singh but not tried to dent his reputation and popularity. Instead, there has been a lot of mud-slinging against Gen. Singh from the govt. and particularly the ‘anti-national’ media. Shekhar Gupta’s ‘failed coup’ is another attempt at that and nothing more. That the entire story could be a 'plant' is further reasoned by this article in the the SundayGuardian: "Senior minister Sutradhar of coup report?"

Once upon a time the IE was the second most read newspaper in Bombay and in many other cities. It has sunk without a trace in many cities and survival against competition can only be with putting out lousy stories with screaming headlines. By evening today, Shekhar Gupta is the laughing stock of the nation. He will really have to start worrying how he spooked himself and IE. He managed to lay an egg alright. LOL! He made only one mistake – He should have called Arindam to count it before it hatched. As it stands, this has to be the worst report of the year gone terribly wrong so far.