| 31st January |
|
|
| Artist beaten up in New Delhi over paintings claimed to be against Indian culture Permalink
|
See article
from vancouversun.com
|
An
Indian artist Pranava Prakash was assaulted by a gang who burst
into the gallery in New Delhi, where he is exhibiting nudes of
top Bollywood star Vidya Balan and other public figures. He told
AFP:
Five guys came in on Sunday and started
yelling at me, saying 'Your paintings are against Indian
culture, we cannot tolerate them
They slapped me twice, threw me to the
floor and then began pulling down the paintings, damaging
three of my pictures.
There is a certain section of people who
think they alone are the custodians of Indian culture, and
anyone who disagrees with them is the enemy.
|
| 30th January |
|
|
| Censorship has spread like a disease through Bangladesh Permalink
|
3rd January 2012. See article
from bbc.co.uk
|
The Bangladeshi government has approved a repressive new
anti-pornography law which would see offenders jailed for up to
10 years.
It is believed to be Bangladesh's first law specifically
targeting the spread of pornography. The legislation, which is
likely to be passed by parliament, bans making or selling of any
kind of pornographic material. Those found guilty could also be
fined up to $6,000.
The move seems to have come about after a string of sex tape
scandals involving female celebrities.
Abul Kalam Azad, a government spokesman, claimed that the
measures aim to protect young people and women from pornography,
which he said, had spread like a disease through the internet
and mobile phone technology.
Update: Passed by Parliament
30th January 2012. See article
from bdnews24.com
A bill was tabled in parliament with provisions of up to
seven years of jail sentence for production, storage, marketing,
sale, carrying, supply and exhibition of pornography.
Home minister Shahara Khatun presented the Pornography
Control Act 2012 after which it was sent to a parliamentary
committee for scrutiny.
According to the bill pornography is any dialogue, acting,
posture, unclothed or partially unclothed dance in cinema,
video, photography, graphics, audio-visual image or imagery
otherwise captured and displayable, which causes sexual arousal
and has no artistic or educational value. Also, such books,
magazines, sculptures, cartoons and leaflets which cause the
sexual arousal, and their negatives and soft copies would also
be considered pornography.
The home minister claimed that pornography was spreading like
a terrible disease across society and in absence of any
law the crime and criminals cannot be stopped.
|
| 28th January |
|
|
| Indian Army orders its personnel to refrain from using social networking websites Permalink
|
See article
from techtree.com
|
The
Indian Army has reportedly asked all its personnel to quit
social networking websites with immediate effect. It has
directed them to refrain from joining social networking websites
including Facebook, Orkut, and Google+. The policy is said to
safeguard the well-being of army personnel.
According to sources, the Indian Army had been monitoring the
social networking activities of its officers to find out if they
posted uniformed photos of themselves, weaponry, or other units
for the past few months. It has now decided to issue a blanket
ban on all such websites throughout the ranks.
The US Army has also suggested care over information
sharedvia social networking lest it be used by terrorist
organisations to target army units. They suggested:
- Restricting privacy settings to Only Me or Friends.
- Remove any personally identifiable data.
- Avoid sharing details about bases and capabilities
- Disable GPS/tagging/tracking applications
|
| 24th January |
|
|
| Pakistan starts blocking porn websites Permalink full story: Internet Censorship in Pakistan...internet website blocking
|
See article
from newspakistan.pk
|
Pakistan
has begun to implement a long threatened block on internet porn.
The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority has provided a list to
the ISP's in Pakistan to block the frequently accessed adult
sites. It is believed that more web pages will be added to the
initial banned list of 1,000 websites and as many as 170,000
websites may be banned in the near future.
The currently blocked websites redirects the users to a new
page with the following error message, This page is blocked
due to restrictions enforced by the Pakistan Telecommunications
Authority (PTA).
|
| 21st January |
|
|
| Indian High Commission complains to the BBC over the TOP Gear Christmas Special Permalink full story: Top Gear...Top Gear and Jeremy Clarkson wind up whingers
|
12th January 2012. See article
from telegraph.co.uk
|
Top
Gear's Christmas Special had a bit of fun in India. The usual
irreverent jokes ridiculed India's food, toilets, traditional
clothing, trains and history.
The jokes notably included Clarkson riding around the
country's worst slums in a 4-litre Jaguar fitted with a toilet,
joking: This is perfect because everyone here gets the trots.
Not all the jokes targeted India, there was plenty of self
effacing fun too. An advertising banner incompetently pasted to
the side of train was split as carriages parted losing the
last 3 letters from: Eat English Muffins
Even David Cameron participated in the Top Gear fun. He had a
cameo role waving off the Top Gear trio on a trade mission
as ambassadors of Britain to save the UK from bankruptcy.
At the time the programme got up the nose of the nutter mp
Keith Vaz.
Now the Indian High Commission in London has formally
complained to the BBC, accusing its producers of deceiving them
over the nature of the programme, which was jokingly billed as a
trade mission.
Update: BBC Response
18th January 2012. See article
from bbc.co.uk
Complaint
We've received complaints from some viewers
who felt the Top Gear: India Special was offensive towards the
country and its culture.
Top Gear's response
The Top Gear road trip across India was
filled with incidents but none of them were an insult to the
Indian people or the culture of the country. Our film showed the
charm, the beauty, the wealth, the poverty and the
idiosyncrasies of India but there's a vast difference between
showing a country, warts and all, and insulting it. It's simply
not the case that we displayed a hostile or superior attitude to
our hosts and that's very clear from the way the presenters can
be seen to interact with them along the way. We genuinely loved
our time in India and if there were any jokes to be had they
were, as ever, reflected back on the presenters rather than the
Indian people.
Offsite Comment: Don't give way to the Top
Gear-bashers
21st January 2012. See article
from spiked-online.com
What
Clarkson's audience understands that his shrill critics do not
is that he is not to be taken seriously.
I wonder what proportion of the five million
viewers of the Top Gear India Special over Christmas was
desperate-to-be-offended members of the chattering classes?
Skipping the second instalment of Great Expectations, they no
doubt sat through the show solely to tweet about how awful
Jeremy Clarkson and Co's monkeying about on the road to the
Indian Himalayas was.
...Read the full article
|
| 20th January |
|
|
| Google India points out to the court that it is not responsible for the content of Google Inc. websites Permalink full story: Internet Censorship in India...India considers blanket ban on internet porn
|
12th January 2012. See
article from
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
|
Google
India has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court saying that
it does not exercise any control over content on YouTube,
Google, Orkut or Blogspot in India, and thus can't be summoned
to an Indian court in a criminal case against it related to
inflammatory images of Gods and Goddesses posted on some of its
websites.
The petition to quash a criminal complaint was submitted by
Google India's lawyers in the Delhi High Court.
The original criminal complaint was filed by editor of
Akbari, Vinay Rai last month. Google's India MD Rajan
Anandan has been summoned to appear in a lower court on Friday
in connection with this complaint.
According to the petition, Google India says that it has been
appointed just as a distributor of Google Inc.'s Adwords program
in India, and thus it's India MD does not control the Blogger,
Google or YouTube websites. Google India furthur says that sites
such as Orkut.com are owned by Google Inc, and thus it is not
even an intermediary' as defined in the Indian IT Act, and thus
can't be summoned to answer in any case regarding content.
Mukul Rohatgi, counsel for Google India, told ET that it's
humanly impossible to monitor or remove the content before it is
uploaded on the internet. My client Google India is different
from Google Inc, and does not have any control over the
platform. Google India is just an advertising and revenue
collection body.
Appearing for Vinay Rai, his counsel SPM Tripathi said that
according to IT Rules, 2011, the websites have to remove the
content within 36 hours of receiving a court order, which they
have not complied with. The content on the websites is
derogatory against Hindu, Muslim and Christian Gods and
Goddesses, and can spark a riot if publicised. It incites hatred
and enmity between communities and thus should be removed by the
parties.
Update: Delays in the case India v The
Internet
20th January 2012. See article
from zdnet.com
The Delhi High Court delayed hearings on petitions by
Facebook and Google to dismiss criminal proceedings against them
in the country's Web censorship case. The two Internet giants
are among 21 companies that have been asked to develop a
mechanism to block objectionable material in India, and the
Indian government has given the green light for their
prosecution.
Earlier this week, Facebook and Google told the Delhi High
Court they cannot block offensive content that appears on their
services. Although the case was originally filed in a lower
court, the companies have appealed to the Delhi High Court,
challenging the lower court's ruling asking them to take down
some content. The high court has now pushed back the case till
February 2, according to NDTV. If their petitions fail, the 21
companies will have to face trial in the lower court, which has
its next hearing scheduled for March 13.
|
| 20th January |
|
|
| Court considers whether one state is allowed to override an India wide film certificate Permalink
|
See article
from zeenews.india.com
|
India's
Supreme Court has slammed the Tamil Nadu state government for
banning the screening of film Dam 999, saying that
when the whole country has one constitution, your state can't
have a separate constitution.
The court asked how the state government could ban the
screening of the film after the Central Board of Film
Certification (CBFC) has granted a certificate for the
exhibition of the film.
The court, however, did not pass any order actually ifting
the state government's ban.
Justice Ganguly said: The law is clear and the freedom of
speech and expression has to be protected. If you are
apprehending the breach of peace and law and order, it is your
duty to take steps to prevent the same.
The court said that the state government had no role to
suspend the screening of a film once the censor board has
allowed the screening of the film in the entire country and
issued a certificate to that effect.
The amil Nadu state government must now explain its actions
by Jan 25 in time for the next hearing on Feb 9.
|
| 14th January |
|
|
| India's film censor cuts Ghost, hyped as the country's most violent film ever Permalink
|
See article
from hindustantimes.com
|
The
major Bollywood film, Ghost, has received the full
censorial treatment. Supposedly excessive gore-content offended
India's film censor who made severe cuts.
Director Puja Jatinder Bedi says that some of the cuts have been
unjustified. The censor board cut one of the most important scenes in
my film. It's a scene where the ghost gets crucified like Jesus Christ.
The scene was very pivotal for the screenplay, said Bedi.
The censor board felt that the crucifixion would hurt religious
sentiments of the Christian community. Also, the brutality was being
perpetrated on a woman. The blood and gore content is high enough for
Ghost to be rated as the most violent film ever. So, the censors have
toned down all the murder sequences, she added.
However, when contacted, J.P. Singh, the censor board's regional
officer at Mumbai, said that the crucifixion sequence had only been
reduced, not removed.
That scene is still there in the film. Only its length has been
shortened to reduce the impact of the extreme brutality shown on a girl.
The examining committee has given five-six cuts. All of them were
extremely brutal. There was a scene showing a dead body's legs being
cut. Another excessively violent scene showed a girl being beaten for a
very long time by many people, said Singh.
|
| 13th January |
|
|
| India's new TV censor makes first report after 6 months of viewer whinges Permalink full story: TV Censorship in India...India considers the regulation of TV for adults
|
See article
from business-standard.com
|
 |
|
Sunny Leone
Biggest reasons for complaint
|
India's Broadcast Content Complaints Council (BCCC) received
3,441 complaints in six months since its inception in June last
year, with biggest attractions for complaint being a Rakhi
Sawant hosted programme and the appearance of porn star Sunny
Leone in reality show Bigg Boss 5.
The self-regulatory body dismissed most of the complaints,
officials said. Just 479 were specific complaints which were
considered in remit and were heard by the Counci.
Among these 36 complaints specifically raised issues related
to the appearance of Leone on Colors Channel programme Bigg Boss
5. Some of the complainants had claimed that children are being
exposed to porn industry as they are getting curious to know who
is a porn star.
BCCC upheld the whinges against Leone considering her
appearance on Bigg Boss-5 to be promotional material for her own
websites. The censor advised the channel to choose future
participants with care.
The most complaints, 58, were received about the telecast of
a programme Gazab Desh ki azab Kahania which was hosted
by Rakhi Sawant on Imagine TV.
A majority of the other complainants objected to depiction of
sexuality in television programmes. BCCC took action ranging for
advising channels to not telecast programmes during general
viewing hours to prohibiting telecast in some cases.
|
| 12th January |
|
|
| Bangladesh Facebook commentator sentenced to 6 months jail for musing about the death of the PM Permalink
|
See article
from huffingtonpost.co.uk
|
Last
August, Muhammad Ruhul Amin Khandaker, a lecturer of the Department of
Information and Technology at Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh,
updated his Facebook status to comment on a series of fatal road traffic
accidents involving celebritries.
With a heavy dose of irony the lecturer asked on his Facebook profile why
the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, couldn't suffer a similar fate.
Maybe it wasn't clever or very funny, but expressing the wish that a
political leader could vanish is the kind of thing stated all over the
internet on a daily basis. Clearly there is a line to be drawn between
people just wishing they did not have to endure politicians in their life
and people who are directly making a threat to the life of an elected
leader.
That line is called common sense. But in this case the Bangladeshi
government doesn't seem to possess a great deal of it as the High Court just
sentenced Khandaker to six months in jail.
|
| 8th January |
|
|
| India serves up edgy American TV but then makes it incomprehensible via extreme censor cuts Permalink
|
See article
from smh.com.au
|
In
an effort to attract younger viewers without offending the older ones,
Indian TV is now showing some of America's edgiest shows - but cutting out
the edge.
One incident turned an episode of Friends into a legend
of unwatchable TV. The show hinged on the gag that two pages in a cookbook
got stuck together and the character Rachel mistakenly made a fruit pastry
with beef. The station bleeped out the word beef, a show of sensitivity for
Hindus' reverence for cows, leaving viewers to guess why her diners were so
disgusted.
It's just as perplexing for the suddenly chaste vampires
of the lusty True Blood and for the serial killer star of Dexter, who is
constantly changing blood-splattered clothes for no apparent reason on
Indian TV. Or for David Duchovny's Californication lech Hank Moody, who
disappears into a bedroom with a beautiful women and then suddenly appears
in a disjointed scene from later in the episode.
...Read the full article
|
|
|