"Blogs are the best when it comes to expressing your opinions and thoughts freely". Alas i have had to eat humble pie on the above statement made in one of my earlier posts. Well all free thoughts are held within certain judicious parameters in every country ,which calls itself as a sovereign democratic entity.
Let me appraise you of the recent goingons in India pertaining to the above issue. A management sector employee of IBM India based in Delhi writes or posts his personal take on IIPM (i dont remember the abbreviation) the Management School led by prolific MBA guru Mr. Arindam Chaudhri. In his post he questions the validity of the supposedly tall claims made by IIPM in almost all media sectors , predominantly in the full page advertisements in leading National Daily newspapers. Things such as" Dare to dream beyond IIMS", " Best International Faculty hailing from Kelloggs, Wharton and Harvard Business Schools", Plum International Placements etc etc; A local magazine picks up this post and prints it in one of its issues. Now IIPM swings into action and sues both the magazine and also the blogger on charges of conniving to defame the reputed institute. But then matters got worse with IIPM students reportedly saying that they will burn their IBM laptops , 1500 or more which were supplied by IBM last year. Now the blogger was left with no other option and so in his own words " I decided to resign from my position, and avoid my company the embaressment, & in turn protect my freedom of speech".
This in itself is not an isolated incident , we have had previous instances in the USA over corporates taking up cudgels with bloggers. We all know about the fickle nature of cyber law in India as seen during the infamous MMS scandal, after which the CEO of Bazee.com was arrested coz he was responsible for the operations of the website . The reason for his arrest , the cops were simply following the laws. The clip had been posted for sale by one among the million users and there was no way the CEO had any knowledge of this act. But that's where the crux of the issue lies , weak or non-existent cyber laws. Be it India or anywhere else , there needs to be a certain level of transparency in the cyber laws pertaining to issues within the parameters of the World Wide Web.
Let's be aware about what we need to do and more so when it comes to posting on Blogs. Do we really have to make sure that all ends are covered before we can post our views ? The Blogosphere sure doesn't feel as free as it seems.
