CHENNAI: Angry bloggers in Chennai are up in arms over Internet Service Providers (ISPs) restricting access to popular blog hosting websites blogspot, geocities and typepad.

Several bloggers over the past two days said they were no longer able to access their blogs hosted on the sites, which have online addresses with suffix .blogspot.com and .typepad.com. They have also started a wiki (a web resource that can be collectively edited) to hit out against the censorship thrust on them and discuss how their freedom of expression has come under duress.

V. Harish, a fourth-year engineering student who blogs on magixncurses.blogspot.com, puns on a popular English movie title and remarks "Dude, Where's my blog?" Harish is among several students in the city who studiously follow blogs. "I post at least once in three days but I follow several other blogs on a daily basis."

The ISPs were following a Department of Telecommunications' directive to shut down access to around 18 websites and specific blogs that were reportedly found instigating hatred in the wake of the Mumbai bomb blasts.

Bloggers have also started discussing ways to circumvent the ban on blogs, the most popular means being to access their blogsites through a proxy server.

NASSCOM's reaction

NASSCOM president Kiran Karnik who was in Chennai for the association's `HR summit 2006' said `Internet is a free medium. If you stop the media rumours take over."

Responding to reporter's queries on the blocking of blogsites, Mr. Karnik said censorship was not desirable and not feasible.

Bloggers against censorship can be accessed at http://censorship.wikia.com

/wiki/ Bloggers_Against_Censorship.

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