NEW DELHI: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) on Friday lifted the restrictions on blog websites but 17 sites that were hosted on some of them remained barred to Indian viewers.

"Such blocking is neither feasible nor desirable. The Internet has been a free medium and should stay so," said Kiran Karnik, president of Nasscom. He was expressing the views of almost two crore Indian surfers that are being voiced on the Internet.

"There are some terrible, vicious and inflammatory views that are sometimes posted on various websites. However, as we have seen in all the media, censorship of any kind only gives rise to all kinds of rumours, which, in the absence of freedom of expression, take on the aura of possible truths," Mr. Karnik told The Hindu .

"What we fight for and terrorists and others want to destroy is not a piece of property or land, but ideals and values. Freedom and democracy, including the right to free expression and unfettered access to information, are amongst the values that India prides itself on and which differentiate us from some others. Curbing such freedom is giving in to terrorism and threats," he added.

"Not a nanny state"

Mr. Karnik said bans and access limitation are the hallmark of paternalistic states. "That is not what India is about. We are not, nor should we aspire to be a `nanny state'. ."

Internet users were up in arms after ISPs reacted "overenthusiastically" to a Government order asking them to block 17 blogs. They ended up blocking access to entire blog websites, including the most popular of them, www.blogspot.com. In the process, access was denied to a blog set up to provide assistance to relatives of Mumbai blast victims. With cyber space teeming with resentment, the Government on Thursday asked the ISPs to only block the designated websites instead of barring access to entire blog websites.

According to cyber law expert Pawan Duggal, the Government took the decision without application of mind since there are ways to circumvent the ban, as is the case in many countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Myanmar. Ever since the Computer Emergency Response Team India (CERT-In) was named the designated agency for blocking websites in 2003, the Government has been periodically issuing orders to ISPs.

The Hindu was the first to report the first-ever blocking of a site in September 2003 when ISPs barred access to a group espousing the cause of Meghalaya's Khasi tribe. Since then there have been several instances of ISPs being ordered to block websites but they never came into the public domain.

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