Bloggers on Virtual India · Global Voices
Kamla Bhatt

Virtual India is a different place, and this week's developments in the virtual world clearly demonstrated and highlighted that geographical and IP address barriers can be circumvented and people can come together for a common cause. Bloggers of Indian origin from across the world came together and wrote, and wrote and wrote. Mainstream media across the world picked up on what the bloggers were writing, and I think that clearly demonstrated that bloggers are an effective force. It is another matter that some MSMs (in India) tried to get some viewership mileage from this entire experience.
Right to information, right to reading and writing on blogs, and right to use VOIP. Bloggers were writing and posting their thoughts in a fast and furious manner on these subjects. After a whirlwind trip of these various rights in this great inter- connected and virtual world, we take a much needed break and take a virtual tour of some wonderful wildlife images.
Blogs, VOIP, and Right to Information.
Blogs from blogspot and typepad and a bunch of websites were banned in India this past week. Desi Pundit, an aggregator of blogs on India has an exhaustive list of bloggers on this topic, the work arounds that many tech-savvy bloggers created for readers to access their blogs. The  sticky post outlines the entire episode. The ban has been lifted partially and over the weekend it is expected that all blogs will be accessible. The debate has now shifted to a new topic and a new set of questions about censorship. Again, Desi Pundit has a stick post on this set of new issues.
Sanat Mohanty has a post on Right To Information Act in India. He writes:
"Since the first of July, a concerted effort by Civic Society Organizations,   Non Government Organizations, individuals and a prominent TV news channel – NDTV   and leading national newspapers are coming together to launch a national campaign…"
Read to find out what else Sanat has to say on this subject.
Vishal has a post on Right To Information Act and he writes:
"Soon, appellants will be able to track the status of their Right To Information 
      appeals right from registration to the   final ruling."
Karthik Rao Cavale writes:
"  Right to Information is a fundamental right. A right that the state denied us 
      for 58 years…"
First it was the blogs and now it is Internet Telephony read Skype etc that the Indian ISPs want to ban, and Deponti is aggravated by this new development. She begins her post thus:
"Don't normally blog about such topics, but steam is coming from under my collar   on this issue."
Read on to find out what has got her aggravated and steaming under the collar.
Pictures. Kalyan Varma's wildlife picture of Vine Snake portrait made it to the final stage of the the BBC Wildlife competition. A passionate wildlife photographer cum geek, Kalyan's blog is a wonderful and fascinating repository of images of the wildlife, flora and fauna in Bangalore and other parts of India.