Indian government attempts to black out People’s March website
Tuesday, July 4th, 20063 July 2006. A World to Win News Service. Access to the long-standing website of the Indian Maoist monthly magazine People’s March (www.peoplesmarch.com) has been blocked since mid-June, apparently by the Web hosting company at the request of the Indian government.
In May, the Ministry of Home Affairs threatened to issue instructions to Internet service providers to block “certain websites with pro-Maoist/Naxalite contents”. Shortly afterward, Ministry of Communication and Technology wrote an Internet service provider to warn that the People’s March website “which is under your control is hosting anti-national contents. You may be aware that hosting of such website is punishable under law.” The website was closed down a few weeks later.
According to the Indian daily The Hindu (17 June), citing “government sources,” “The Centre (central government) has taken a serious view of the website after a People’s March issue was entirely dedicated to the movement in the Dandakaranya region in Chhattisgarh. Authors of several articles had severely criticized the ‘Salwa Judoom.’” The Salwa Judoom is a murderous counterinsurgency offensive launched by the government of the state of Chhattisgarh. It has involved raids on villages by paramilitary death quads and the forcing of families into strategic hamlets near roads so as to re-establish control over the peasants and separate them from guerrillas led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist).
To read the article in question and other issues of People’s March, the following new website is functioning as of now: peoplesmarch.googlepages.com.
E-mail subscriptions to the online edition of the magazine can be obtained from:
peoplesmarch@indiatimes.com
peoplesmarch2006@rediffmail.com
pallath_govindankutty@yahoo.com