Even direct reportage of facts is being termed defamatory, says Nikhil Pahwa
A bid by a private institution to scrub clean the web of all critical opinion against it and a backdoor censorship facilitated by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) have stoked the rage of prominent commentators on Twitter and Facebook.
For the second day running on Sunday, the hashtag #IIPM was trending on Twitter across the Indian Twitterverse with several persons with good online traction keeping alive the content that the DoT, through a February 14 order, called for removal through Internet Service Providers.
While the web blockade, which, according to the DoT, was effected based on the directive of the Gwalior Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, managed to remove the URLs mentioned in the petitioner’s application, those fighting the censorship began a cat and mouse game online mirroring the content across various new web addresses and resources like Pastebin and Bitly, which offer cacheing of content and bookmarks.
Nikhil Pahwa of the Medianama website, which was the first to post the PDF document of the DoT calling for the blockade, said the DoT had effected the censorship without informing the content owners or even transparently declaring that the changes were called for. The website sourced the DoT order “unofficially.”
On Sunday evening, Shivam Vij of popular blog Kafila, posted: “Until Nikhil Pahwa of www.medianama.com informed me, I had no clue that India’s unjust and arbitrary Internet censorship regime had affected Kafila.”
He also mentioned that Arindam Chaudhuri of IIPM, whom he had met at a television show on Sunday afternoon, promised to unblock Kafila from the list and that he was not directly involved in the Gwalior Bench case, but it had been filed by one of IIPM’s “channel partners.”
PR spin
There was already some PR spin from IIPM over the breakout of the news on social networks.
Tweets from the official IIPM think tank - @ArindamIIPM - posted a response on Saturday, in which Arindam Chauduri, while stating the web blockade issue was sub judice, accused the UGC and the All India Council for Technical Education of being corrupt and that IIPM was proud to have no affiliation with them.
Free and open software advocate Atul Chitnis, in an email interview with The Hindu, said IIPM was not just using a distant court to gag specific websites but was also trying to scare other commentators into silence.
Keywords: IIPM, Website, High Court, Ban order, Social media
Sudhakar Reddy - Please provide us humble readers some reliable links
to these alleged studies. I googled IIPM joint study with a lot of
combinations and permutations but all Google came up with were one
study with Tuck and a whole lot of other links to the IIPM site itself
or some blogs where people like yourself have talked about such
studies.
Whereas there is a published PDF of a declaration from Stanford
available on the web that Stanford has no official joint venture or
anything of that sort going on with IIPM. Anyone from Stanford doing
anything of that nature does not represent the Uni.
I also cannot buy the argument that an institution with excellent
standards is unable to make a mark due to bias towards the IIM's. The
engineering college established by the Ambani Sr in Gujarat has an
excellent reputation. It too has to fight brand IIT. So how did they
do it?
Honestly I cannot comment on the modus of Operandi of IIPM,but i read
all the four magazines of which Mr. Arindam is the Editor in Chief and
also suscribe to the Human Factor. His ideas and thoughts are very
original and innovative. I also listen to has Pre budget and post
budget analysis.His book Count your Chicken before they are hatched is
must read for all the Management students and Discover the diamond in
you for all the students.He is a class apart. Do not crucify him. In
an era of liberalization we need more guys like him. I admire him for
his ideas and thoughts.I am retired Col from the Indian army and i do
not have any connection with his instituions
@Ramaiah
It looks like your understanding of English is off-the-track.
Well, if all the IIPM students are so happy with whatever they are getting, then others should not make issues about it. May be those guys deserve no better...LOL
There is no question about IIPM's credibility. It is far better than all UGC and AICTE approved institutes. They don't stand anywhere near IIPM. You will get to know about its intellectual capital from IIPM Think Tank magazines... Especially Business and Economy and 4Ps Business & Marketing. Leading business thinkers like Malcom Gladwell, Geoffrey Moorey have written their forwards, Ivy league-B schools like Cornell and Tuck have done their joint studies with IIPM. Check them out and then say something.
The stupidity of the times we live in...UGC can print notice in
newspapers on regular basis but can't post it on its website! IIPM has
time and again been proven a fraud.
Print media loves him as he spends big money
in Ad. How can any body to day lure MBA students with a 'Free lap
top when they pay through their nose - a class 10 student in TN
gets one from the government one free . He is a narcissist.
I am an IIPM alumni and love IIPM, especially its daring spirit. And this latest action of pulling down and challenging these irrelevant and misguiding articles (which are often not even well researched) proves it. This will mark a new era in Internet space in India.
I go with IIPM. At least they have the guts to stand up to the defamation rampant on the net.
The defendants' should have been given a chance to explain their
position. Instead of blocking specific web page (URL) blocking entire
website is outrageous.
IIPM: Uttarakhand Registrar recommends a ban
Ban IIPM from the state or bring it under regulation advices
Uttarakhand Technical University to the Administration.
by Team Careers360Print|
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Comment(s): 13
March 11, 2010
With UGC moving in slow motion, it is left to the state education
departments to fend for themselves. While the case by IIPM against UGC
for declaring it as a fake university has been in the courts for
almost 2 years, states like Uttarakhand have started moving in to
protect the interests of the students of their state.
Thanks to the news about the blocking. That prompted me to go and learn
about this more. If it had not been blocked I wouldn't have bothered to
know about IIPM.
Can anyone make any sense of this story? Try this pearl of the ENglish anguage:
"For the second day in running Sunday, the hashtag #IIPM was trending on
Twitter across the Indian Twitterverse with several persons with good
online traction keeping alive the content that the Department of
Telecommunications (DoT) through an order dated February 14 called for
removal through the Internet Service Providers (ISPs)."
It's not just the language that's off the track but nothing about the reporting fits in any journalistic standard. The most disappointing this about this is that it comes in one of the few publications with any standards at all. The Hindu can now just drop all pretense. Just posting
a public editor out there does nothing!! Just disappointed, Mr. Editor!
Please Email the Editor