Another kick in the stomach for local services – a charge of Rs100,000!!! Local news site to be registered and charged, foreign ones free!

A slap for local news service providers, compulsory registration, a charge of Rs100k and annual fee of Rs50k imposed on news websites. The govt. must realize that web sites emanate from everywhere. To charge local ones is against all civilized norms. No country on earth does this. Whatever methods used to bar foreign sites, the users of the internet can access them and therefore get information, however distasteful it is to the dictatorship.

These web sites give talented local people employment and are able to show creativity and express opinions. Freedom of expression is now effectively suppressed as these sites are done for love and not for money. When each person who places these bans does it for money they do not understand when someone works for principles and not for profit. Those who ban the web sites do it for money and not for the love of the country. In short they are hired guns or hit men, doing the donkey work of their masters.

This difference is lost on our populace as they do not understand how a site, all of which look alike on the net, needs to be registered and others not!

This will only move the same content providers overseas, making a mockery of the whole principle of registration and charge. When you make a web site that does not do it for profit, pay a registration, you effectively force it to shut down, or to look for sponsors to make the payment. The moment a sponsor gets involved the independence of the site is compromised.

The govt. therefore forces the site to sometimes get sponsorship from parties that have agendas that do not promote the independence of media freedom, which effectively makes a mockery of the whole exercise.

Needless to say it is foolish to do so, as no one in their right minds will want to register something that does not require registration. The govt. will force the domain registry to deny the web address, thereby removing their independence to manage domains. All this amounts to unnecessary controls that are hard to enforce, easy to shut down, saying they are not registered, when they do not need to be. After all what is a News web site? Technically this blog is also one. It is ridiculous that we are muzzled because we talk sense and those websites that spout nonsense mainly owned and run by the govt. do not get the same treatment. They must also be covered by the same.