aug 18th, 2011 CE
so nobody likes facebook/twitter revolutions, it turns out. i guess it's not that hard to lump the british riots and the anna hazare crowds with the arab riots that overthrew mubarak and other tyrants.
gulp. does this mean 'great democracies' are also vulnerable to crowd action?
despite all the usual hand-wringing and breast-beating about nasty 3rd world countries and censorship, the white guys are now beginning to do the same in their countries.
1. cameron, the pm of the uk, has publicly talked about the need to shut down blackberry in particular and others such as twitter/facebook to prevent rioters (or shall we call them "revolutionaries") from gathering
2. in the san francisco bay area (yes, the ultra-liberal, hippy san francisco), the BART or subway system shut down mobile communications to prevent protesters from coming together
i am sure P Chidambaram is taking detailed notes. he has already made a lot of noises about blackberry (it turns out blackberry's encryption makes it rather hard for a government to do what it likes to do -- gather intelligence about citizens, ie snoop on them). now you can expect the internet plug to be pulled when things the UPA doesn't like are being broadcast by twitterati.
is india following in the footsteps of its NAM cousin egypt? will the indian dynasty collapse too? see my piece from firstpost on the ramlila maidan massacre (anybody know or care what happened to 50year old rajbala, in a coma after being lathicharged when the UPA attacked sleeping yoga practictioners?)
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