Good for Gaurav Sabnis. (Who resigned from IBM after this post, and a link to a JAM article caused IIPM to send him a "legal notice" and threatened to burn IBM laptops outside the IBM office. Gaurav didn't want to embarrass IBM, and left of his own volition.) Good for him for standing by what he wrote. Good for him for being mature enough to not want to embarrass an employer.
Updates on Desi Pundit.
Also, here is A's planned protest in Bangalore.
Here's a comment on the Sarai leader list:
I do not think freedom of speech is the issue here.Gaurav Sabnis has made it clear that he was not asked to resign.No authority or agency of the government has tried to censor him. (I am trying not to judge Gaurav here, but I am not sure if his
resigning was a good decision for anyone.)
IMHO,The issue or the spotlight here is on law enforcement, if anything. And that issue is general, not specific to blogging or internet. The people who indirectly threatened Gaurav and defamed Rashmi should be brought to book. The only legal issue specific to blogging is that whether people can be tracked and made accountable to what they write over the internet and whether there are legal provisions that adequately take care of this sort of offence.The threatening phone calls made to IBM would certainly be cognisable as a legal offence, I would think.
About MSM coverage, watch for NDTV's story tonight (my roommate is presently attempting an IIPM byte)and yesterday the Times Channel covered it in their mock bulletin, so presumably the newspaper will pick it up as well. It's been pitched to CNBC; what happened to that? I'm not entirely sure.
Amit has more links.
Update: And when my friend from the media group of a mega, mega national daily called the "legal cell" to do the story, she was rudely brushed off and told sternly that she should hand over the phone to her higher-ups since the legal cell knew everyone in her company. Legal cell or PR head? she's wondering.
