Why was an Indian man held for sending a tweet?

Some are wannabe mafia, though. They're the ones we try to avoid. The others are corrupt, but often their motives are fairly aligned with public interest. For instance, they take cuts on all infrastructure projects, so our infrastructure tends to improve at a fairly good pace - though obviously not as fast as it theoretically could.

kghose• 14 years ago

LoL

pkuhad• 14 years ago

Indian politics is corrupt, not India.

oh_sigh4• 14 years ago

Each family is a mafia. It exactly describes India.

fakeer• 14 years ago

And the limits go quite deep. Right?

nodata• 14 years ago

The UK arrests people for tweeting too. Were the tweets distasteful? definitely. illegal? often not.

You're also not allowed to demonstrate anywhere near parliament or shout at the prime minister.

kang• 14 years ago

Mafia!! Not anymore. They left that profession and are politicians now.

And I just don't mean it as a joke.

TopTrix• 14 years ago

If you were from India, you could also face jail. Why you insult the mafia by comparing these politicians (Indian). Mafia also have limit for earning money but if you just read the amount of fraud / corruption in last 5-6 yrs of ruling Congress party, no one can even imaging, India is a poor & developing county.

dharmach2• 14 years ago

If that was true, the mafias do not need to become politician.

yati2• 14 years ago

Ambiguity of English. India is not a corrupt, mafia run state, but it indeed is a state which is run by a corrupt mafia. Things are changing, but the change will not manifest itself at sufficient scale unless the established negative forces are eradicated. Which is hard. NP hard.

curiousDog• 14 years ago

Russia would probably be an example of a corrupt mafia run state. India is just corrupt or rather indian politicians. And at that population & diversity (given the limited resources), that's pretty much inevitable. It's just human greed. Is there a solution? I don't know but education and trying to curb the population would be a start

sergiotapia2• 14 years ago

The same thing happened here in Bolivia.

Samuel Doria Medina, tweeted that President Evo Morales had sex with a minor (17 years old) and she was pregnant. The following day the mother of the minor (a political person of power in Evo's cabinet) files for jail time among other things.

This was about two months ago and to be honest, media died down on it, and I have no idea what happened to the process. Was she in fact pregnant? Was the president in fact involved sexually with a minor? Lots of questions, no answers.

GFischer• 14 years ago

I wouldn't say it's the same thing - Doria Medina is a politician himself, and opposed to Evo Morales.

Apparently, he was forced to apologize, and he's been very vocal in other accusations too (for example accusing Evo of illicit enrichment).

sergiotapia2• 14 years ago

Not tit-for-tat- same thing, but same ballpark. A tweet accusing someone in power of doing something wrong.

guard-of-terra3• 14 years ago

17 years old is not a minor. And you don't tweet about other peoples' sexual (or reproductive indeed) lives. If person C tweets about the sexual life of B and A, then C is a bad person. They should not have done it.

P. S. I live on another side of the planet.

aroberge• 14 years ago

As is the case where the person you are replying to, where I live, a 17 years old is a minor. You claim to be living on another side of the planet ... then you should restrict to comment about things you know about on "your" side of the planet.

oh_sigh4• 14 years ago

Every society sets different ages for when sexual activity is acceptable. You may not agree that a 17 year old is a minor, but it isn't your decision.

I would recommend you do not go to Bolivia, have sex with a 17 year old, and try to argue that a 17 year old isn't really a minor.

chinmoy• 14 years ago

Things like this one happened several times in Bangladesh. The government imprisoned several people over time for posting statuses against the prime minister on Facebook.

pGrabber• 14 years ago

Unfortunate, but real state of affairs in the so called "India Shining" story! Corruption is ingrained in public and private offices. And my biggest concern is that it's become a way of life and people are indifferent to it.

yati2• 14 years ago

This indifference is but forced. It seems that here, the "authorities" need to be appeased to get them do the job they're paid for. If you cannot appease, you are screwed.

mmishra• 14 years ago

It is unfortunate but change is difficult too. Countries , like companies , have to be crafted thoughtfully and carefully (Google <--> US) otherwise they end up being mess like ( India <--> Yahoo ). I feel same for both Yahoo and India. They both were amazing but now in a state of mess.

jt2190• 14 years ago

This story leaves me feeling helpless. What can I, living in the United States, do to change this statement:

  In reality, [Section 66A of the IT Act of 2000] is more often used by 
  the state as a weapon against dissent. In each such case, police action 
  has been swift and harsh.

I'd love it if someone would comment, or better, write a blog posting with a list of actionable steps that I can take to improve things.

sturadnidge• 14 years ago

Whilst a laudable sentiment, you might be better off putting your energy into ensuring a similar law is never passed in the US.

We have have a very similar law in the UK, Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, and I'm sure it won't be long before something similar is proposed in the US after the 'innocence of muslims' debacle / tragedy (which is exactly the kind of thing that the UK law was brought in for, but has been similarly abused by the authorities).

We also have rather interesting laws surrounding libel in the UK... India seems to be a bit more sane on that front at least.

dharmach2• 14 years ago

It's not easy to take action by authorities if such acts were done by or repeated by many.

oh_sigh4• 14 years ago

Your best bet is to make a really stinky fart. If that fart reaches across the world, and certain people smell it, it might stop them from doing what they do.

That's your best chance of effecting any change in India from the US as a private individual.

BadDesign• 14 years ago

STUPID HUMANS!

known• 14 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index

Why was an Indian man held for sending a tweet?

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