[Reader-list] On Connectivity in J&K

[Arun Mehta]

At 8/22/2001, Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote:
>1. Is this denial of basic rights to communication and information resources
>to the people who live in the part of Jammu and Kashmir that is administered
>by India nothing short of an instance of a colonizing mentality at work?

I believe that the amount of freedom you have, is related to how much you 
are willing to fight for. The tendency of the government everywhere is to 
grab as much power as it can get, if your rights be trampled, well, then 
you better be willing to fight for them. In the "sensitive" areas, since 
there have been far bigger issues to tackle, telecom may have suffered as 
an issue.

Shuddha, thanks for bringing this up. You have a well-developed conscience. 
The American Indians say, I believe, that your conscience is a triangular 
object in your heart, which, if provoked, turns sideways and pokes. But if 
you ignore it too often, the corners wear out, and you stop noticing.

As I see it, the way to protect shepherds working in remote areas from 
terrorist attacks is to give them FM mikes -- that way, they can 
communicate with each other using cheap FM radios. Hard to use this telecom 
equipment for reaching the enemy, since anyone monitoring the FM channels 
can overhear. I also think such mikes would be very useful in disasters, 
when the telecom breaks down.

So Shuddha, ideas on how to take this issue up?

>2. Why do Indian telecom authorities in a part of the country they claim as
>their own behave as if they are an occupying power?

They behave that way everywhere.


Arun Mehta, moderator india-gii. To join a list which discusses India's 
bumpy progress on the global infohighway, mail india-gii-subscribe at cpsr.org 
http://members.tripod.com/india_gii is our neglected website.
To  reassure yourself as to the quality of content and volume of mail, 
please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/india-gii/messages