by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Milinda Ghosh Roy,
Kolkata : Poet-lyricist-script writer Javed Akhtar has warned that the room for creativity or freedom of expression, which has been the ethos of Indian democracy, is shrinking and called for taking lessons from the “pathetic condition” of some neighbouring countries where such extremism was prevalent.
Akhtar, who has in the past faced the wrath of fundamentalists and trolls for his opinions on the social media, regretted that Indian society was becoming “more regressive”.
“It is very unfortunate but true that as a society we are becoming more regressive. The elbow room for creativity, literature, cinema or for any kind of point of view is shrinking and that is not advisable at all.
“I think we should be careful about it. Because, look at the condition of regressive societies, where such extremism is an accepted norm. Do we want to emulate them? Just look across, we do not have to go very far,” Akhtar, married to actress and theatre artist Shabana Azmi, told IANS.
“India has a democratic environment that is absent up to the Middle East. Why? What is so special about India that we could have democracy? Because it is an accepted norm in our society that people can have different beliefs, different Gods.
“Now, some forces are trying to put this society into a straitjacket, much like the way some of the other societies are,” he warned.
(Milinda Ghosh Roy can be contacted at milinda.r@ians.in )
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Muslim World, Social Media
Kabul : In a move that can curb “freedom of expression”, the Afghanistan government has asked several private telecommunication companies to suspend WhatsApp and Telegram instant messaging services in the country.
Although the apps, popular among the country’s elite, were still working on private telecom operators on Friday, customers of Salaam Telecom, a government-owned service provider, reported that both apps had stopped working for them, The New York Times reported late Friday.
“It is wrong and illegal,” Abdul Mujeeb Khalvatgar, executive director of Nai, a group that campaigns for free speech, was quoted as saying.
“According to the Constitution, freedom of expression is inviolable in Afghanistan.
“WhatsApp and Telegram are tools of free speech — if the government bans them, it means that tomorrow they could stand against media in Afghanistan too,” he added.
The clarity on the reason for the temprory ban was not obtained but on Thursday, the deputy director of the telecoms regulatory authority told the BBC that the ban was due to “security concerns”.
WhatsApp and Telegram are often used by the Taliban and other militant groups to evade government surveillance, the report said.
An official from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said that the request on the 20-day ban had come from the National Directorate of Security, the country’s intelligence agency.
The ministry said that the apps were being temporarily banned “to introduce a new kind of technology”, because users had complained about the quality of WhatsApp’s service.
It also denied that the ban constituted a threat to freedom of expression.
“WhatsApp and Telegram are just applications for contact and the sending of audio messages, and this does not affect freedom of speech,” the ministry added.
—IANS
