India’s gateway to Internet

During a casual discussion with friends I was imagining how Governments are able to block web content. During my visits to countries abroad I was frequented by government notifications stating the site visited is banned (worse was that even Google apps was banned), but not such a single website was showing such notification in India. Curious to know I googled it to find such ones.

Indeed Government of India has its own short list of banned sites with its 13th July 2006 circular.

—-Deleted—-

These websites could not be accessed but however no notifications came up. The following message came up on a chrome browser.

It seems the system of blocking is not without loop holes. The cached copy of page from Google gives latest updates of the website. One such blog with banned in India can be seen below.

I was also curious to know how internet is brought to India and how many gateways the Government should control to censor web content. While I imagined several gateways there are only eight gateways (called landing stations) that connects India to the world of internet.

1. SMW3w : Stands for South East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe this cable connects Western Europe, Middle East and South east Asia. There are a total of 39 landing points through the cable’s journey and it touches India at Mumbai first and connects the rest of Asia through Cochin. The landing station in Mumbai is owned by VSNL/Tata.
2. SMW4 : Stands for South East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe, this cable connects Western Europe, Middle East and South east Asia. It has around 17 landing points and touches India in Mumbai and Chennai. Landing station in Mumbai is owned by VSNL/Tata and landing station in Chennai is owned by Bharti Airtel.
3. SAFE : South Africa Far East Cable. This cable comes from Melkbossstrand in South Africa, linking Durban, Mauritius on the way to Cochin, India. Landing station in Cochin is owned by VSNL/Tata.
4. FLAG : Stands for Fiber Optic Link Around the Globe. This cable runs through the Suez canal connecting middle east and touches India at Mumbai. The cable network is owned by FLAG Telecom which is bought by Reliance and is now a Reliance company. The landing station in Mumbai is owned by VSNL/Tata. From Mumbai the cable goes to south east Asia.
5. i2i : Airtel SIngtel joint venture company is responsible for this 3100 km long cable from Singapore to Chennai. The landing station is in Chennai. From Singapore it will connect to SEA-ME-WE 3 and APCN 2.
6. TIC : Following the same route as i2i, TIC stands for Tata Indicom India Singapore Cable. It connects Chennai and Singapore. TIC is owned by VSNL with the landing station in Chennai. In Singapore the landing station is in Changi. The cable is 3175 km long.
7. Falcon : Europe-Middle East- India cable with landing station in Mumbai. The cable and the landing station is owned by Reliance.
8. Indo-Sri Lanka Cable : Landing station is owned by BSNL and this cable connects Tuticorin and Colombo, Sri Lanka.

and finally some stats

Note: The contents of this article are from various web sources. I have not done any research to verify the correctness of the information presented.