I really like this style of movie editing, usually found in typical Indian movies and serials. As of now, I can visualise a sorry looking IIPM wearing the ‘One tight slap’ expression that says it all – it should have never tried to meddle with someone’s freedom of expression with the atrocious measures they employed. This is to spread awareness about a certain post written by a blogger – Gaurav Sabnis – which talked about the credibility of the huge claims made by IIPM (the villain) and borrowed heavily from another blogger – Rashmi’s – article on her publication Jam-mag, which uncovered several of the facts.

One would wonder what is wrong with that, it is typical blogspeak. But IIPM chose to sue Gaurav (victim 1) in true movie style, for 125 crores on account of defamation. Not only that, they also sued another blogger Varna (Victim 2) who supported Gaurav, for 175 crores. Apart from this, IIPM (the real Prem Chopra type villain using cheap tactics) tried to pressurise Gaurav’s employer, IBM, into making Gaurav retract his statements made against IIPM by threatening to burn IBM’s laptops right outside their office. Well, I personally think they should have let them carry out the threat and seen the police etc. getting involved. That would have been some incident covered by mainstream media and IBM would have got some good publicity anyway which was being threatened in the first place. Gaurav resigned from his job in order to avoid pressures of any kinds and to stand by his sachha word. This was the second incident of its kind where an Indian blogger is being served legal notices because of what he/she has published on his/her blog. The main point of the matter is what rights do bloggers have. Cyberlaws aren’t in place for this kind of a thing especially blogging, which is a relatively new concept. The main stream media is finally sitting up and taking notice of this incident and HT, NDTV, Daily Pioneer, Mumbai mirror have already printed news about the same. The whole episode is being tracked by DesiPundit and can be read here.

There has been a bhuchaal not only on the planet but in blogosphere as well. Bloggers are taking a stand this time and aren’t giving up without a fight. It’s time to show the power of blogging to those who don’t realise it yet. For all those who support the cause for rights of bloggers, can spread the word. Hopefully, we may soon see that “One tight slap” shot and on national television at that.