India blocks 73 URLs criticizing IIPM, an MBA college

It's been proven time and time again that whenever any censorship blacklist is created, for whatever "good reason", it will end up being abused for purposes that have nothing to do with the original purpose of the list. Although, in this case India actually telegraphed from the beginning that it will be used like this, when they said it will be used against "negative" comments or something like that.

Fascinating.<p>Currently our (UK) Prime Minister is in India trying to sell our universities (amongst a lot of other things) to Indian students. Lovely bit of inter-cultural exchange right? Generally speaking, yes, absolutely. The more the merrier as far as I am concerned. However...<p>Back here in the UK, the very same PM has trebled the costs of going to university for English and Welsh students, pricing many out, raised the education thresholds meaning less students can qualify, while he is supported by racist right wing tabloid Murdoch press who hate immigration, foreigners and most of all dark skins who threaten middle class house prices. Oh yeah, our right wing is that racist. Yet there he is offering unlimited places for rich Indians who can afford UK universities, while clearly snubbing Indian education. If proof of a substandard Indian education system were needed, the rich flocking to the UK for it will do the mass Indian population nicely.<p>So, here we have our PM pricing out his own country's students, claiming immigration is out of control and evil, while offering to open the flood gates to Indian rich kids who can afford UK education, while snubbing their own, which clearly has its problems as shown by this article.<p>While I personally am all for immigration, (and believe me Indians in particular have done the UK proud, and me personally, so much so I argue they are more British than us fairly useless white lot) I cant quite work out how this all plays out for both the Brits and Indians. Seems like a perfect slap in the face to both of us.<p>This whole thing is a bizarre contradiction to me. If we in the UK really wanted to help India out, perhaps we could have out flag ship universities help the Indian education department (whatever) improve its own situation. Er, freely share our education knowledge.<p>Oh.... Freedom of information. Can't have that, can we?<p>Anyway, I'm a bit confused by the whole thing. And I can't help thinking our PM is making it worse, mostly for the Indians. If the cream of their crop flock here, then where does that leave their education system? If Indians fill out the university places left by Brits who can no longer afford it, where does that potentially leave race relations in the UK?<p>Oh, last thought. What if these students stay on afterwards? Brilliant for us, but aren't we then brain draining India? Again, at a detriment to them?<p>Yup, confused.<p>(For Brits reading... yes I know Scotland's education is separate.)

This is about more than censorship. As has been repeated by many others IIPM is a Degree Mill at best and an active in-progress scam with many victims at the other end of the awfulness spectrum.<p>The "Dean" of IIPM - an extremely charismatic fellow by the name of Arindam Chaudary - likes to use every weapon at his disposal to silence those that want to expose his shenanigans. Think about how Scientology goes after its critics - this person is in the same boat. He has managed to sue/pressurize and bully anyone that wants to stand-up to him.<p>The media have been just as guilty - they get many full page adverts and TV spots so they have no issues hyping this "institute". This is a tragedy for pretty much every student of that institute.

For those of us living outside India, FakingNews and such other sites are still accessible. "The Hindu" newspaper [1] asked the right question: why weren't the defendants given a chance to explain their "defamatory" opinions? It's like, "Oh, I don't agree with you. You must be censored and punished!". Wonder how is Internet surviving in India at all.<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/this-gag-order-is-no-faking-news/article4425390.ece" rel="nofollow">http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/this-gag-order-is-no-f...</a>

I think a lot of people are confused with the hawkish name of this institution. It represents the very worst of Indian education system, not the best or anywhere near it. Infact, it's a diploma mill which is not even in the Top 100 management institutes of India. Arindam, the director, himself comes from a family of illustrious cheats with a larger than life image.<p>Easiest way is skim through this site: <a href="http://www.iipm-fraud.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.iipm-fraud.com/</a><p>The govt has little clue of what it is doing. Hopefully 1 more year, and we can get rid of this regime for good.

They've done this before against an excellent piece of investigative journalism done by an Indian magazine called The Caravan, called "<i>The Sweet Smell of Success</i>: How Arindam Chaudhuri made a fortune off the aspirations -- and insecurities -- of India's middle classes."<p>That article was taken down, but I'd pulled a PDF of it then, so here it is for anyone that wants to know more about the shadiness that is IIPM.<p><a href="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15497688/Sweet%20Smell%20of%20Success.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15497688/Sweet%20Smell%20of%20Succe...</a>

I am an Indian and this is worrying situation. The university in which I study has censored a lot of things(game websites are blocked among many other) and many others are doing same.<p>The thing is that people are making it a habit to block Internet. And shady institutes like this are just going out and asking far away courts for blocks which they can easily get.

IIPM, welcome to the Streisand effect :)<p>Never heard about them before, but guess that this case will get so widespread now that it will be impossible to sue and block all the critics. Maybe this is a case they can analyse at there school?

"an educational institution"<p>Aka "diploma mill", most likely.

To know more about Arindam - <a href="https://www.quora.com/Who-Is-X/Who-is-Arindam-Chaudhuri" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/Who-Is-X/Who-is-Arindam-Chaudhuri</a>

Thanks for removing 'educational institution' from the description. IIPM is probably an educational institution as much as a circus is a wildlife reserve.

This isn't the first time I've heard or read negative news about IIPM. The background story behind this institution is a gigantic red flag.

They always advertise in the Times of India which is the largest English language daily in the world (more than NYT, WSJ, and USAT combined).<p>What was funny was that they said hurry the deadline for the next batch/semester is a certain date. APPLY NOW! ...of course what would happen after that date? Oh wait now its some new date to apply for the same batch/semester. All you had to do was look at the site to know it was a highly questionable place to get an education.

The reality is that the policy in India, has not been formally formed about copyright. Whoever takes this battleground, will have a significant advantage on his side.<p>IIPM, is actually a viral sort of university, with an aggressive strategy of hard marketing, slight overstatements, and over time, they are indeed becoming better and better. But at the cost of many lambs.<p>as someone said here, its a degree mill for now.

How come most comments are about UK? The link is about how freedom of speech has been strangulated in India by a university which is not recognized by law.

It does not look quite so bad to me. There is a big difference between saying "the food was so bad that I puked" and saying "the cook tried to poison me". The issue is being debated, both, in public and, via the court.