The Indian government’s decision to ban 32 websites—including Github and Vimeo—has been in the works for over a month, according to documents reviewed by Quartz.
On Nov. 11, 2014, Mumbai’s additional chief metropolitan magistrate ordered the Indian government’s department of electronics and information technology (DEIT) to act on a complaint received by the city’s Byculla Police Station and block the sites on a “top priority basis.”
Certain contents on the sites “appear to be posted with the intention of creating unrest, breach of peace, and communal disharmony,” the court said. “This might result in law and order problem in India.”
Anti-terror request
Then, on Nov. 15, Maharashtra’s anti-terrorism squad (ATS) also dispatched a letter requesting DEIT to block 32 websites that “were being used for jihadi propaganda.”
“It was stated that anti-national group are using social media for mentoring Indian youths to join the jihadi activities,” DEIT said in a statement.
The ATS noted that some of these sites were being used by ISIL (a.k.a Islamic State or IS) to “motivate other Indians.”
For instance, they had been used to disseminate information about Areeb Majeed—a 23-year-old from Kalyan, who had apparentlyjoined ISIL in Iraq—and Anwar Husain, an Indian national from Karnataka who reportedly died while fighting in Afghanistan in 2014.
“These websites works on page hosting concept. Many of these websites does not require any authentication. Other upload articles, videos or photos or to download the contents which helps to hide the identities,” DEIT said.
“These websites were being used frequently for pasting (and) communicating such content by just changing page name even blocking the earlier one,” it added.
Some unblocked
DEIT said that it had reached out to some of the 32 website, and a few had already “undertaken not to allow pasting of such propaganda information.”
Subsequently, four websites—Weebly, Vimeo, Dailymotion and Github—are being unblocked.
However, the fate of the remaining 28 websites remains unclear.
It was late afternoon on Dec. 1 2014. I had just returned from the final hearing of my divorce litigation at Saket District Family Court, New Delhi. This was momentous for me and I wanted to announce it to the world.
I wanted to put an end to all the mystery and conjectures. I felt free of a life time of burden and wanted to celebrate it as much as someone would celebrate an engagement or a marriage or an anniversary. I decided to share my relief on Facebook. And why not? I had written and shared pictures of all the important events in my life—graduation, first job, vacations, marriage—on the social networking site for nearly a decade now.
But when I changed my relationship status on Facebook to “divorced”, I was informed that this update would not appear on other people’s News Feed.
What was the point of changing the relationship status if no automatic notification was generated about it?
I had to resort to another means. I made the following entry as my status update on Facebook to announce that I was finally free from my marriage.
…. As for myself, right now I am just relieved that I was strong enough to face it all alone in the court.
….On my wedding night I had a glow of happiness on my face. During my Vidai, nobody cried. What happened thereafter is something that I have erased from my memory. But I do have the same glow of happiness on my face today. At last, I am free.
I knew that it was a bold step. After all, I had some 500 people in my friends’ list, some of whom I had not met or talked with for months. I knew that after that many on my friends’ list might stop talking to me or at least maintain their distance, some might gossip, or even adhere to blame game.
After all, divorce is something that Indians talk about in whispers, behind closed doors, in parenthesis, being ashamed of this unpalatable truth. Marriage is supposed to be made in heaven and according to Hindu tradition, it is a companionship of seven births. A divorce after just a few months of marriage had already stigmatised me, or made me a subject of pity. Even though my parents supported my decision, many members of the extended family were embarrassed on my behalf.
What was the point of putting it up on a social networking site like Facebook and washing dirty linen in public?
I hadn’t committed a crime by signing the divorce documents. For me it was not a matter of shame any more. I thought it would be better to know who my real friends were than to wear a mask all the time. At least people would stop asking me how my marriage was coming along.
Little had I expected to get so many likes or congratulations or best wishes for my future life. The warmth of those wishes made me realize that I had let go of the emotional baggage I had been carrying for one-and-a-half years of separation before the divorce.
Now, I feel free, from the marital vows and from the remorse of breaking away. I feel free to turn over a new leaf and focus on my career. There is no psychological trauma, no need to depend on heavy doses of anti depressants. There is optimism.
I don’t know if I will meet anyone in future with whom I would like to grow old, or “settle down” as people say in India, but I am prepared to take both the options in my stride —of being alone all my life or spending my life with someone I would fall in love with and who would love me back. For now, the love of my family members, friends and the passion for etching out my own career are enough.
I think Facebook would do good by automatically notifying everyone through the News Feed if someone changes the relationship status to “separated” or “divorced” or “widowed.” Or, at least, give the option to choose whether one wants the change of status to be notified or not. It would help in demolishing the stigma.
There were only a few winners in India’s automobile market in 2014—Honda, Maruti and Hyundai among them.
Some others like Ford had a mix-bag of a year, while for the likes of Mahindra and Toyota, this was a year to grin and bear it. And for General Motors and Tata Motors, it was a train-wreck.
Overall, the passenger car market continued to stay under pressure. The strong growth that we had become used to in the past has not returned, and whatever growth was seen in 2014 came from new product launches.
While December numbers are not yet in, the Emerging Markets Automotive Advisors (EMMAAA) forecast is that 2014 passenger vehicle sales will end exactly at the 2013 level. This is not bad for a year when the first quarter numbers were down 6.9% from previous year. Only a strong performance in the second half managed to salvage it.
What made them winners?
Hyundai and Honda displayed why having a fresh portfolio in a bad year is such a good idea.
Hyundai had the fresh i10 Grand coming into the year and added the Xcent compact sedan, alongside the i20 Elite. Nearly everything clicked and the Korean carmaker had positive numbers to report in most months.
Honda had the Amaze in the showrooms at the start of the year and followed it up with the new City. Both did well in numbers, aided by the new diesel engine. In the second half of the year, sales were helped by the launch of the Mobilio MPV (multi-purpose vehicle), the first direct competitor to Maurit-Suzuki’s Ertiga.
Meanwhile, Maruti-Suzuki demonstrated, with finesse, why getting the basics right is so important for a carmaker in India. While the company had only one launch in the year with the Celerio, it managed to stay in the positive territory most of the year.
Even in the entry-level A-segment, Maruti-Suzuki managed good numbers, though the particular category was under severe pressure. As the economy stayed down, the A-segment buyer, often buying a car for the first time in his life, stayed away. In comparison, buyers in the higher segments have more economic flexibility (and more money) and return to the market sooner.
Exciting shapes
Some of the successes of 2014 came in new shapes that had not yet been experimented with in the Indian market.
The small SUV was one—and the Ford EcoSport, Renault Duster and the Nissan Terrano demonstrated why this would be the future segment to watch out. Both Maruti and Hyundai are preparing multiple products for this category, most of which will hit showrooms in 2015-16.
The other new shape was that of small MPVs, which were retooled out of B-segment hatchbacks. The popular Ertiga and Mobilio slug it out in the segment currently and many more will join the contest in the next two years.
In both cases, customers demonstrated that they were looking for new body styles to excite them. Most of these were second or third-time car buyers, indicating the growing maturity in the Indian market.
Even for the traditional hatchback market, customers tended to move upwards, ditching the micro and mini segments (Nano, Alto, Eon) for the compact segment (Swift, i10, Celerio). In 2014, EMMAAA expects 2014 sales of micro and mini segment cars to fall 8.2%, while that of compact segment cars to rise by 8.5%, over 2013 sales.
Better (and bigger) engines
With engine technology advancing, car engines continued to shrink in 2014. Many carmakers experimented with launching bigger cars with smaller, new generation engines. These mills did not cringe on power but packed in much better fuel efficiency.
So, Ford rolled out the EcoSport with a 1.0-liter engine; Volkswagen started offering the Jetta with a 1.4-liter TSI petrol engine while sister-brand Skoda followed suit with the Octavia. The previous generations had been offered with 1.8-liter engines.
Alongside, seven-seater MPVs like the Ertiga and Mobilio came equipped with 1.3-liter and 1.5-liter diesel engines. Both also offered 1.2-liter petrol engines. In comparison, the seven-seater Innova—admittedly, with a significantly higher kerb weight—comes with a 2.5-liter diesel engine.
It was a different scene on the motorcycle front. Average Motorcycle Engine Displacement Index (AMEDI), an index that plots the weighted average of engine sizes of all two-wheelers sold in the market, has risen by 7% in 2014, over 2013, according to EMMAAA estimates. This is mostly fuelled by a greater acceptance of engines that deliver more than 125cc and the increase in the sales of large motorcycles.
Premium wins
In other trends of 2014, the luxury segment continued top soar with both Audi and Mercedes returning 10,000 plus unit sales in the year—and BMW following not far behind. The three luxury brands introduced smaller sized products in the market, attracting more customers. This ate up the Executive and Premium segments in the market, driving them almost to extinction.
A similar story played out in the motorcycles segment where sales of premium bikes soared, driven at the front by the Harley-Davidson Street 750 and new launches from Triumph.
Entering 2015, the worst is over and the market is on its way to recovery. But, as 2014 demonstrated, it won’t be the same for everyone and this may be the year when the consumer separates the wheat from the chaff.
