The Wire's founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan emphasised that the action taken by the Union government was an unconstitutional attack on freedom of press
Published May 10, 2025 | 4:26 PM ⚊ Updated May 10, 2025 | 4:26 PM
The Wire.
Synopsis: The Wire’s website, briefly blocked by the Indian government over a Rafale jet story, was restored after the article was taken down. The government cited technical limits in blocking HTTPS sub-pages. Editor Siddharth Varadarajan called the move unconstitutional and a press freedom violation. The Wire plans to challenge the order and present its case to the interdepartmental committee.
A day after The Wire’s website was blocked in India following a Union government’s order, the website is now unblocked after they took down a story about a Rafale jet.
The team, on Saturday, 10 May, in a statement citing the government letter said, “The letter said that thewire.in was blocked due to the technical limitation that in the case of https websites, only full domains can be blocked, and sub-pages cannot be blocked. It added that The Wire was requested to take appropriate action regarding that content and ‘inform the action taken, which would enable the Ministry to unblock the website’.”
The story in question was about CNN’s coverage of the Rafale jet.
The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan emphasising that the action taken by the Union government was an unconstitutional attack on freedom of press, said, “Since our priority is to have The Wire unblocked, we have no option but to comply with this unfair demand, while reserving our rights under the Constitution of India to seek appropriate remedies.”
The statement further: “I am constrained to note that under the IT Act, the procedure your ministry should have followed was to first issue notice about the news story in question, then give The Wire a chance to present its views before the inter departmental committee and only then, in the event that the IDC insists on the story’s deletion, could you have taken the extreme step of blocking our website if we remained non-compliant. Even in the exercise of emergency powers, the first step is a direction to the concerned party under the relevant rules. The MIB omitted to even respond to our query for seven hours after we wrote to it.”
“We will present our views on the take down order against the individual webpage – which was a news story covering what CNN had reported about Pakistan’s claim to have downed an Indian Rafale – as well as the blocking of our entire site for a whole day, at the IDC meeting that has been convened for 2.30 pm today,” it further read.
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The blocking of The Wire’s website came just a day after Kerala-based independent news organisation Maktoob Media said that its account on social media platform X had been withheld in India following a legal demand.
(Edited by Sumavarsha)
