All major file sharing sites blocked in India ! WTF ?

For a moment I thought its the UAE. I’m a premium member on Rapidshareand today it turns out that the website is blocked completely in this part of the world ! Upon accessing the site you get a notice from the Department of Telecom – India.

Checking again, I found that all major file sharing websites are blocked the same way.

Apparently all ISPs have blocked the following file sharing websites in India.

Megaupload.com 
Mediafire.com 
Megavideo.com 
VideoBB.com 
Novamov.com 
Movshare.net 
Rapidshare.com 
Putlocker.com 
Hotfile.com 
Fileserve.com 
Filesonic.com 
Filesonic.in 
Depositfiles.com 
Wupload.com

No official word from the Department of Telecom yet or the government. But I suspect this could be a step towards curbing transfer of illegal files over the internet using these services.

But then, when did India start becoming like China ?

Update – As of now (4:00 pm IST, 21 July 2011, The blocks are not fully deployed, or so it seems as many folks can still access the above mentioned websites while certain other parts report that they’re blocked. )

Update – Looks like this is an after effect of the recent Cyber Security deal between India and the US

Update – How to unblock Rapidshare and other sites

Tips and tricks on how to unblock Rapidshare and other sites are already doing the rounds on the internet. List them below if you know.

1 – Use https:// instead of http:// (Did not work for me but someone claimed it works elsewhere.)

2 – Use a proxy software like Witopia. (Works!)