Mouse click mightier than pens and swords

New Delhi: People of different nations have chosen different weapons of change at different points in history. First it was the swords and the guns, then came the pen and today people aim to change the government with the click of a mouse.
Pakistan, November 2007: The Emergency muzzles conventional media but blogs reflect the people's rage.
China, October 2007: Citizen Journalists expose government corruption, online.
Mynmar, September 2007: The military junta shuts out foreign media. But Burmese youth smuggle news out, online.
Politics on the net has just come of age.
Khai Sien Mung from Mizzima News, Burma says, “Some of the citizen journalists did created blogs on the Internet and posted photographs, footage and information on the blog. When a Japanese journalist was shot dead there were some reporters, undercover correspondents who shot footage of what actually happened there. And this video has been smuggled out through the use of Internet and it is being shown to the world”.
The net isn't partial to dictatorships alone. These government manuals for America's secret prisons were leaked online at www.wikileaks.org.
Military blogs by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans expose life in a war zone like no other media. For Americans, the net is now a way to get real news and express real views — without government filters on the web.
Khai Sien Mung says, “The correspondents can not write stories on what’s happening in Burma and the publications there do not carry the stories of the protests. The only option is to send the news outside the country through the use of Internet and telephone”.
The blogs helped millions track their dead relatives after the 2004 Tsunami. The government wasn't involved — just one man who wanted to help. Jessica Lal, Priyadarshini Matto, Satyendra Dubey, Kashmiri Pandits — all cases that had the net on fire before spilling onto the roads.
Some blogs had news on Nandigram two days before the mainstream media. Online petitions are also now signed by thousands of concerned netizens.
An online activist, Aditya Raj Kaul, says, “Middle class people want to do something. But they do not have the time to get together and protest. The net lets them protest from their computers. Everybody can do that”.