Google fools India
By Shalini Singh

How does technology giant Google deal with competing claims made by two of the most powerful countries in the world – India and China?

Google tries to pacify both hoping neither would realize that both are being given the same thing.

India’s No. 1 English newspaper Times of India is reporting

“
China, with the largest internet users' base, is an important market for any Internet company. Google is no exception. And in its business interests, the company does all that is necessary to be good to the country it operates in. Hence, Google, bluntly put, makes a fool of both Indians and Chinese. Take a look at the map of Arunachal Pradesh on Google maps. For the uninitiated, Arunachal is a disputed territory between the two nations, with both laying claim to its territory, notwithstanding India's greater claim to it given the fact that it has a democratically elected government in place for years now.
“

Seriously, did Google really think this ruse to placate both India and China would work long term?

(Techgoss had published the following article on Aug 8, 2009)

Google Maps favour China
By Shalini Singh

Why is it that the Indian Government only has an added sense of urgency if the national media in our big cities reports the story?

India’s leading English newspaper ‘Times of India’ reported on August 8, 2009 that Google Satellite Maps were showing areas of Arunachal Pradesh in Mandarin rather than Hindi or English.  This report also mentioned the fact Google Maps showed parts of our Arunachal Pradesh as belonging to China.  Some Indian politicians are urging the Government to take Google to task. This Times of India story has been picked up by other newspapers, TV Stations and blogs.

But Google Maps has been wrong about Arunachal Pradesh as early as 2007.  Two years ago, the Telegraph Calcutta edition reported that “Google Earth admitted its mistake and promised a correction a day after The Telegraph reported that the website shows Arunachal Pradesh as Chinese territory.”.  In 2007, Google Earth showed Arunachal Pradesh as an independent country and if you zoomed in showed parts of the Indian State as belonging to China.

Sadly, as long as communist China engineers such territorial disputes with all its neighbours to achieve political ends,  Google Maps will be caught in such controversies.

The other lesson for Indians is that no Government can be trusted if it has not been democratically elected.  There are many Indian security experts who believe that the communist leadership in China engineers such conflicts to divert the democratic longings of its citizens.  Nothing like an attack on a peaceful neighbour  like India to rally the average Chinese behind the Government.  Who has time to ask for democracy if the country is fighting to reclaim its territory?