Google in China spins a web of lies.

IT SEEMS Google needs to brush up its geography. Or simply get its facts right. On the Google maps site localised for users in China ( ditu. google. cn ), Arunachal Pradesh appears as a part of China.

On the site for users in India ( maps. google. co. in ), the state appears as an integral part of the country. And for users in other parts of the world, the site maps. google. com shows Arunachal as a " disputed region". The latest controversy has irked a ruling Congress MP from Arunachal Pradesh. He has urged foreign minister S. M. Krishna to launch a protest against the leading search engine for showing the border state as part of China on its map.

In a letter to Krishna dated March 19, Lok Sabha MP Takam Sanjay stated that Google was showing Arunachal Pradesh as part of India in the Indian version, as a disputed territory in the US version and as part of China in that country's version.

Sanjay also sent the copies of the letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the national security adviser Shiv Shankar Menon.

Sanjay, a member of the external affairs standing committee, urged Krishna to lodge a strong and immediate protest against Google's " conspiratory and appeasement" policy.

" Delay in taking action against Google will have serious international ramifications," the former Arunachal Pradesh minister said.

Last year, Google had clarified: " Products that have been localised to the local domains of a region depict that country's official position on the region. Therefore, the map of India as available on maps. google. co. in represents the official position of the government of India, and other countrylevel domains may similarly depict their respective official positions." " A simple apology from Google is not enough to undo the damage caused to India, especially to the people of Arunachal Pradesh and its land," Sanjay wrote. He did not rule out a protest movement in the state.

This is not the first time Sanjay has raised objections over the issue. He launched a similar protest last year.

Ahead of the Sino- Indian border talks last August, Google maps for India marked areas of Arunachal Pradesh, including its capital Itanagar and Tawang, in Chinese. The maps showed the state with dotted lines, signifying its disputed status.

Google later admitted its mistake and rectified it for Indian users.

Operations of Google are already in the midst of a storm in China. On Sunday, Chinese state media accused Google Inc of pushing a political agenda by groundlessly accusing its government of supporting hacker attacks and by trying to export its own culture, values and ideas.

Xinhua, the state news agency, also sought to defend the government's Internet censorship, which Google has cited as one of the reasons the world's largest search engine may quit China. The China Business News reported that Google could make an announcement as early as Monday on whether it will pull out of China.

Copyright 2009 India Today Group. All Rights Reserved.

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Publication:	Mail Today (New Delhi, India)
Date:	Mar 23, 2010
Words:	511
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