The Wayback Machine is the Internet Archive's indispensable record of the web itself, containing regular snapshots of a huge slice of the entire web that you can browse in order to see what a given page looked like on a given date.
Without warning or explanation, Indian ISPs began blocking attempts to visit the Wayback Machine "on the directions" of the Indian Department of Telecom.
The Archive has tried to communicate with the Ministry but no one there will take their call.
Update: While the ban is real, there is no explanation or communication from the government about it. The Wayback Machine reportedly reached out to both the Department of Telecom (DoT) and MeITY but has not received any response. "Multiple attempts to contact the DoT and MeitY (DeitY was the agency that ultimately ended up responding to us regarding the previous block) have gone unanswered thus far (we first tried to reach out to them about 22 hours ago). Obviously, we are disappointed and concerned by this situation and are very eager to understand why it's happening and see full access restored to archive.org," the organisation said in statement.With the Wayback Machine blocked, Indians will find it difficult to catch liars on the Internet. It may even hit India's attempt to root out corruption, doublespeak and is likely to make a number of government bodies less accountable to citizens.
Wayback Machine has been blocked in India
[Thuy Ong/The Verge]
India bans Wayback Machine, makes it harder to catch liars on the web
[India Today]
