A statement from A.R. Ghanashyam, Deputy Consul-General of India in New York to SAJA's Sreenath Sreenivasan (courtesy the SAJA list):

July 19, 2006
Dear Sree:Reference our discussions and correspondence on the issue of blocking of blogs in India, we had taken up the matter with the authorities concerned in the Department of Telecommunications in the Government of India and the facts are as under:

A two-page write up containing extremely derogatory references to Islam and the holy prophet which had the potential to inflame religious sensitivities in India and create serious law and order problems in the country appeared in a blog facilitated by well known search engines. The matter was immediately taken note of by our CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) and the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) was informed of it. The DOT took up the matter forthwith with the search engines and instructions were also issued to all Internet providers to block the two impertinent pages. Because of a technological error, the Internet providers went beyond what was expected of them which in turn resulted in the unfortunate blocking of all blogs. Department of Telecommunications have now clarified the issue and the error is being rectified and it is expected that normalcy in respect of blogs will soon be restored.

This is for your information.
A.R. Ghanashyam Deputy Consul General New York

Buy it? It seems hard to believe that they were trying to block out only 2 blogs when they ended up banning something like 15 domains. But the general storyline--targeted banning gone awry through miscommunication and/or incompetence--sounds about right :)