-The Tribune Right from the inception of parliamentary democracy in our country, every party has appointed a whip tasked with disciplining the elected representatives. But what about direct command from the voters? Why can’t the voters bypass the parties and instruct their representatives on how to conduct themselves in Parliament? THE Samyukt Kisan Morcha’s decision to issue a ‘voters’ whip’ is one more democratic innovation in these dark times when formal democratic...

-TheWire.in The Press Club of India, Mumbai Press Club and Indian Women’s Press Corps have all condemned the attempted and successful surveillance on journalists and others. New Delhi: Several journalists’ bodies have condemned the attempted and successful surveillance on phones linked to journalists, ministers and officials, among others, as revealed in reports under the Pegasus Project following investigation carried out by The Wire and several other global media organisations. Describing it as “unprecedented”...

-TheWire.in The two have said that Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code will continue to "haunt and hinder" the right to free speech and the freedom of the press. New Delhi: Journalists Patricia Mukhim and Anuradha Bhasin have become the latest to move Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of sedition law contending that the colonial-era penal provision was being used to intimidate, silence and punish scribes. Mukhim is editor of The...

-TheWire.in "Such mass targeting of Muslim women in public spaces, whether online or offline, that treats them as objects in the political discourse of Hindutva is simply unacceptable." New Delhi: A group of more than 800 women’s rights organisations and concerned individuals have issued a statement condemning the recent online targeting and harassment of Muslim women on GitHub, through an app called ‘Sulli Deals’ that sought to ‘auction’ these women. Photos of over...

-The Hindu Blaming ‘the system’ alone for Father Stan Swamy’s death obscures how India’s political economy is linked to deprival When an officer from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) came to interrogate Father Stan Swamy last monsoon, the Jesuit sociologist, then 83, in turn asked him about police integrity, and why a father-son duo (P. Jayaraj and Bennicks) should die of custodial torture in a Tamil Nadu police lock-up. It was quintessential...