-The Times of India In a scathing indictment of the Bihar government, a Press Council report has leveled serious charges against the state establishment including attempts to censor the media, misuse its "monopolistic status" for giving advertisements and arm-twisting newspapers to publish positive stories. Comparing the situation to Emergency, the three-member team that recently submitted its report to PCI chief Markandey Katju said that the Nitish Kumar government was forcing the...

-The Telegraph CPM general secretary Prakash Karat today backed Sitaram Yechury’s virtual endorsement of Afzal Guru’s execution but appeared to leave room for manoeuvre, saying that was his party’s stand “so far”. The hint of a possible review came as the party found itself isolated within the wider Left fraternity, with both the CPI and the CPI-ML (Liberation) taking a different stand. “Since many of us (politburo members) are out of Delhi, we...

-The Hindu PCI chairman slams detention of Iftikhar Gilani Slamming the Delhi Police’s detention of senior Journalist Iftikhar Gilani hours after Afzal Guru’s execution on Saturday, Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju has demanded that the officers responsible be suspended and charge-sheeted. Mr. Gilani, who works as an assistant editor for English news daily DNA, is also the son-in-law of Kashmiri separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani. On Saturday morning, he and...

-The Hindu Caste might be cast in stone judging from the way the dominant discourse gets conducted in India “Caste is the most overwhelming factor in Indian life. Those who deny it in principle also accept it in practice. Life moves within the frontiers of caste and cultured men speak in soft tones against the system of caste, while its rejection in action just does not occur to them...” Socialist thinker Ram...

-The Hindu Wasn’t it? Yesterday I mean. Spring announced itself in Delhi. The sun was out, and the Law took its Course. Just before breakfast, Afzal Guru, prime accused in the 2001 Parliament Attack was secretly hanged, and his body was interred in Tihar Jail. Was he buried next to Maqbool Butt? (The other Kashmiri who was hanged in Tihar in 1984. Kashmiris will mark that anniversary tomorrow.) Afzal’s wife and...