-Livemint.com While I&B Minister Smriti Irani said that both these bodies were not “regulated/operated” by the government, her Ministry’s statement was the one that defined the Punishment and left both the definition of fake news and the nature of the complaint open-ended. In an unprecedented move in an election year, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has amended guidelines for journalists’ accreditation stating that if a journalist is found to have “created and/or...

-The Hindu Law Commission asked to make draft Moving a step ahead towards framing a distinct law for online “hate speech,” the Home Ministry has written to the Law Commission to prepare a draft law. The provisions will deal with offensive messages sent through social media and online messaging applications. The decision came after a committee headed by former Lok Sabha Secretary General T.K. Viswanathan submitted a report recommending stricter laws to curb...

-Scroll.in The proposed law is almost identical to the United Progressive Alliance’s 2008 Pesticide Management Bill. Months after more than 40 people in three states were reported to have died in the second half of 2017 after being exposed to spurious pesticides, the Bharatiya Janata Party government has begun consultations on a new Pesticides Management Bill. The deaths in rural Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana highlighted the fact that the Insecticides Act...

-SabrangIndia.in In Pratapgarh, a village that could be anywhere in the Hindi belt, a young man, Ravi, gets to know that his wife, Seema, is pregnant with a girl child, third time in a row. He wants her to get an abortion because he wants a male child. He forces Seema to accompany him to a doctor who agrees to conduct the abortion though the foetus is past the 20-week deadline...

-PTI New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday termed as ”absolutely illegal” any attack by khap panchayats or associations against an adult man and woman opting for inter- caste marriage. The apex court said if an adult man and woman marry, no khap, panchayat, individual or society can question them. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud asked the Centre to give its reponse on suggestions...