Although the number of cases of sedition has come down between 2014 and 2015, more arrests were made in 2015 vis-à-vis 2014, according to a new report from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The NCRB report entitled Crime in India 2015 Statistics reveals that the total number of sedition related cases that occurred in the country was 30 in 2015. The same document shows that the total number of persons...

-The Hindu If the data on juvenile crime are anything to go by, the annual reports of the National Crime Records Bureau cannot be taken at face value. The National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) annual round-up of crime statistics has in recent years been the subject of extensive media coverage. The parsing of the official data, however, tends to be a superficial exercise, focussing on the big numbers instead of the minutiae. Numbers...

-PTI The observation came as Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for an NGO, said sedition was a serious offence and the law on it was being grossly misused for stifling dissent. New Delhi: Sedition or defamation cases cannot be slapped on anyone criticising the government, the Supreme Court on Monday said in a clear message. “Someone making a statement to criticise the government does not invoke an offence under sedition or defamation law. We...

-Livemint.com NGO Common Cause said in a petition that governments and law enforcement agencies had abused sedition laws to gag dissent, suppress freedom of speech and expression and to muzzle critical voices New Delhi: Common Cause, a non-governmental organization, on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court, alleging misuse and misapplication of sedition laws by successive governments, leading to routine persecution of students, journalists and intellectuals engaged in social activism. Common Cause said in...

-PTI Vigilante groups target Dalits as they are "soft targets" while refraining from confronting those involved in cow slaughter: fact finding team. Ahmedabad: A fact finding team which visited Gujarat’s Una town in connection with the brutal assault of Dalits, has claimed to have found a new trend among ‘cow vigilantes’ to show bravado by making a particular Dalit community as their “soft target”. The incident of beating up of seven Dalit youths...