-The Indian Express A recent order, issued on January 15 asks all government entities, including publicly funded educational institutions and universities, to “seek approval” of the respective “administrative Secretary” for organizing any “online/virtual international conferences/ seminars/ training etc”. India’s two largest and oldest science academies have written to the Ministry of Education — and the third is considering joining in — to say that its recent order mandating institutions to seek Government...

-The Indian Express Party chief J P Nadda and Home Minister Amit Shah met MPs, MLAs and district leaders against the backdrop of a string of mahapanchayats by protesting farm leaders in the sugar belt. WARY over the farmer agitation spreading across the Jat belt, the BJP top brass Tuesday held talks with party leaders from Haryana, Rajasthan and Western Uttar Pradesh, resuming their attempts to find ways to end the stalemate. Party...

-The Hindu To show Indian agriculture as being net taxed to argue for the farm laws has poor conceptual validity Over the past three decades, a major rationale offered in favour of liberalising Indian agriculture was that farmers were “net taxed”. In other words, incomes of farmers were kept artificially lower than what they should have been. It was argued that this “net taxation” existed because protectionist policies deprived farmers of higher...

-The Hindu The legal regime that enables the government to block websites needs urgent reform On February 1, 2021, in the wake of the intensification of the farmers’ protests and reports of violent incidents on January 26 – a number of Twitter accounts became inaccessible in India. These included (among many others) the accounts of The Caravan magazine, the actor Sushant Singh, and the Kisan Ekta Morcha handle, which was chronicling the...

-The Indian Express Governments past and present have used a colonial-era law to charge many ‘seditious’ men and women, most recently during the farmer protests, when a series of cases were filed against journalists and politicians. The Central Hall of Parliament doubles up as a portrait gallery. On its walls hang portraits of leaders who shaped the destiny of India. If a viceroy from British India were to walk into the hall...