Beware of what you put in your Facebook messages or your tweets. Your friends and followers may not be the only ones reading them. Chances are government sleuths would be vetting these private messages. This follows a home ministry directive to the department of telecom, asking it to "ensure effective monitoring of Twitter and Facebook". While "effective monitoring" has not been defined, sources said the MHA's intention is complete surveillance of...

  There are times when fathers and sons say the same things. In 2008, days after terrorists from Pakistan massacred scores of people in Mumbai, a group of affluent young couples met for dinner. They work in large corporations, hold university degrees from the United States and England, subscribe to The Economist and even read it. But it was inevitable that when the men started talking about how the Indian government was too...

-The Times of India   The Supreme Court on Monday said those responsible for fake encounters should be given the death sentence and hanged in what marks a significant toughening of stand against extra-judicial killings by trigger happy cops. "Fake encounter killings by cops are nothing but cold-blooded brutal murder which should be treated as the rarest of rare offence and police personnel responsible for it should be awarded death sentence. They...

After the brutal murder of Azad, is there any hope for well-meaning routine calls for “dialogue” and “peace talks”? What can the "civil society" do as a serious, real intervention? It is reported that the decades-old talks with Naga insurgent groups has made some progress recently (See “Differences ‘narrowed’,” Times of India, July 19, 2011). One reason why talks have a chance in these cases is that separatism comes in...

Union Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar’s made a last-ditch effort to win support for his controversial Seed Bill, 2010 by calling an all-party meeting in Parliament earlier this week. He was candid about the fact that this legislation tops his “must do” list. But the Opposition — supported by a section of the Congress—weren’t having any of it. “The proposed bill is not only anti-farmer but also brazenly favours multinationals in the...