-PTI Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's office made its debut on popular microblogging site Twitter on Monday. The new media foray by the PMO comes in the wake of TV journalist Pankaj Pachauri taking over as Communications Adviser to the Prime Minister. "The Prime Minister's work should be in the public domain so that people know that the government is functioning for their benefit," PMO sources said. The Twitter account of the PMO...

-The Hoot The brutally fatal silencing of three journalists along with the sharp rise in censorship of content in online media and the increasing cases of defamation marked the deterioration of the climate for free speech across India in 2011. Attacks on journalists continued to be high, with 24 recorded instances even as writers, journalists and lawyers bore the brunt of the intolerance of vigilante groups to dissenting opinion. The Free Speech...

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...

This is India’s Tahrir square, read one of the Tweets soon after the campaign against corruption succeeded last week and forced the government to accept the demands of social activist Anna Hazare to announce a committee for considering a new Lokpal Bill against corruption. After watching widespread public demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt and other Middle-East countries to rid their countries of dictators, there was a frisson of excitement among our socially...

The public face of the journalist is of a brave, feisty adversary to the rapacious establishment, not the party animal who will wilt before the charms of the corporate lobbyist.To succeed, a politician has to keep his ear to the ground. Yet success can be cruelly destructive; it is so deceptively flattering that it eventually insulates him from the very thing that has made him a success: public opinion. For...