The Gondia police have arrested Sudhir Dhawle (42), Editor of Vidrohi magazine and freelance journalist based in Mumbai, on charges of waging war against the state. He was booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. “The charges are the same as those slapped on [rights activist] Binayak Sen,” Mr. Dhawle's lawyer Surendra Gadling told The Hindu. He claimed that the police took Mr. Dhawle into custody on Sunday night itself from...

A. Mobi Singh, editor of the Sanaleibak newspaper, has been arrested by police commandos posing as representatives of a banned organisation. The All-Manipur Working Journalists' Union said in a statement that Mr. Singh received a call from someone claiming to be a member of the banned armed group, the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), on December 28. He wanted to set up a meeting with three members of the union, of which...

The historian Ramachandra Guha has famously described India as a fifty-fifty democracy. But even admirers of India as a functioning democracy will perhaps be forced to admit that certain events in 2010 forced the needle to move beyond fifty against democracy. Threats to democracy and democratic rights have never been as evident, and as powerful, since the dark days of the Emergency in 1975-76 as they were in the course...

Between the technical rigour and finality of CAG audit and people's airing of grievances, a new audit system that subscribes to, and strengthens, open government may be waiting to be born. The new system is envisaged as one where the CAG’s formal audit includes the relatively new concept of community-led social audit . The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA) presents an opportunity to do this. Traditionally, auditing is a...

In an unprecedented move, the Goa Information Commission has summoned governor Dr S S Sidhu for claiming that the Right to Information Act didn't apply to his office. The commission took umbrage to the governor's attempt to escape accountability under RTI by claiming the his office wasn't a ''public authority'' as defined in the transparency law. The governor's stand flies in the face of the Act's scheme under which all government Offices,...