-The Times of India   The compulsions of electoral politics makes political dispensations forget the past, and set out to 'right' the 'wrongs'. Punjab's SAD-BJP government has announced plans to observe the death anniversary of revolutionary poet Sant Ram Udasi at state level, who during his lifetime was subjected to brutal state repression, branded a Naxalite and slapped with cases of sedition. But, now 25 years after his passed away, the state is changing...

At the Independent People's Tribunal in Delhi last year, a young tribal man, Lingaram Kodopi, had a question: "My family is well off, but they [security forces] accuse me of being a Naxalite. Why can't we adivasis wear a good watch or drive a car without being picked up by the police?" In September 2009, 10 men with AK-47s entered Kodopi's home in Sameli, Dantewada, Chhattisgarh. They wanted to know...

One of the most shameful pieces of legislation in our penal code is the continuance of ‘sedition’ in Section 124A of the Penal Code which provides that whoever excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law in India shall be punished with imprison-ment for life. The expression disaffection includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmity. This provision was included by the British Government in 1870 as...

"The Earth upon which the sea, and the rivers and waters, upon which food and the tribes of man have arisen, upon which this breathing, moving life exists, shall afford us precedence in drinking." - Prithvi Sukta, Atharva Veda Land is life. It is the basis of livelihoods for peasants and indigenous people across the Third World and is also becoming the most vital asset in the global economy. As the...

-PTI Activist Binayak Sen on Monday demanded repeal of sedition laws, saying they were being used to "suppress" the voice of the people. "sedition laws are not benefiting free people in free polity and they should be repealed. The law is being used to suppress the voice of the people," Sen, currently on bail after being convicted on charges of sedition by a Chhattisgarh court for his alleged links to Naxals,...