As doctor and human rights activist Binayak Sen spends New Year's Day in prison as the only person to be convicted on sedition charges in 2010, it is worth noting that at least five others have also faced the charge over the course of the year. Most of these have been charged for their statements with regard to either the Naxal issue or the Kashmir conflict, according to media watchdog...

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...

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has described 2010 as a landmark year in Independent India's history in terms of the number of scams. In an editorial in the People's democracy, party organ, it drew attention to the several disquieting trends that have emerged as a result. The year stood out as one which saw a serious attack on Parliament and the institutions of parliamentary democracy. Apart from the virtual annulling...

Indian law affords Binayak Sen one automatic right to appeal, and another at the discretion of the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, given the visible disparity between the quality of allegations against him and the repercussions, the judgment is sure to provoke a national and international outcry. One thousand three hundred and twenty days after he was first arrested, Binayak Sen has been sentenced to life imprisonment for sedition against the Indian...

It's simple and doable, but it is deliberately being avoided: N. Ram N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, on Tuesday emphasised the need for an internal news ombudsman in the press and the news channels in the country. He was delivering a lecture on ‘Media ethics and police-media relations' organised here by the Mumbai police. “Unfortunately, no one else has taken this up [except The Hindu which has a readers' editor] because...