Last week, the Supreme Court granted bail to Binayak Sen, the doctor and civil rights activist who had been sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Raipur on the charge of sedition. Sen was charged with being a Naxalite sympathizer, and of acting as a courier for the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The verdict of the lower court had been widely condemned. The proceedings were farcical; with no...

Civil rights activist Binayak Sen, recently freed on bail by the Supreme Court in a sedition case, has been honoured with the 2011 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights, South Korea's most prestigious award for those working on peace, democracy and justice in Asia. The award was announced yesterday by 2011 Gwangju Prize Committee in Seoul. The prize, which carries a sum of USD 50,000 is awarded each year on May 18 --...

Binayak Sen walked out of prison this evening to warm hugs from his mother, wife, daughters and friends but not before technical problems relating to his bail threatened to stall his release today. Eventually, the frail 61-year-old in kurta-pyjamas emerged from Raipur Central Jail a couple of hours later than expected, ending his four-month stay behind bars under a bail condition that requires him to surrender his passport. The rights activist, granted...

“I know in my heart that I never betrayed the people of this country” At 7 O'clock on a sultry Monday evening, human rights activist and paediatrician Binayak Sen walked out of the Raipur Central Jail and into the arms of his daughters Aparajita and Pranhita. “I know in my heart that I never betrayed the people of this country,” Dr. Sen said soon after he was released on bail,...

Indian public health expert and human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen has been freed, after the Supreme Court granted him bail last week. Dr Sen was released from a prison in the central state of Chhattisgarh on the condition that he would surrender his passport and attend court whenever he was summoned. In December a court in Chhattisgarh sentenced him to life in prison for helping Maoist rebels. Mr Sen has denied the...