-Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) The Law Commission Report no. 267 of March 2017 on Hate Speech states that “Hate Speech” has not been defined in any law in India. However, legal provisions in certain legislations prohibit select forms of speech as an exception to freedom of speech. The term “Hate Speech” has been used invariably to mean expression which is abusive, insulting, intimidating, harassing or...

-The Hindu The focus must be on enhancing rape conviction rates and taking steps to rehabilitate and empower survivors Amid belligerent demands for capital punishment for rapists, on Sunday the President signed an ordinance that introduces the death penalty for those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12. But this clamour for introducing the most stringent punishment has conveniently sidestepped the more cogent criticism of the systemic failures in addressing...

-NDTV NDTV scanned nearly 1,300 articles and cross-referenced this with databases. We went through 1,000 recent tweets of politicians and public figures. New Delhi: The use of hateful and divisive language by high-ranking politicians has increased almost 500% in the past four years, an NDTV data collection exercise has found. The premise of the exercise was simple: it seems not a day, or a week goes by without some senior politician -...

-The Times of India GURGAON: The Haryana government has kicked off a row by circulating an admission form in government and private schools across the state that seeks to know if the student suffers from genetic disorders or whether the parents are engaged in any “unclean occupation”. The form with 100 sub-heads given to students across the state, including Gurgaon, also seeks Aadhaar and PAN numbers, Religion, caste, income and bank account...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court directs that public servants can only be arrested with the written permission of their appointing authority. The anti-atrocities law, which protects Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from casteist slurs and discrimination, has become an instrument to “blackmail” innocent citizens and public servants, the Supreme Court observed in a judgment on Tuesday. Issuing a slew of guidelines to protect public servants and private employees from arbitrary arrests under the...