Between 2009 and February 2011, at least 14 people were charged with sedition in India London: The typical citizen could be forgiven for fearing that the world’s largest democracy is hurtling towards George Orwell’s 1984 rather than 2013. In late August the government’s department of telecommunications, citing the “communal tensions” around Assam, blocked more than 300 individual web addresses, including the Twitter profile pages of some journalists. It also ordered a limit...

-The Indian Express The latest controversy surrounding the sedition case against cartoonist Aseem Trivedi has left the Mumbai Police with egg on its face. It has also exposed the force’s double standards and its misplaced priorities while dealing with complaints. Surely the police cannot believe that Trivedi’s cartoons pose a greater threat than MNS chief Raj Thackeray’s constant tirades against north Indians? Does it take a sterner view of anti-corruption cartoons than...

-The Hindu Pitched battles at Kudankulam; one killed in Tuticorin police firing The hitherto-peaceful agitation against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu turned violent on Monday, with protesters attacking policemen, and police resorting to lathi-charge and the firing of teargas shells. The agitation, which was confined to Idinthakarai and surrounding villages, spilled over to the neighbouring Tuticorin district where one fisherman died when police opened fire. Battlefield In the morning, the Idinthakarai beach...

-The Indian Express Firebrand leader who rose swiftly till downfall She rose swiftly through the ranks, having made her mark as a firebrand leader who had saffron politics as part of her legacy. Mayaben Surendrabhai Kodnani, convicted of murder, conspiracy and spreading communal hatred, is the daughter of a staunch RSS worker who had suffered the pains of Partition, moving from Tharparkar in Sind province to Deesa in Gujarat. Kodnani, the first sitting...

-The Indian Express Ahmedabad: Former BJP minister Maya Kodnani was on Wednesday held guilty along with 31 others in the Naroda Patiya massacre case, becoming the first MLA to be convicted for the 2002 Gujarat riots. The special riot court also convicted Babubhai Patel alias Babu Bajrangi in what was the worst massacre of the riots, leaving 97 dead. The court let off 29 of the 61 accused, giving them the benefit...