The private member’s Bill that Rahul Gandhi’s close aide and Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan was scheduled to introduce in Parliament last week lays down a draconian set of rules clearly aimed to gag and threaten the media in the name of “protecting national interest”. Called the Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill, 2012, it provides for a media regulatory authority — part selected by the I&B minister and three...

‘Spread of the Bt gene could make brinjal a problematic weed' An independent enquiry has revealed that the cultivation of genetically engineered (GE, also called genetically modified, or GM) Bt brinjal poses risks to the environment and possibly to human health. The occurrence of wild, weedy and also cultivated relatives presents a likelihood that the GE Bt gene will spread to these relatives but, so far, this has largely been overlooked...

Srinagar, Apr 29: Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) of Jammu and Kashmir GR Sufi Sunday said the disclosure of information about human rights violations and corruption by public authorities is mandatory and cannot be exempted in any circumstances under the state law. “Bringing departments out of the purview of the Jammu and Kashmir Right to Information (RTI) Act - 2009, doesn’t mean that they can withhold information over human rights and corruption,”...

-The Times of India The Goa state information commission(GSIC) recently directed the accounts department to provide salary details of a government employee to his estranged wife. The government employee had filed a divorce plea in court. The wife had sought the details under the Right to Information Act (RTI) so as to claim maintenance but the government employee had urged the accounts department not to furnish his salary details. Having considered at least...

While freedom of speech and expression is an individual right, its actualisation often relies on a vast infrastructure of intermediaries. In the offline world, this includes newspapers, television channels, public auditoriums, etc. It is often assumed that the internet has created a more robust public sphere of speech by doing away with many structural barriers to free speech. But the fact of the matter is that even if the internet enables...