-Live Mint India, with its myriad ethnic and religious groups, has more legal speech restrictions than other democratic nations Freedom of speech is impossible to agree about. While hardly anyone will dispute that freedom of expression is essential for a democratic society and an effective free market, almost no one will be able to agree about exactly where to draw the line. In one corner, fighting for unbridled expression in various degrees, you...
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How the police selectively draw the line-Sagnik Chowdhury
-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...
More »Is invoking the sedition law mere state folly or a sign that space for dissent is shrinking?-Sukumar Muralidharan
-The Economic Times "Sedition" is a legal construct from less enlightened times, when the sovereign power claimed a divine sanction and subjects were expected to live in awe and fear. So what is republican India doing, in its seventh decade, in bringing a charge of sedition against a self-publishing cartoonist with a propensity for scatology and lurid imagery? A convulsive attack of folly that the agencies of the Indian state have...
More »Bombay HC grants bail to cartoonist Aseem Trivedi
-PTI The Bombay high court on Tuesday granted bail to cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, who is facing a sedition case, saying if drawing Cartoons was the only allegation against him, then his custody was not required. A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Nitin Jamdar directed Trivedi to be released on execution of a personal bail-bond of Rs. 5,000. The bail order was passed by the bench on a public...
More »Aseem Trivedi's arrest shows how colonial-era sedition laws lend themselves to abuse
-The Times of India Normally, a cartoon makes us smile. But that's changing now, as the arrest of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi on charges of sedition has provoked angry criticism across society. The arrest contravenes the Indian citizen's right to freedom of speech and expression. Importantly, this is a right the Constitution, constructed by the founders of an independent Indian republic, guarantees. Sedition, on the other hand, is a repressive colonial law,...
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