-CNN-IBN The arrest of cartoonist and India Against Corruption activist Aseem Trivedi on charges of sedition has sparked outrage. Aseem has been sent to police custody for a week for allegedly posting 'ugly and obscene' content on his web portal. Aseem's family and other anti-corruption activists are standing by him claiming there was nothing unpatriotic about his cartoons."Why should the government arrest our son, a cartoonist when there are so many corrupt...

-Yahoo With the government trying to gag everything that criticises its policies or actions, the day is not far when India too will be seen as 'illiberal'. Bizarre. Affectionate. Eccentric. These are some of the adjectives that have been used to describe India, but never has the word 'intolerant' become a prefix to our nation. However, with the government trying to gag everything that criticises its policies or actions, the day is...

The speed and determination with which the Tamil Nadu government has been slapping its citizens right, left and centre with colonial-era laws, it would seem as if a full-fledged war of independence is raging in the fishing villages of Idinthakarai and Kudankulam along the coast of Tamil Nadu. According to findings by a team led senior journalist Sam Rajappa, in just four months between September (when the protest movement against the...

Rights organisations today launched a campaign to collect a million signatures against draconian sedition laws, the kickoff coming on the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, who was among those jailed under such acts. The focus of the drive 65 years after Independence is on repealing Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code — which outlaws disaffection against the state and makes it punishable with life imprisonment. Retired judge Rajinder Sachar, among those...

At the Independent People's Tribunal in Delhi last year, a young tribal man, Lingaram Kodopi, had a question: "My family is well off, but they [security forces] accuse me of being a Naxalite. Why can't we adivasis wear a good watch or drive a car without being picked up by the police?" In September 2009, 10 men with AK-47s entered Kodopi's home in Sameli, Dantewada, Chhattisgarh. They wanted to know...