Civil rights activist Dr Binayak Sen is set to be released from a jail in Raipur today. Sen's release comes after the Supreme Court granted him bail last week, striking down charges of sedition levelled against him by the Chhattisgarh government. He had been accused of colluding with Naxalites and sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of sedition. The court had observed that there was no evidence against Sen and that no case...

India's Supreme Court has granted bail to leading public health specialist and human rights activist, Dr Binayak Sen. In December a court in the central state of Chhattisgarh sentenced to life in prison for helping Maoist rebels. The lower court had found him guilty of carrying messages and setting up bank accounts for the rebels, who are active in large parts of India. Rights groups in India and abroad had called on the...

I am opposed to any kind of communalism or discrimination on religious or caste lines: Hazare Beware of vilification campaign, Modi writes to social activist The clarification by social activist Anna Hazare on his praising Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his “rural development model” has failed to satisfy his supporters who threatened to dissociate themselves from the movement against corruption. “That is exactly what we are questioning: Mr. Modi's rural development model,...

The Supeme Court on Monday adjourned Civil Liberties activist Binayak Sen's bail plea till Friday on the Chhattisgarh government's request. The Chattisgarh government standing councel said he would need two days time to brief a senior advocate on opposing the bail plea of Binayak Sen. Binayak Sen has been sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of sedition and links with Naxalites. Sen, 61, has challenged the order of the Chhattisgarh high court, which...

In fashionably liberal circles, Prashant Bhushan is an authentic modern hero, the people's advocate who uses the killer argument to avenge the aam admi on the bloodless battlefield of the Supreme Court. Among his lawyer peers, Bhushan is somewhat disdainfully seen as an "activist who takes up causes, not cases". Some politicians call him a "self-righteous" busybody with a penchant for the sensational storyline. Some others loathe the 55-year-old, who helped...