-The Asian Age In granting anticipatory bail to Teesta Setelvad and Javed Anand on August 11, the Bombay high court noted: “A dissenting view cannot be said to be against the sovereignty of the nation.” Like several other recent rulings by the judiciary, the high court also reminded the state of its duty to protect a citizen’s right to criticise and disagree. Successive Indian governments have told the world proudly of the...

-The Hindu The battle over the Narmada dam reflects a journey, a pilgrimage, and a recollection of 30 years of resistance. Numbers alone cannot make sense of it because it demands a different kind of storytelling If you were to ask a middle class person today what the most significant act of history in the India of the last 20 years is, most would say this — the rise of Narendra Modi....

-The Telegraph   The debate around Yakub Memon’s hanging highlights the many cases of people who were hanged but who should have lived. Indeed, the Supreme Court admitted in 2009 that it had wrongly sentenced 15 people to death in 15 years. Avijit Chatterjee looks at some cases   It was a mistake, the Supreme Court later said. But by then it was too late. Ravji Rao, or Ram Chandra, had been hanged to...

-PTI Medical expenses incurred on Judges and their family members cannot be disclosed or made public under the Right to Information Act, the Supreme Court held on Thursday. A bench of Chief Justice HL Dattu and justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy refused to interfere with a Delhi High Court verdict dismissing a plea seeking details of medical reimbursements of Supreme Court Judges, saying it had personal information and providing it would...

-Hindustan Times Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s decision to use his photograph in newspaper advertisements is tantamount to “an open contempt” of the Supreme Court’s ban on using pictures of CMs in government publicity, legal experts say. Yadav’s photograph appeared recently in full-page newspaper advertisements highlighting an agreement to construct an international cricket stadium in Lucknow. A Uttar Pradesh government ad with Akhilesh Yadav that appeared in a newspaper on Friday. On May...