August 9, 2010, Lalgarh Ramkrishna Higher Secondary School: As many as 10,000 people stand in rapt attention. Another 40,000 people are stuck on the roads leading to the venue. The speaker: Mamata Banerjee, railway minister. April 24, 2012, Lalgarh Ramkrishna Higher Secondary School: Between 2,500 and 3,000 people listen to a speech on peace and development. Some start wandering around before the 30-minute speech is wrapped up. The speaker: Mamata Banerjee, chief minister. April...

The new IT rules violate the right to freedom of speech and expression New media has come to play a major role in the process of opinion making, as was evident in the recent Arab uprisings and the campaign against corruption in India. It is a means of propaganda and a tool for mobilising the masses. The strength of new media lies in the opportunity for creative participation that it offers...

-Express News Service A week after a professor was arrested for forwarding an e-mail containing a cartoon of Mamata Banerjee, an associate professor last night took no chances when he was tagged on the Facebook in a cartoon that showed a headless woman dressed like the Chief Minister. Dr Bickram Saha, Associate Professor of Midnapore Medical College and Hospital, complained to the local police against Pallab Maitra for tagging him. Saha accused...

-The Times of India Ahead of the panchayat elections next year Bengal's ruling party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has issued a draconian fiat to its cadres, exhorting them to socially boycott CPM party members. The state government's food and supplies minister Jyotipriya Mullick has asked Trinamool workers not to have any form of personal relations, including marriage, with CPM members and sympathisers. Mullick's bizarre list of 'don'ts' include not mingling with...

-The Times of India Trinamool Congress men beat a 38-year-old woman, confined her near a temple, tore off her clothes and forced her to walk half-naked to her home at Kanaidighi village in Bengal's East Midnapore district. After the torture and humiliation in the presence of her 16-year-old son and daughter on Sunday, the woman consumed poison and was admitted to Contai subdivisional hospital. Police put up a barricade around the hospital...