Markandey Katju's forthright comments on the state of the Indian news media and the intellectual competence of many journalists have certainly raised many hackles. One does not have to agree with everything the chairman of the Press Council of India diagnoses or prescribes to see that his observations have hit home. Nor are his concerns confined to how and in what respects journalism and many journalists go astray and let...

The audience, organisers, and fightersknow that sham wrestling is not to betaken seriously. But the World Economic Forum takes itself seriously. The comforting thing about the sham wrestling ‘championships' on television is that everybody knows they are a farce. Steroid-stuffed Cro-Magnons stomp the living daylights out of painkiller-primed Neanderthals. Good, unclean fun. The results are safely predictable. You should expect the 600-pound gorilla to overwhelm the 900-pound one in a staggering...

-The Telegraph   Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today put responsibilities of governance before demands for payback by a section of civil society that described as “fascist” the denial of permission to hold a protest in the heart of the city to push for demands voiced by Maoists. “There are many who had supported me before the elections and have turned away since then…. It does not matter to me,” Mamata said today in...

A child is God's gift and none must try to know its sex in advance, said the Bombay high court on Thursday while upholding a civic circular which disallows portable ultrasonography machines to be taken to patients homes. The court's observation assumes significance in the light of recent media reports on female foeticide. A division bench of Justices PB Majmudar and Mridula Bhatkar were hearing a petition filed by the Radiology...

The power to publish, which was once the preserve of a few, is now commonplace: the privilege is accessible to anyone with an internet connection who has anything to say. While the powers of publishing may have been well dispersed, it is not so well understood that everyone is bound by the same rules and restrains that apply to traditional publishers and media professionals. Social media sites, which have played...