A day after the Raipur Additional District and Sessions Court pronounced Dr. Binayak Sen guilty of sedition and conspiracy, human rights activists and his supporters staged a protest in the Capital. A small but determined group of people gathered at the Jantar Mantar on Saturday to condemn the sentencing of Dr. Sen and the “threat” to activism in the country. Various human rights organisations, including the Human Rights Law Network, the...

Thirty years ago, in an act I still feel guilty about, I woke up a very great Indian from his sleep. I was volunteering at a conference in New Delhi, and had been asked to fetch the Member of Parliament from Dhanbad, AK Roy, from his quarters in Vithalbhai Patel House. Roy, a labour leader legendary for his integrity and his wide range of reading, had been elected from the...

In an almost identical case, the accused was given a total of 11 years in jail A couple of years for Union Carbide bosses and a life sentence for Sen: Arundhati Roy Scandalous, says Justice Rajinder Sachar As a crush of lawyers, reporters and policemen awaited the sentencing of Dr. Binayak Sen, Pijush Guha, and Narayan Sanyal on the ground floor of the Raipur Sessions Court, an almost identical case was under way...

The life sentence handed down to Binayak Sen by a Chhattisgarh trial court on Friday is so over the top and outrageous that it calls into question the fundamentals of the Indian justice system. The trial judge shocked the conscience of the nation by finding the eminent doctor and rights activist guilty of sedition and conspiring to wage war against the state under Sections 120(B) and 124(A) of the Indian...

The Chhattisgarh model offers some key lessons on how to make the public distribution system deliverProbably the only thing extraordinary about Manglu is that he is the perfect example of an ordinary tribal. The 60-year-old belongs to the Pahadi Korba tribe and lives in Govindpur village of Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh. He best represents what modern India calls a below poverty line (BPL) beneficiary of various government schemes. Manglu earns...