The speed and determination with which the Tamil Nadu government has been slapping its citizens right, left and centre with colonial-era laws, it would seem as if a full-fledged war of independence is raging in the fishing villages of Idinthakarai and Kudankulam along the coast of Tamil Nadu. According to findings by a team led senior journalist Sam Rajappa, in just four months between September (when the protest movement against the...

-The Telegraph Dispur is determined to launch a “constructive” television channel, stung by the “adverse” coverage of the recent Ulfa bandh during the Prime Minister’s visit by the local electronic Media. Chief minister Tarun Gogoi revealed the government’s intention during an interaction with reporters here this afternoon, explaining how most local TV channels had gone overboard with the bandh coverage on April 20. Incidentally, a day later, on April 21, West Bengal chief...

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...

The Chhattisgarh government does not yet know if the recorded message from Maoists on using their hostage Alex Paul Menon, a young bureaucrat, as a bargaining chip to get eight of their jailed comrades released, is authentic or not. A Maoist gang abducted Menon, a 32-year-old IAS officer of batch 2006, on Saturday evening at gunpoint from Manjhipara in Sukma, where he is the district collector, killing two guards who resisted...

-The Hindu The kidnap of a District Collector in Chhattisgarh even as the Odisha hostage crisis remains unresolved suggests the Maoists are looking at soft ways of escalating their ongoing war against the Indian state. This targeting of non-combatants, even if they are officials or representatives of the state, must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. That it directly refutes the Maoist claim to be battling for a higher purpose...