-Live Mint India, with its myriad ethnic and religious groups, has more legal speech restrictions than other democratic nations Freedom of speech is impossible to agree about. While hardly anyone will dispute that freedom of expression is essential for a democratic society and an effective free market, almost no one will be able to agree about exactly where to draw the line. In one corner, fighting for unbridled expression in various degrees, you...

-The Hindu A key breakthrough emerging from a critical multi-stakeholder meeting held here on Tuesday on Internet censorship and legitimate state restrictions during crisis situations was that the government should itself use the Internet and social media to counter hate speech with comfort speech. Hate speech on social media has been blamed for triggering riots in Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Mumbai two weeks ago. The participants, who included DoT Secretary R. Chandrashekhar,...

-The Hindu In an unprecedented move, the government, through the Department of Telecommunications and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, has agreed to initiate dialogue on Internet censorship with mega Internet companies, social media giants such as Google and Facebook, members of civil society, technical community, media, ISPs and legal experts. The triggers for the discussion, which will be held on Wednesday, are the riots in Assam, Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh,...

-The Indian Express Gujarat is growing, but its children remain undernourished Even as Gujarat surpasses many Indian states with impressive investments in infrastructure, agriculture, and general economic growth, little is known about how this growth is affecting the state’s social indicators. The recent buzz about the causes of undernutrition in Gujarat raise a number of issues about social and cultural preferences. However, this can be interpreted only in the broader context of...

-The Hindustan Times The country is once again dangerously adrift in a stormy sea of competitive hate politics. The signs are both ominous and familiar — the systematic creation of hatred against people because of their ethnicity or religion; rumours and hate propaganda choking the internet; the public moral justification of violence against targeted communities on grounds of ‘larger’ alleged wrongs; and weak-kneed State action against people and organisations which preach...