The historian Ramachandra Guha has famously described India as a fifty-fifty democracy. But even admirers of India as a functioning democracy will perhaps be forced to admit that certain events in 2010 forced the needle to move beyond fifty against democracy. Threats to democracy and democratic rights have never been as evident, and as powerful, since the dark days of the Emergency in 1975-76 as they were in the course...

The diplomatic cables leaked by the WikiLeaks have provided a rare insight into how the United States has sought to exert pressure and influence policymaking in India, while the Niira Radia tapes present a sad picture of the vulnerability of the Indian state as corporate lobbyists have a free run. These were some of the views articulated at a discussion organised by the Delhi Union of Journalists and the Delhi Media...

The Supreme Court today asked the media not not to drag the name of any person figuring in the controversial Niira Radia tapes until the case was decided by it as dignity of every individual was precious.It even warned journalists of being hauled up if the ''lakshman rekha'' is crossed.A bench of justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly while warning the media from crossing the "Lakshman lekha" chided...

Outlook, Open oppose any restraint on publication of conversations ‘Tapes essential for meaningful debate by Indian citizen'‘Intercepted materials not likely to be secrets of the state”Even as the Supreme Court permitted the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), the Chennai Press Club and Jain Television to intervene in the petition filed by industrialist Ratan Tata, the Outlook and Open magazines — which published the conversations of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia —...

  What does the Niira Radia tapes, Wikileaks and whole body scanners have in common? It is the end of privacy both for the public individual or the private one. For the public individual, every thing that they speak or write can now be put in public domain. A quarter of a million cables from US Embassies around the world, some of them marked highly confidential are now public. So are...