-The Indian Express   As they were produced before the media following their surrender before the police at Kanker on Monday evening, top Naxals for the first time admitted publicly what has been an unconfirmed rumour in Bastar — the insurgents are forced to undergo vasectomy by their leaders, mostly based in Andhra Pradesh. All the four men who surrendered on Monday had undergone the operation. Three women Naxals also surrendered on Monday. “This...

Seven members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) surrendered in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district on Monday — a sign, police officers say, that a new policy of rapprochement with rebel cadres is gradually paying dividends. Five of the seven surrendered Maoists are from the Rowghat Area Committee, of which three are relatively senior commanders. Of the remaining two, Sunil alias Rajesh Kumar is a member of the East Bastar Divisional...

-The Telegraph CPM leader Lakshman Seth has been accused of murder in a CID chargesheet over the disappearance of six anti-land acquisition protesters during the party’s recapture of Nandigram in November 2007. The chargesheet, submitted to the Haldia sub-divisional court around 5.10pm, also names 87 other CPM leaders and workers. “Seth has been mentioned in the chargesheet as an accused who is absconding,” a senior CID official said. Hours after the CID submitted the...

Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce postpones event after ABVP protests screening of Sanjay Kak’s Kashmir film Close on the heels of the cancellation of author Salman Rushdie’s visit to the 7th Jaipur Literature Festival due to the storm over The Satanic Verses, documentary filmmaker Sanjay Kak had to bear the brunt of Hindu fundamentalists. “Voices of Kashmir”, a seminar at the Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce, Pune, stands indefinitely postponed...

Let down by governments that curb free speech, we have become our own hecklers In free speech jurisprudence, there is a concept called a “heckler’s veto”. It means the ability — but not the right — of a private actor, the heckler, to be loud and obnoxious enough to obscure the free speech of others. By pattern, a heckler is someone who is unable to defend his argument by legitimate use...