-The Telegraph Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today put responsibilities of governance before demands for payback by a section of civil society that described as “fascist” the denial of permission to hold a protest in the heart of the city to push for demands voiced by Maoists. “There are many who had supported me before the elections and have turned away since then…. It does not matter to me,” Mamata said today in...
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Musings on the media in the dock by Sashi Kumar
The fourth pillar of democracy would cease to be free if it is made accountable to one or more of the other pillars. Much of the media, says Justice Markandey Katju, the new Chairman of the Press Council of India, is of very poor intellectual level. That, even for a former judge, would be being judgmental — except that sections of the media concerned seem hell-bent on proving him right. Setting...
More »Mamata warns against glorifying Maoists
-The Hindu West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday, warned organisations glorifying Maoists that the government would take action against them anytime. Ms. Banerjee also gave a justification, for the first time in six months, as to why she could not keep her promise of force withdrawal from the Jangalmahal Addressing a press meet at the State Secretariat, she said the government still hoped that good sense would prevail upon the...
More »“People's voices being suppressed” by Ananya Dutta
The Trinamool Congress-led government is “suppressing freedom of expression of the people of West Bengal,” litterateur and Magsaysay awardee Mahasweta Devi said here on Monday. “The people's government has come and done something that was unimaginable in the last 64 years. The people have lost their right to assemble and express their opinion at the Metro channel,” said Mahasweta Devi, who, on earlier occasions, had come out in support of Mamata...
More »Justice Katju: Media needs to be accountable to people by Anand Sagar
The newly appointed Chairman of the Press Council of India (PCI) and an eminent former judge of the Supreme Court Justice Markandey Katju now faces a somewhat Hamletian dilemma — how best to suit his actions to his words. And, in the process, how best to also diffuse the heated debate and controversy that has followed some of his recent remarks on the state and the functioning of Indian media. Interestingly,...
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