-The Hindu Ongoing agitation in Kudankulam illustrates how State criminalises popular protest To what extent will the State go to criminalise an agitation, especially a prolonged popular struggle against a project seen by the government as a vital necessity, but as a hazard by the people living in its vicinity? It will charge the protesters with grave offences such as “waging war” and “sedition” regardless of whether there is any basis. The ongoing...

-The Telegraph Bombay High Court today said the “arbitrary” arrest of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi had breached his freedom of speech and expression. The court also said it intended to lay down guidelines for application of the pre-Independence sedition law to ensure that liberties guaranteed to citizens in a civil society are not encroached upon. “How can you (police) arrest people on frivolous grounds?” it said. The court had on Tuesday granted Bail to Trivedi,...

-The Indian Express The latest controversy surrounding the sedition case against cartoonist Aseem Trivedi has left the Mumbai Police with egg on its face. It has also exposed the force’s double standards and its misplaced priorities while dealing with complaints. Surely the police cannot believe that Trivedi’s cartoons pose a greater threat than MNS chief Raj Thackeray’s constant tirades against north Indians? Does it take a sterner view of anti-corruption cartoons than...

-The Economic Times "Sedition" is a legal construct from less enlightened times, when the sovereign power claimed a divine sanction and subjects were expected to live in awe and fear. So what is republican India doing, in its seventh decade, in bringing a charge of sedition against a self-publishing cartoonist with a propensity for scatology and lurid imagery? A convulsive attack of folly that the agencies of the Indian state have...

-The Indian Express The Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted interim Bail to cartoonist Aseem Trivedi (25), charged with sedition and sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, and ordered his release from the Arthur Road jail here on a personal bond of Rs 5,000. The direction came after a PIL filed by city-based lawyer Sanskar Marathe on Tuesday urged the court...