For the Indian Media, 2010 has been almost Dickensian: it’s been the best of  times, but also possibly the worst. A chief  minister resigning, a Union minister stepping down, senior politicians raided: when was the last time the Indian Media could claim so many ‘victories’ in a single year? Yet, just as we were rejoicing at the return of  hard, uncompromising news journalism, along come the Niira Radia tapes to...

The BBC has been banned for a third time from covering an official panel's investigation into the final phase of the Sri Lankan civil war. The panel visited Tamil prisoners at a top-security jail in Boosa in the south of the country. But the BBC correspondent and a number of Sri Lankan journalists were turned away at the prison gates. The 26-year conflict ended in May last year with victory for government forces...

The CPI(M) on Wednesday said the life sentence awarded to rights activist Binayak Sen, convicted by a court in Raipur for sedition, was “a grave miscarriage of justice”. “The evidence presented at the trial by the prosecution was so flimsy and concocted that it is surprising that such a judicial verdict has been given,” party general secretary Prakash Karat said. He said the verdict also pointed to the dangers of having...

“Take again Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code. Now so far as I am concerned that particular section is highly objectionable and obnoxious and it should have no place both for practical and historical reasons, if you like, in anv body of laws that we might pass. The sooner we get rid of it the better.” —Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in Parliament during debates on the first amendment to...

Close on the heels of the protests over the commercial introduction of Bt brinjal in the country, reports of field trials for a genetically modified (GM) variety of rice in West Bengal has sparked another controversy. A group of scientists held a press conference here on Thursday strongly protesting the development after Media reports emerged about the decision of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) to grant permission to the Calcutta...