Family members and friends hail Supreme Court order granting bail to rights activist Friends, family members and Union Ministers on Friday hailed the Supreme Court order granting bail to rights activist Binayak Sen, with his lawyer Ram Jethmalani saying the verdict was an endorsement of the right to freedom of speech as “a principle of democracy.” Union Minister Salman Khurshid expressed happiness over the court decision to release Dr. Sen, who was...

The Supreme Court will on Friday granted bail to civil rights activist Binayak Sen, who has been sentenced to life imPrisonment on charges of sedition and for having links with the Naxalites. Earlier, Sen, 61, has challenged a Chhattisgarh high court order that rejected his bail plea on February 10. He sought bail contending that the trial court had erred in convicting him without substantial evidence. Sen had filed a petition in the...

India's Supreme Court has granted bail to leading public health specialist and human rights activist, Dr Binayak Sen. In December a court in the central state of Chhattisgarh sentenced to life in Prison for helping Maoist rebels. The lower court had found him guilty of carrying messages and setting up bank accounts for the rebels, who are active in large parts of India. Rights groups in India and abroad had called on the...

Global health organisations cite his work to control TB in tribal areas An international network of health organisations, and individual professionals, researchers, medical students and health activists have written to the World Health Organisation, requesting it to support the cause of release of Binayak Sen. Fourteen health organisations and 178 individual health workers have endorsed the letter written to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan and WHO Executive Secretary of the Stop TB partnership,...

Hunger striking Indian activist Anna Hazare has called for mass protests by his supporters against corruption. The 72-year-old campaigner is on the fourth day of a fast to push for stringent new anti-corruption laws. He wants his followers to "fill India's jails" in a mass campaign of non-violent civil disobedience on 13 April. Thousands of people have joined Mr Hazare's protest. In recent months India has been rocked by a string of corruption...