On December 23, 2011, in a criminal case filed by Vinay Rai, editor of a Delhi-based Urdu daily called Akbari , the Metropolitan Magistrate, Patiala House, directed the Ministry of External Affairs to have summons served on over 21 websites based abroad on the grounds that offences of sale of obscene books and obscene objects to young persons and criminal conspiracy could be made out against these sites under sections...

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday snubbed Google India and Facebook India for their request to treat the case against them for hosting “objectionable contents” only as a “private complaint”, not requiring the government to intervene. The court observed that the case could not be considered only as a private dispute between the complainant and the websites, which have moved the HC against the summoning order by a Delhi magisterial...

The mask is off. Team Anna and his lieutenants are batting for the BJP On 30 October last year, when Mohan Bhagwat claimed that Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement was actually supported by the RSS, the remark conveyed palpable nervousness and attracted criticism from Team Anna. Three months later, as Team Anna launches its voters’ awareness campaign in UP, there is not even an attempt to keep its secular mask intact. The mask,...

You know your negotiating strategy is in trouble when countries ranging as far as Norway in the developed world to partners like South Africa and neighbours like Bangladesh start quoting Gandhi and Nehru back to you. Two months ago, this was the unfortunate situation Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan had to face at the Durban conference on climate change. That she managed, through a passionate last-minute speech, to ensure that all was...

-The Financial Express   Bhim can't understand what he's done wrong.   Before dawn every day he joins hundreds of wholesale traders at Delhi's Azadpur Mandi, a sprawling, chaotic market where trucks blare Bollywood music, porters haul huge brown sacks of fruit and vegetables and hawkers ply tea and cigarettes. His own trade is in rosy red apples, laced with calcium carbide. Bhim says he's been adding chemicals to his apples for years to artificially ripen...