Indian courts have consistently upheld and championed the fundamental right to free speech and expression enshrined in the Constitution. This includes the right to put forward different and contrary views, right or wrong. A recent instance saw the Supreme Court of India striking down Uttar Pradesh's ban on the film Aarakshan. This article by A.P. Shah, retired Chief Justice of the Madras and Delhi High Courts, sets out key issues...

The (word) games we play to avoid dealing with the problems of some of the poorest Indians. It's strange season again in the corridORS of planning and power — the run up to the 12th Five-Year Plan. This is when myriad Planning Commission committees review the (somewhat predictable) non-implementation of policies intended to benefit some of the poorest Indians, and recommend changes, only to repeat the exercise five years later. Forgive my...

The strict guidelines that every civil surgeon was supposed to follow to ensure zero diarrhoea deaths in the state issued on April 30 were ignored and a no-compliance report was sent to the state office of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). The instruction list that ended with a pledge let us all take this resolution that there will be no diarrhoea deaths in our state in the days to...

The draft Communal Violence Bill, prepared by a Working Group (WG) of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), goes beyond existing legislation in four significant ways: it recognises identity-based or targeted crimes and organised mass violence as special offences, while placing accountability of public officials at the heart of the law, with varying penalties for dereliction of duty. Finally, it provides for the creation of a National Authority and...

The United Nations health agency today released its first ever list of the most vital medicines for saving the lives of mothers and children, and stressed the need to ensure their availability in developing countries. The list of the top 30 medicines includes oxytocin, a drug used to treat severe bleeding after childbirth, the leading cause of maternal death, as well as simple antibiotics to treat pneumonia, which kills an estimated...