Imagine that a taxpayer-funded college bans its students from wearing shorts on campus and a student approaches the court seeking to overturn the ban. If this happens in India, the first question the courts may ask the student is: Why do you want to wear shorts, is it part of your religious belief? If the […]
Kerala Police has started cracking down on the phenomenon of ‘couple swapping’ or ‘partner swapping’ — which has gained the status of an alternate lifestyle in the West — after a complaint from a married woman. Police said they have have arrested six people from the districts of Kottayam and nearby areas, without giving details. […]
A decision by a government school in Kerala to introduce trousers and shirt for both girls and boys has led to protests and demonstrations, especially from Muslim religious and cultural organizations. These organizations have alleged that the move amounts to imposing patriarchy and liberal values on women, and accused the school authorities of denying the […]
A Supreme Court bench of Ashok Bhushan and Subhash Reddy has asked to see the new regulations brought out by the central government on content apps. In an appeal for anticipatory bail for Amazon Prime creative head Aparna Purohit in a case of outraging Hindu sentiments, the bench asked the government what it plans to […]
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has withdrawn the controversial Sec 118A of the Kerala Police Act, also known as the anti Fake News law, pending fine-tuning and further consultations. “Whoever makes, expresses, publishes or disseminates through any kind of mode of communication, any matter or subject for threatening, abusing, humiliating or defaming a person or […]
In keeping with the recently announced move to decriminalize smaller offences — especially those of a technical or financial nature — Government of India today proposed to remove jail terms for violating Cable TV Networks Regulation Act. At present, the violation of the cable TV Act can result in jail terms of up to two […]
Former Janata Party leader and current BJP MP Subramanian Swamy today said that the media, and people in general, are increasingly afraid to speak the truth in political matters, and said such unhealthy fear was a major factor that enabled the emergency 45 years ago. Swamy’s comments come in the context of the Indo-Chinese skirmish, […]
Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar today refused to intervene in the alleged blocking of news channels critical of the state government of Andhra Pradesh. The unofficial ban on two news Telugu news channels — TV5 and ABN Andhra Jyothi — in the coastal state, allegedly for being critical of the YSRCP government — has […]
Journalists belonging to several Malayalam channels have been taken into custody in Mangalore by the police, according to reports by affected media outlets. According to these channels, their TV crews were reporting from Wenlock Hospital, where the bodies of the people killed in yesterday’s police shooting are kept, when a police team led by a […]
A case has been filed by the Kerala Police against new media entrepreneur and journalist Shajan Skariah of MarunadanMalayali.com for ‘misleading essential services forces’ and ‘causing nuisance’ after he questioned the utilization of the funds collected in the aftermath of last year’s funds. Skariah had put up a video on Facebook and Youtube in which […]
The ‘Law Reforms Commission’ set up by the Kerala government two years ago has come up with a draft anti-superstition bill that will target those superstitions that cause ‘bodily harm’ and are not part of an established religion. The draft was prepared on the request of the Kerala government. The draft law will target ‘freelance’ […]
The Supreme Court has ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to immediately release jailed journalist Prashant Kanojia. The state will be free to carry on a case against the journalist. Hearing a plea by wife Jagisha Arora to protect the journalist’s fundamental rights, a two-judge vacation bench comprising Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Ajay Rastogi did […]
The Delhi High Court today dismissed a petition by a lawyer’s organization, Justice For Rights, seeking censoring of online content such as Game of Thrones, Spartacus, Vikings and Sacred Games. The petition, filed late last year, claimed that such videos constituted “unregulated, uncertified, sexually explicit, vulgar, profane, and legally restricted content”. The lawyers wanted the […]
Delhi High Court has set apart a lower court decision that imposed a stay on the publication of a video by website Cobrapost that allegedly showed political bias among employees of Dainik Bhaskar group. DB Corp, the publisher of Dainik Bhaskar daily, won the injunction after arguing that the video was malafide and based on […]
An engineer from Kerala working with a petroleum company in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to five years of imprisonment and a fine of around Rs 30 lakhs for his tweets. With this, Vishnudev, a native of Alleppey in Kerala, has become the first Indian to be punished under Saudi Arabia’s stricter anti-blasphemy laws that […]
The Supreme Court has directed that the five tribal- and worker-rights activists who were arrested by the Pune Police will be moved to their own houses, and not in police custody. The activists will remain in house arrest till the next hearing of the Supreme Court. “Dissent is the safety valve in a democracy. If […]
Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s minister for law and information technology, said the government has got ‘good response’ from WhatsApp for its proposal to install a monitoring mechanism on the platform. The government has been pushing WhatsApp to put up a monitoring mechanism that would send out alerts when messages on any one subject starts going […]
Assocham, one of India’s prominent associations of industries, has expressed concern at the government’s proposal to put in place a mechanism to block apps like Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram. The government has, in a confidential letter sent to internet service providers, asked them to suggest ways in which such apps can be blocked at India’s […]
Bhima Jewellers, one of the biggest gold retailing firms in Kerala, seems to have pulled its advertisements from Mathrubhumi due to ‘controversies’ over the printing of a novel by the publication group. “We give importance to public sentiments and wish to stay away from controversies of any kind. We have noted your concerns and have […]
The Supreme Court has refused to stay the sale of ‘Meesa’ (The Moustache), a Malayalam novel that has been in the news for offending certain organisations in Kerala, pending further deliberations. Hearing a public interest litigation filed by Delhi-based Malayali N Radhakrishnan, a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra asked for a translation of […]
