Submitted by narendramodifacts on Fri, 12/06/2019 - 00:00
Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code defines "sedition", roughly, to be the act of inciting disaffection towards the government. The sedition law has been used as a tool to stifle protest and freedom of expression by consecutive governments in India. In particular it has been widely misused since the Narendra Modi government came to power at the centre in 2014.
'...PUDR has said that it analysed nine important legislations of the Monsoon Session in its study. Thereupon, it held that “all the above laws were introduced with little or no notice, bypassed deliberations, ignored proposed amendments, steamrolled opposition, over-ruled demands for scrutiny or references to Select Committees within parliament”. This, it said, “lays bare the anti-people agenda of the present government to dismantle rights and democratic institutions, but also their methods of distorting or side-stepping crucial processes of representative democracy”.
'It was not just Israeli spyware Pegasus that was used to digitally spy on human rights defenders and journalists in India. A clear pattern of another well-coordinated and effectively designed digital attack has now emerged – this time through emails. These emails, all tailor-made to suit the interests of the individual receiver, were sent out between September and October 2019. The Wire is in possession of several of these emails, which human rights organisation Amnesty International has studied to come up with some startling revelations.
'AN FIR was registered in Varanasi against Samajwadi Party (SP) leader I P Singh for allegedly hurting religious sentiments by referring to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath by his old name, Ajay Singh Bisht, on Twitter. Singh was booked under section 67 (Punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act. The FIR was lodged late Monday evening at Shivpur police station in Varanasi...
'What happens when you ask leaders in the Narendra Modi government why they resent criticism? You get publicly hauled over the coals – and told you “hurt national interest” – by a whole army of Bharatiya Janata Party ministers and senior leaders. On Saturday, Bajaj Group chairman Rahul Bajaj asked a group of ministers – including Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal – some tough questions on lynching, Pragya Thakur and the government’s ability to accept criticism...
'Biocon Chairperson and Managing Director Kiran Mazumdar Shaw on Sunday said the government did not want to hear any criticism on the economy while expressing hope that it reaches out to India Inc. to work out solutions to revive growth. Shaw’s remarks came a day after veteran industrialist Rahul Bajaj said the people were afraid to criticise the government...'
'The Madhya Pradesh police has conducted raids at the office of an Indore-based evening newspaper run by a local entrepreneur, along with other business concerns that he and his family own. The newspaper, Sanjha Lokswami, owned by Jitendra Soni, had reportedly published photographs of a former BJP minister in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government and the state principal secretary, considered a close confidant of the former chief minister, in a compromising position with some women, and simultaneously also released their video clips on YouTube.
'Opposition parties, including the Congress and the Shiv Sena, skipped a joint sitting of both houses of parliament on Constitution Day on Tuesday to mark their protest against the BJP’s alleged high-handedness in Maharashtra. Upset over political developments in the state, the opposition parties, including the DMK, the SP, NCP and the Left parties, boycotted Constitution Day celebrations in the central hall of parliament and held a joint protest in front of the Ambedkar statue inside parliament complex. In a first, the Shiv Sena supported the Congress in the protest.
'To restore their internet connections, which have been suspended for four months now, companies have to give the government a signed bond saying that internet usage will be for “business purposes” only. They must also promise to share all the “contents” and “infrastructure” of the internet as and when required by the “security agencies”. The bond, a copy of which is with The Wire, consists of six points, including that no encrypted file containing any sort of videos or photos will be uploaded.
'The police here have registered an FIR against an Aligarh Muslim University professor for sharing posts on social media that allegedly hurt the morale of the security forces in the Valley. The FIR cited an “inappropriate post” in which the assistant professor, whose husband is based in Kashmir, referred to the communication blackout in the Valley immediately after the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. “Sach mein sampark toot jana kitna khatarnak aur dukhad hota hai, chahe Chandrayaan ho ya Kashmir,” the post said on the “pain” caused by losing contact.
