'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.
'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.
'In the upcoming Christian Bale-Matt Damon-starrer, Ford v Ferrari, the CBFC has asked the makers to blur out pictures of alcohol bottles and glasses containing alcohol from the frame. In images seen by HuffPost India, scenes that have alcohol bottles, both in the background and foreground, have been hastily pixelated. For instance, when a character is holding what appears to be a wine glass, the viewer only sees him holding an object, with the glass missing, effectively dampening the viewing experience.
'Twitter has been accused of bowing to Indian censorship and suppressing freedom of speech in Kashmir, after nearly one million tweets were removed. Almost 100 accounts were also made inaccessible to locals in the last two years, spurring claims that Twitter is contradicting the very values it purports to uphold. The findings were revealed in a study by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Friday, showing that Twitter agreed to block more accounts in the region than in every other country combined...'
'On August 10, 2018, the Indian government informed Twitter that an account belonging to Kashmir Narrator, a magazine based in Jammu and Kashmir, was breaking Indian law. The magazine had recently published a cover story on a Kashmiri militant who fought against Indian rule. By the end of the month, Indian police had arrested the journalist who wrote it, Aasif Sultan, and Twitter had withheld the magazine’s account in India, blocking local access to more than 5,000 tweets. As of October 2019, Sultan was still in prison, facing terrorism-related charges that CPJ has repeatedly condemned.
'The poster boy of secularism, Kanhaiya Kumar who was on a whirlwind campaign tour for the elections, mesmerized collegians with his ‘Azaadi’ anthem in Mumbra last Friday. The CPI leader, who not only canvassed for his party, but also candidates from the opposition said that ideologies and integrity were of utmost importance to him... Last week, the former Jawaharlal Nehru Students’ Union (JNUSU) leader was to attend a programme organised by a federation of various Dalit and student bodies and speak on the topic ‘Responsibility of the Youth in Protecting Indian Constitution’.
'Hindutva groups in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu disrupted the filming of action-comedy Sulthan, starring Karthi and Rashmika Mandanna and directed by Bakkiyaraj Kannan, because they thought it was a biopic of Tipu Sultan. The film was being shot near an Archaeological Survey of India protected site on Tuesday night, when members of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Hindu Munnani arrived and staged protests. A police officer told the Indian Express that while there was no damage, the shooting schedule was disrupted. “They were in the final stage of shooting.
'Oru Chaayakadakarante Mann ki Baat (Mind Matter of a Tea Vendor), an award-winning Malayalam documentary about the hardships of a tea seller after demonetisation, was supposed to be screened at the Kerala Club in New Delhi on Monday. The event was cancelled at the last minute, though, allegedly after Sangh parivar members threatened members of the club. According to The Telegraph, organisers were told not to screen the movie because it shows Prime Minister Narendra Modi “in bad light”. The screening was going to be followed by a discussion on the economic crisis...'
'While government departments routinely respond to reports and articles in the media by clarifying the official position, the Union home ministry has gone one step further and demanded “action against all concerned” for an opinion piece in a national daily that it tendentiously labeled ‘misinformation’. Writing in the Indian Express on September 4, lawyer Gopal Sankaranarayanan had questioned the legality of the process adopted by the Narendra Modi government in diluting Article 370 of the constitution which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
'Three theatrical performances, all based on caste discrimination in the country, ran into trouble last month when the Maharashtra police landed at the venue and allegedly tried to disrupt the performance. The incidents were brought to light by Sahitya Akademi Award-winning playwright Jayant Pawar, in an open letter he wrote recently urging the art fraternity to speak up against the police’s behaviour and express their outrage. Early last month, Delhi-based theatre group Jana Natya Manch (Janam) was to perform a play, Tathagat, at multiple venues in Mumbai.
