'On Tuesday, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed by Sanjiv Bhatt, the former Indian Police Service officer from Gujarat, asking for two police cases against him to be transferred out of Gujarat and investigated by an independent agency. Bhatt said he feared the state was trying to falsely implicate him since he had given testimony against Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat. One of those two cases pertained to a complaint filed by Tushar Mehta, then Additional Advocate General of Gujarat, alleging that Bhatt had hacked into his email account.
'Is the Narendra Modi government cherry-picking which non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to target and destroy or at least paralyse? Or is it raising legitimate questions about the accountability of foreign-funded NGOs? If it is the latter, then the way it is going about it is decidedly odd. Few will question the need to set up structures of accountability and transparency in organisations handling large funds, including those that come from outside India. But the government appears less concerned about transparency and more about the issues these organisations have chosen to raise.
'The Centre may act against some of the 188 NGOs red-flagged by the Intelligence Bureau for alleged misuse of foreign funds, suspected extremist links and proselytization. These non-government organisations were reported by the internal spy agency and a list sent to the home ministry, documents accessed by HT have revealed. The country’s top tax body the central board of direct taxes (CBDT) and enforcement directorate (ED), which tracks foreign funds and money laundering, have been alerted. But, it is not clear how many of the NGOs have been referred to and to which agency...
"The home ministry’s stand that Greenpeace campaigner Priya Pillai, who was offloaded from a London-bound flight, had violated the law by trying to travel on a ticket funded by Greenpeace UK may not hold water. The home ministry issued a look out circular (LOC) against Pillai on grounds of national security, saying Pillai’s travel violated the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act because she was trying to fly on a ticket funded by Greenpeace UK despite a home ministry bar on the NGO receiving foreign contribution.
'For the past four years, Greenpeace India, an arm of the global environmental group, has campaigned to stop a coal mine it says would destroy the livelihoods of about 50,000 people, mainly from indigenous tribes, in India’s Madhya Pradesh state. But since September it has also been fighting its own battle with the government after authorities barred its receipt of funds from overseas. Greenpeace has challenged the ban, with a hearing due on Tuesday in the Delhi High Court. Indian social activists are watching the case with trepidation.
"A 25-year-old philosophy student in Kerala is facing life imprisonment after he refused to stand up during the national anthem at a theatre. The student, Salman M, 25, has been charged with sedition as well as under section 66A under the Information Technology Act for allegedly publishing abusive social media posts about Independence Day on August 15. Salman, who was arrested on August 20 in Thiruvananthapuram, was denied bail by a court for the second time on September 6. He has been accused of sedition for allegedly "sitting and hooting" when the anthem was played at the theatre.
On August 20th night 12 pm Salman a student and social activist from Trivandrum was picked up by the police from his home in Peroorkada. The immediate accusation against him was that he had insulted the national anthem while it was being played in a theatre, where he had gone to watch a movie. Later his comments on Facebook where he questions nationalism as a philosophical and political concept were also pointed out as a reason for his arrest.
'Barely a month after the controversy over a leaked Intelligence Bureau (IB) report describing Greenpeace as "a threat to national economic security", Madhya Pradesh police on Tuesday raided the NGO's office at Singrauli district and confiscated communication equipment. Greenpeace has its office in Singrauli's Amelia village. The crackdown comes days after the district collector promised a free and fair gram sabha on community consent for Essar and Hindalco's mine.
'He may be controversial. He may also be an aide of the equally controversial yoga guru Baba Ramdev. But does that mean that Ved Pratap Vaidik, who has created a huge tumult by meeting Hafiz Saeed, ceases to be a journalist just because of the company he keeps and the kind of journalism he does? Does that mean that he should be accused of sedition just because of meeting Saeed? As irony would have it, the sedition clause itself has been called too anachronistic to remain on the statute book.
'Protests against the situation in Gaza have been held in Delhi yesterday, (Sunday, 13th July, and today, 14th July, in the morning). Yesterday, on Sunday morning, there was a peaceful protest in front of the Israeli Embassy – this came out of a call for protest by individuals. Yesterday, about a hundred odd people, including many young people, had gathered. I was present at this gathering. Some people made statements condemning the Israeli state’s aggression against the Palestinian people. The Delhi Police was present, but did not try to disrupt or disturb the protest.
