'The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has sent a notice to news agency Press Trust of India, asking it to pay more than Rs 84 crore as a penalty for alleged breaches at its office in New Delhi, reported IANS. The notice was sent by the Land and Development Office, which comes under the ministry, on July 7 but came to attention on Monday... The government’s notice to PTI comes two weeks after national broadcaster Prasar Bharati threatened to cancel its subscription of the news agency for its “anti-national coverage”. Prasar Bharati is among PTI’s biggest subscribers...'
'Social media can be used by a person just like a gun in his hand, observed the Supreme Court on Friday as it found favour with an order asking a Congress leader from Uttar Pradesh to stay away from social media for at least 18 months. The top court has decided to formulate guidelines on use of social media in criminal cases, especially in matters of bail. "What is wrong with an order asking you not to use social media? If a court can order an accused to stay away from a gun, it can similarly ask you to stay away from social media," said Chief Justice of India SA Bobde...'
'On the same day that eight policemen were gunned down in Uttar Pradesh, two equally horrific incidents went unnoticed. First, four members of a family were murdered in Allahabad. Then, a 19-year-old Dalit girl and her father were murdered by her stalker, who belongs to the Thakur caste, days before her wedding. These are not isolated incidents, but part of a larger crime arc that would have been labelled ‘gunda raj’ if they had occurred under the governance of a lower-caste Chief Minister.
'The Uttar Pradesh police has booked the executive editor and editor-in-chief of the news portal Scroll.in under various charges of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and sections of the Indian Penal Code... Sharma recently wrote a series of reports on the poor state of affairs in Varanasi, which is also Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency.
'Ashwini Saini is a contributor to a Facebook page that publishes news on the Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh. Saini, who also works as a freelancer for the Hindi daily Dainik Jagran, filed a video report for the page, called ‘Mandi Live’, on April 8. The report highlighted the failure of the district administration in supplying rations to migrant workers stranded in the district’s Sundernagar sub-division.
'After controversy erupted last week over the teaser of the Tamil show Godman on Zee5, the streaming platform has said that it has suspended the release of the show at the moment. The statement also said that the platform and producers of the show did not intend to offend anyone or hurt anyone’s personal or religious beliefs of any community... The show, which is fictional and starred actors Jayapakash and ‘Daniel’ Balaji, came under fire last week after the two minute teaser of the show faced a lot of backlash on social media and was eventually pulled down.
'The woman booked for a social media post questioning the lack of transparency in the government’s response to the gas leak which killed 12 people in Visakhapatnam earlier this month says that she is being targeted for raising basic humanitarian concerns. In a move that is being seen as a blatant attack by the Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy government on the right to free speech, the Andhra Pradesh police registered a case against the 60-year-old resident of Guntur on May 19, calling her Facebook post ‘objectionable’...'
'A case of sedition has been registered against a young man for allegedly making ‘objectionable remarks’ on Facebook about Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath, the Indian Express reported... The FIR alleges, “Rajesh Kumar Shukla, a resident of Allahabad, had said in his Facebook post ‘I do not understand why Priyanka Gandhi Vadra did not hire Uttar Pradesh Transport Corporation buses for migrant laborers?’ On this post, a resident of Allahabad, Anoop Singh, made objectionable remarks against Yogi Adityanath. He said, “Yogi kutta hai is liye (because Yogi is a dog).”...'
'Tansen Tiwari, a veteran journalist from Gwalior district in Madhya Pradesh, has been booked by the police for referring to Bharatiya Janata Party leaders as gappu (braggart) and tadipar (externed) in a social media post on Sunday. The Gwalior police registered the case after a local BJP leader and advocate, Awdhesh Singh Bhadauria, reported the matter to the Gola Ka Mandir police station on his party’s letterhead...'
'Local authorities across India filed legal notices against, questioned, or detained at least eight journalists between March 29, 2020, and May 17, 2020, amid the country’s lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus, according to CPJ interviews with the journalists and media reports. According to Om Sharma, a journalist with Hindi daily Divya Himachal in Baddi district of Himachal Pradesh, who spoke to CPJ via phone, and the New Delhi-based news website Newslaundry, since late March police have opened three criminal investigations against Sharma.
