Right to Media Expression is Dominated by Govt. Those who will speak or question The Govt. he will be killed or attacked.
PS: share this report please, Help us to achieve our right, They are trying to suppress our voice. We need your support.
"When the then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh was being targeted on the social media, the UPA had proposed a legislation to control the expressions on social media. However, the BJP had opposed such a legislation terming it to be against the right of expression and now the government is proposing to bring in the legislation," Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana said in its editorial.
NCP president Sharad Pawar had recently assured the youth who had received notices from the police for their anti-establishment posts over social media that his party would be with them in opposing the government.
The Shiv Sena greeted the feat and congratulated Pawar for openly speaking against the oppression.
"The BJP has become intolerant over criticism on social media which helped it win elections," the editorial observed.
"The BJP's condition today is that it dug a pit for somebody else but itself fell down. The social media, which the BJP used to malign the Opposition, and spread falsehood has now begun to unmask the BJP and in retaliation, the necks of youth who are speaking out are being strangled," the editorial said.
"The BJP is coming up with the deadly legislation that it had opposed. Hence, the youth should think before continuing to express themselves over the social media. They should be prepared to go to jail for expressing freely over the social media," the editorial added.
It said that the BJP used social media as a tool to win polls and used slanderous language against the Opposition and termed them as thugs.
"But the government got activated and intolerant when it was ridiculed by youth when its promises turned out to be false after coming to power. The Prime Minister should openly declare if there is no freedom to air one's views about the government or the BJP," the Sena said.
"Youth who speak against the government are summoned by the cyber cell and are threatened of being imprisoned. Some have even been put behind bars. This is a Talibani style of functioning. This makes Maharashtra a state of exploitation rather than a state with laws," it said.
Morphed Facebook pictures of Hindu warrior King Shivaji and late Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, a young Muslim man was bludgeoned to death by Hindu extremists in Pune, Maharashtra on the night of June 2.
Although Mohsin Shaikh, a 28-year-old technology professional was unconnected to the Facebook posting, he was apparently targeted because of his skullcap.
After assaulting Shaikh, the mob reportedly torched and damaged select Muslim-owned bakeries, lending credence to the theory that these attacks were planned, not spontaneous.
Several right-wing organizations also vandalized more than 200 buses in Pune, an otherwise peaceful city. Disturbingly, after Shaikh was beaten to death, some members of the group Hindu Rashtra Sena, who are allegedly responsible for these attacks, circulated a text message that translates to "the first wicket has fallen."
Still more disquieting was the reaction of newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament, Anil Shirole, from Pune. Referring to the offending Facebook post, he said: "It was bound to have some repercussions," though he later qualified his remarks by claiming that "repercussions" referred to the damage caused to public property. Further, the violence does not seem to be abating. Following morphed pictures of Dalit icon B.R. Ambedkar on Facebook, protesters took to the streets and pelted stones on buses in Pune on June 8, almost a week after Shaikh was brutally attacked and left to die.
Since the Narendra Modi led right-wing BJP government came to power last month, the country’s mood has largely been festive. In stark contrast to his predecessor Manmohan Singh, Modi is seen as a doer. He bears huge expectations to singlehandedly transform India into an economic powerhouse. At the same time, Modi has been accused of standing by and even inciting the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, where around 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, were killed in communal violence.
Some also see him as a quasi-authoritarian figure that does not encourage opposing views. Would the Indian people be free to express dissent against this new right-wing government? A recent series of incidents involving comments on social media has raised worry in some quarters about safeguarding the freedom of expression.In the BJP-ruled southern state of Goa, Devu Chodankar, a shipbuilding engineer was detained and interrogated by the police for anti-Modi comments in the run-up to Lok Sabha elections in March this year. In the concerned Facebook comments, Chodankar had said that if Modi was elected prime minister, Christians, the largest minority in Goa, would lose their identity in Goa, referring to a possible "holocaust" similar to Gujarat.
After his anticipatory bail application was rejected by a district court, Chodankar was interrogated for over five hours by the Goa police in the first week of June.
The passage of the Right to Information Act was one of high points of Indian democracy. It was a result of years of work by the civil society and an incredible achievement which saw the government enact a weapon which would constantly be used against them. One of the voices at the forefront of the movement was Aruna Roy, a former bureaucrat in the Indian Administrative Services.Roy and her organisation, the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan recently published a volume titled The RTI story — Power to the people (published by Roli Books).
The book is essentially a documentation of the entire movement which led to the right becoming a reality.Firstpost spoke with Aruna Roy about her work at the grassroots level, how powerful protests really are in today's political climate and the role of the media in bringing about change.You gave up the civil services to work on issues from outside the system.
As ironic as that is and even though it happened years ago, is the system simply a shackle? Can honest bureaucrats function the way they want to? Has the RTI Act been successful in addressing co-option between bureaucracy and politics?
Despite the many instances of a compromised bureaucracy that one hears of today, the bureaucratic system is necessary. In fact it has the potential — even if it is not used enough — to protect the people from a political executive that wants to function outside constitutional and legal norms.The bureaucracy also plays a crucial role in laying out the structure of implementation. After all the entitlements have to be translated into tangible benefits, and effective delivery has to be ensured. Every government, no matter what the ideology, has to work through a bureaucracy which protects the rule of law and the framework of the Constitution.
The creators of the RTI, included some honest civil servants. In fact, the LBS Academy hosted the first meeting to discuss the law when NC Saxena was its director and Harsh Mander a course director. But the bulk of the civil service has not pushed the implementation of the RTI. One striking example is that Section 4 which speaks about mandatory disclosure, still remains largely on paper.
The RTI law has in fact enabled officials to implement existing laws. The deterrent of possible disclosure has prevented many aspects of misuse at the cutting edge, for rations, pensions, medicines, school entity, wages etc. and at the decision making level, for policy and grand corruption.
Eleven journalists killed, 46 attacked, Is this is the Freedom of Expression. Journalists being fired under government’s pressure.
New Delhi: The ‘India Freedom Report: Media Freedom and Freedom of Expression in 2017’ by The Hoot confirms with data what an alarming year 2017 was for journalists, including photographers and stringers, reporting from different parts of the country. Last year saw 11 journalists murdered, the reason for three of which can be connected to their work, 46 cases of attacks and 27 cases of police action including arrest and cases filed.
In September, Gauri Lankesh, editor of the weekly Lankesh Patrike – a magazine that has been described as an “anti-establishment” publication – was shot dead at her residence in Bengaluru. Two journalists were killed in Tripura – Santanu Bhowmick from the news channel Din Raat while he was covering clashes between two rival tribal associations, and Sudip Datta Bhaumik, a senior journalist with Syandan Patrika, who was shot dead by a Tripura State Rifles trooper during an altercation in Bodhjung Nagar in Tripura.
Journalists faced the most number of attacks from the police and from politicians, as the table below shows. These include the journalists injured during the violence following the arrest of Dera Sacha Sauda chiefGurmeet Singh in August 2017. Television vans were set on fire and reporters and camera persons were injured in the clashes.
Number of attacks on journalists
| Perpetrators | Number of attacks |
| Police | 13 |
| Politicians, political party workers | 10 |
| Unidentified assailants | 6 |
| Hindu right wing organisations, members | 3 |
| Student organisations | 1 |
| Private security staff of bank, film industry | 2 |
| Sand mining mafia | 2 |
| Doctors, medical officers | 2 |
| Dera Sacha Sauda members/officers | 2 |
| Liquor mafia | 1 |
| Drug traffickers | 1 |
| Trade unions | 1 |
| University officers | 1 |
| Government officers | 1 |
| Total | 46 |
Defamation
In 2017, the report says, Maharashtra had the highest incidence of defamation with 19 cases. Five of these were filed by film and TV personalities and one by former Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chief Pahlaj Nihalani. The Adani group filed a defamation case against Sameeksha Trust that publishes the journal Economic and Political Weekly, its editor and other journalists. The Mumbai police filed two cases – one against a journalist who allegedly showed them in poor light, and another against an ethical hacker who had, in 2016, claimed that senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Eknath Khadse was in touch with Dawood Ibrahim.
Andhra Pradesh saw the largest number of attacks on and threats to journalists. In December 2017, the police in Hyderabad arrested a member of a Christian evangelical organisation for allegedly giving a speech against ‘bharat mata’ in August 2016.
The highest number of state actions for internet and social media-related incidents was recorded in Karnataka.
In Tamil Nadu, the number of defamation cases have gone down sharply following Jayalalithaa’s death in December 2016. It recorded a low of seven cases, with the AIADMK filing just one, and not against a journalist. This sets a new record for the party that had filed an estimated 200 defamation cases against journalists, social activists and opposition leaders between 2011 and 2016.
The largest category of complainants were politicians (25), followed by corporate houses (11) and film and TV personalities (nine). A further breakup of the politicians shows that of the 25 who filed complaints, 13 belong to the BJP.
State-wise number of defamation cases filed
| State | Number of cases |
| Andhra Pradesh/Telangana | 1 |
| Assam | 1 |
| Delhi | 11 |
| Goa | 1 |
| Gujarat | 2 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 1 |
| Jammu and Kashmir | 1 |
| Karnataka | 6 |
| Kerala | 1 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 2 |
| Maharashtra | 19 |
| Mizoram | 1 |
| Odisha | 1 |
| Punjab | 1 |
| Tamil Nadu | 7 |
| Tripura | 1 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 2 |
| West Bengal | 4 |
| Total | 63 |
News censorship
A number of state governments restricted media access to various events, the list includes the governments of Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Odisha, Rajasthan and West Bengal.
The report mentions numerous instances of this, some of which include:
- The BJP-led government in Goa was accused of restricting media access to the secretariat and holding selective media briefings on orders from chief minister Manohar Parrikar.
- In June, electronic media in West Bengal’s Darjeeling were asked to stop airing Gorkhaland protests. The same month, Naveen Patnaik’s BJD-led Odisha government asked officials not to respond to the media without prior permission from the state’s government.
- After weeks of political violence between the CPI(M) and the BJP in Kerala, when the leaders of the two parties gathered at a hotel to broker a truce in August last year, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan chose to bar the media from reporting the event and had them removed from the room.
- In October, the Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government in Rajasthan brought an ordinance – the Criminal Laws (Rajasthan Amendment) Bill – that amends the Criminal Code of Procedure (CrPC), 1973, and enhances levels of immunity to public servants. According to the new rules, no investigation could be ordered by the police under Section 156 or a magistrate under Section 190 into allegations against public servants, judges and magistrates. Journalists are barred from reporting these allegations, unless and until the state government sanctions the prosecution. It was withdrawn following widespread outcry.
- In December, reporters in Jammu and Kashmir were not allowed to cover the activities of the government of India’s interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma’s maiden visit to Kupwara district in the state.
Apart from censorship, the report also has a category called self-censorship, and 2017 had numerous examples of such cases as well. Some instances are the Sahara-Birla papers, which most media houses did not cover, “perhaps because of the defamatory implications of reporting on this,” the report says.
