By Anna Liz Thomas A lot has been made of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Subramanian Swamy v. Union of India, finding criminal defamation laws in India, encapsulated in sections 499 and 500 of the IPC and section 199 of the CrPC, constitutional. Most public… Read More

Written by Nakul Nayak Since the Supreme Court’s May 13th ruling on the constitutionality of criminal defamation laws in India, CCG has come out with two op-eds on the shortcomings of the judgment. In today’s Indian Express, Chinmayi Arun (Executive Director of CCG) raises important questions surrounding the implications of… Read More

Written by Nakul Nayak Today, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court found criminal defamation as constitutionally valid. Recall that the Supreme Court had reserved judgment in this matter in August last year after extensive hearings. Leaders from across the political divide, including Subramanian Swamy, Arvind Kejriwal,… Read More

Written by Nakul Nayak Yesterday, the Human Rights Council came out with an advance unedited version of a report (A/HRC/31/65) of the Special Rapporteur on protection of human rights while countering terrorism. This report in particular deals with protecting human rights while preventing and countering violent extremism. Read More

Written by Nakul Nayak Yesterday, the Delhi High Court granted interim bail of six months to JNU Students Union President Kanhaiya Kumar. Until the bail order, Kanhaiya was in judicial custody for his alleged role in sloganeering at the JNU campus on the anniversary of Afzal Guru’s death… Read More

Written by Nakul Nayak In a significant development, Google announced yesterday that it has launched a localized version of its immensely popular video-sharing website YouTube in Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. With this launch, users in these countries will access country-specific homepages. Moreover the architecture of the… Read More

Written by Nakul Nayak (My thanks to Mr. Apar Gupta for providing this lead through his Twitter feed.) Amidst the noise of the winter session of Parliament last month, a new proposal to regulate online communications was made. On December 7th, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on… Read More

Written by Nakul Nayak In a recent decision [In Re: KK Mishra @ Balram], the Allahabad High Court found an advocate guilty of contempt of court. The Court sentenced the advocate to six months in simple imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 2000. The accused advocate… Read More

Written by Nakul Nayak The recent state elections in Bihar witnessed the return of Lalu Prasad Yadav as a key political player in the state. However, the elections were also notable for the bitter exchanges between the contesting parties in their election rallies and advertisements. On November 7,… Read More

We are pleased to announce that the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG) will be partnering with the Berkman Center for Internet Society at Harvard University as a Regional Hub for its internet censorship database ‘Lumen’. CCG along with the Nexa Center for Internet & Society in Turin,… Read More