Disable unconstitutional sections thehindu.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thehindu.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Will Section 66A finally be laid to rest?
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Last Monday, the
Supreme Court of India said it was “shocked” that police across the country continue to charge people under
Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, a law it struck down as unconstitutional in March 2015. “You file a counter as it is a shocking state of affairs,” Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman told Attorney General KK Venogopal, who sought two weeks to reply.
Will 2021 be the year that Indians are finally freed from the clutches of this atrocious “zombie law”?
Undead section: On Section 66A of the IT Act thehindu.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thehindu.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Activists and academicians on Monday blamed the government for the custodial death of tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy and demanded immediate release of political prisoners languishing in jails.
Historian Ramachandra Guha called the death a “judicial murder” while economist Jean Dreze saw it as cruelty by the “Indian state”.
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“Father Stan Swamy spent a lifetime working for the dispossessed and the disadvantaged. His tragic death is a case of judicial murder, for which the Home Ministry and the courts are jointly culpable,” Guha tweeted.
Father Stan Swamy spent a lifetime working for the dispossessed and the disadvantaged. His tragic death is a case of judicial murder, for which the Home Ministry and the Courts are jointly culpable. Ramachandra Guha (@Ram Guha) July 5, 2021
Ranchi: Father Stan Swamy, known for giving voice to the poor and marginalised people, would always be remembered as a friend of the poor-tribal and Dalit communities. He ultimately had to die in custody for “antagonizing political power corridors”.
Born in 1937 in Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, Swamy’s life is an example of relentless activism for safeguarding human rights, particularly of the tribal and the oppressed, and in turn become a victim of “institutionalized maiming” of such voices, people who knew him said.
At the age of 20, he became a Jesuit priest and committed his life to the poor and marginalized people. Eight years later, he visited Chaibasa in the Kolhan division of erstwhile Bihar to live and understand the life of the Ho tribe, which dominated the region. For a brief period, he went to Manila in the Philippines to obtain a master’s degree in sociology and came back to Chaibasa again to learn the life and challenges of the tribal community.