The Narendra Modi-led government is looking to empanel five consultancies to help it implement the prime minister’s ambitious ‘Digital India’ programme that was launched earlier this month, a tender issued by the National e-Governance Division shows. The consultancies will work on technology and programme management for the initiative at the national level. “To meet the…
Bangalore is the second-largest IT cluster in the world after Silicon Valley, says Srivatsa Krishna, secretary – IT, Biotech, e-governance Karnataka government, implying that the comparison with Hyderabad is unwarranted. In a bid to justify his point further, he says: “Hyderabad took eight years to fructify MoU with Google.” Moreover, he adds that Bangalore now…
Setting aside the penal defamation laws would lead to “anarchy” and no “orderly society” can have a situation where anybody can say anything against anybody, the Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court, pitching for its retention in the statute book. “Does the freedom of speech and expression necessarily mean that one can say anything…
Mr. Arvind Datar, appearing for Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal before the Supreme Court in his petition challenging the constitutionality of the defamation provisions in the Indian Penal Code, has contended in his written submissions filed in Court- a copy of which has been seen by “Live Law”- that Sections 499 and 500 IPC and…
The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that reporting a public figure’s live-in relationship would amount to violation of his privacy and defame him even though society accepted such relations these days. Opposing a clutch of petitions seeking scrapping of the criminal law on defamation, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi told a bench headed by…
The central government Thursday told the Supreme Court that for an orderly civil society, the penal provision of criminal defamation was integral to the reasonable restriction imposed by the constitution on the right to freedom of speech and expression it guaranteed. Defending the Indian Penal Code’s sections 499 and 500 spelling out punishment for criminal defamation,…
The Centre on Thursday stoutly defended the law for making defamation an offence saying that scrapping of the law would lead to anarchy in the society when people would get away with impunity even after destroying the hard-earned reputation of a person. Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi told the court that such a penal provision is…
David Cameron has attacked British universities for failing to tackle extremism on their campuses. In a speech setting out a five-year plan to counter extreme views, the UK prime minister accused university leaders of “looking the other way” when Islamist extremists speak on campus. This, he said was “through a mixture of misguided liberalism and cultural sensitivity”.…
It is bad policy to use taxpayers’ money to settle private disputes. Propagating the fear of answering summons in distant locations to defend against alleged defamation has a chilling effect on free speech Self-litigating-non-lawyer-now-with-BJP politician Subramanian Swamy is on course to creating legal history again (after his litigation relating to 2G spectrum). The Supreme Court…
BJP’s Subramanian Swamy and Congress’ Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday came out in unison to assail the criminal defamation law before the Supreme Court which said that lodging of cases for political speech and debates under the controversial provisions should be avoided. “Political debates may not come under the definition of criminal offence for defamation,” a…