THE brutal atrocities unleashed by Delhi police on JNU students who were peacefully marching towards Parliament Street on March 23, is a common knowledge now. This is despite the peaceful nature of the march. Despite the presence of more than 2000 students, JNU students taking cue from Kisan long march in Maharashtra, was careful to not disturb commuters and traffic. Throughout the march, students walked along the side of the road, allowing for the free flow of traffic.

THE expectation that the Yogi Adityanath government of Uttar Pradesh would maintain the rule of law in the state has been futile.  All doubts regarding  this were completely dispelled by the recent announcement by the chief minister that he has initiated action to take back 131 cases that had been filed during the vicious and bloody communal carnage witnessed in Muzaffarnagar and neighbouring districts in 2013.  These include 12 cases of murder, many cases of attempt to murder, dacoity and other heinous crimes.  All the accused belong to the Hindu community and include ministers, MLAs, MPs

THE Dalit Shoshit Mukti Manch (DSMM), in a statement issued on March 28, has called upon all its units throughout the country to observe protest day on April 2 against the dilution of the provisions of the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act because of the ruling of a two member bench of the Supreme Court. The DSMM supports the demand to include the PoA in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution. This will effectively protect the PoA from any dilution.

CENTRAL to liberalism is a distinction between two spheres, the sphere of the market (or more generally of the economy) where individuals and firms interact to exchange their wares; and the sphere of public discourse where individuals interact as citizens of a polity to debate and determine the actions of the State. The importance that liberals attach to this second sphere was underscored by Walter Bagehot, the nineteenth century British essayist of liberal persuasion, who had lauded democracy as “government by discussion”.

STARTING with the Channel 4 exposé of Cambridge Analytica, and now the NaMo app that sends data to Clevertap.com, we are beginning to realise the impact of big data on elections. If we combine this with fake news – the recent MIT report that shows how fake or false news travels faster, deeper and wider than real news – we realise the danger of uncontrolled use of new technologies.