Assam editor charged with sedition
The Hindu
Anirban’s editorial deemed to promote enmity between communities : police
The Assam Police have charged the editor and co-owner of a local news portal in the Barak Valley with sedition for a November 28 editorial deemed to promote enmity between the Assamese and Bengali-speaking people of the State. The Barak Valley is dominated by Bengalis and the Brahmaputra Valley by the Assamese speakers.
Anirban Roy Choudhury was charged under 124A (sedition) and other Sections of the Indian Penal Code on the basis of a First Information Report filed by Santanu Sutradhar, a Silchar-based businessman and member of the All Assam Bengali Hindu Association, on December 2.
The other Sections include 501 for “printing or engraving matter known to be defamatory” and 153-A for “promoting enmity between different groups”.
Several principals of government and private schools in Delhi on Tuesday said the Directorate of Education (DoE) circular from a day earlier, directing schools to conduct classes in ‘hybrid’ mode, had caused confusion regarding day-to-day operations as they did not know how many students would return to school from Wednesday and how would teachers instruct in two modes — online and in person — at once. The DoE circular on Monday had also stated that the option to “exercise online mode of education, wherever available, shall vest with the students and their guardians”. Several schoolteachers also expressed confusion regarding the DoE order. A government schoolteacher said he was unsure of how to cope with the resumption of physical classes, given that the order directing government offices to ensure that 50% of the employees work from home is still in place. On Monday, the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) had, on the orders of the Supreme Court, directed schools in Delhi-NCR to shift classes to the hybrid mode, following which the DoE had issued the circular. The court had urged the Centre’s pollution watchdog to consider restarting physical classes due to many students missing out on the mid-day meals and lacking the necessary means to attend classes online. The CAQM had, on November 20, asked schools in Delhi-NCR to shift to the online mode of teaching.