Dear Reader,

As India marked fifty years of the Emergency on June 25, it was a time to examine the state of press freedom in India and the Supreme Court’s role in preserving it. While the period of the Emergency—between June 1975 and March 1977—was marked by formal and overt suppression of press freedom, the chilling effect on the media today has taken on subtler and more sophisticated forms. An effort to clamp down is particularly evident in restrictions on independent digital media, whose coverage is often perceived as more rigorous, intrusive, and irreverent than that of legacy media.

Therefore, the role of the Supreme Court becomes both crucial and critical in buttressing and bolstering the dykes that safeguard press freedom in India. This is essential to create and sustain an enabling environment for journalists to report freely and fearlessly, without the fetters imposed by the chilling effect of the state’s attempts to erode them. The Supreme Court Observer analyses the apex court’s role historically and explores what it could do to clarify doctrinal ambiguities and intervene proactively when and where media freedom hangs in the balance.

‘Witch-hunting’, literally referring to instances where individuals, primarily women, are accused of practising witchcraft and subjected to social boycott, violence, and even murder, remains a grim reality. The evil practice was particularly rampant in Bihar, prompting the state to ban it in 1999. However, despite the proscription, inhuman witch-hunting episodes tragically continue to surface. On the night of January 6 and 7, in a tribal village in the Ranipatara area, just 13 kilometres from Purnia, a mob of villagers brutally attacked and killed five members of an Oraon family accused of witchcraft, holding them responsible for the deaths of two local children. A 16-year-old survivor escaped and alerted authorities the next morning.

While the district police acted swiftly—registering cases against 23 identified suspects and making three arrests—मैं मीडिया reports that the tragedy is a stark reminder of the lethal consequences of entrenched superstition and irrationality in sections of Bihar and rural India. It underscores the urgent need for stronger enforcement, social education, and community awareness campaigns.

Weeks after the Supreme Court permitted the Election Commission of India (ECI) to proceed with its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar, migrants from the state are in turmoil. Bihar has the highest proportion of residents who migrate out of the state for a livelihood. If they are to retain their right to vote, and their voter ID card—which doubles as an identity card—lakhs of migrants will have to make the arduous journey from their place of work to their homes—to register by presenting one of 11 identification documents which exclude Aadhaar, PAN Cards, and the voter identity card. Ironically, the excluded documents are often the ones submitted by people to procure any of the 11 documents that the SIR accepts in Bihar.

The timing is especially unfortunate for many migrants as it runs against their traditional time for visiting home, which is October. And for those who work in factories, availing leave and gathering the resources to make the journey is especially formidable. The Migration Story speaks to migrants from Bihar to map their predicament.

Cities in Madhya Pradesh (MP) have once again scored high in the Swachh Survekshan—an annual survey of cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation in cities and towns across India, conducted by the central government's Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban. While Indore, a consistent high performer, has been elevated to the newly introduced Super Swachh League, meant for the cleanest cities in the country, Bhopal has also scored significantly high and risen to second place in the category of cities with a population of more than ten lakh.

Bhopal's rise in the list, explains Ground Report, is due to its scoring high in eliminating open defecation and in the treatment of water. The city has added 125 new CNG garbage collection vehicles to its fleet, as well as road-sweeping machines that keep dust levels low. It has also scored significantly high in door-to-door collections of waste. But there is still some way to go in managing waste, segregation, and prevention of waterlogging.

For more such stories from the grantees this week, please read on.

Warmly,

Sunil Rajshekhar
IPSMF