CHIMI

 Dangling my toes in a night’s hot spring after my eventful eighteenth, little did I imagine that it was going to be such a happening, life-altering year for me. From all the hullabaloo surrounding board exams to the uncertainty that subsequently prevailed about college, I am sure that this year would not have been a cakewalk for many like me. But what was most remarkable was my battle with anxiety and minor episodes of depression and even as it might sound like an exercise in cliché, what they taught me. Long gone are times when mud was slung upon people who suffered from mental health issues and society subsequently deeming them unfit for social life. With masses being educated about mental illness, the misconceptions regarding them are on a terminal decline among certain sections of the population. But the lack of empathy that the large sections of the society possess still seems to be incorrigible. With movie stars, cricketers and, other celebrities coming out with their respec...

 India was and remains a land where multiplicity of religions, ideologies and faith systems have thrived and flourished from time immemorial. Free speech, fair criticisms and arguments are not new to public discourse of this ancient civilization. Article 19 of the constitution which enshrines the principle of free speech and expression has been invoked several times in the period spanning the decades from independence for the most trivial things to the greatest of milestones our country has witnessed.  The historical and cultural moorings of the country are evidence enough to support this. Freedom of speech and expression as a fundamental right has remained intact and untouched for all the years from independence except during emergency when it was struck down by the then government of India. The number of publications that were banned, people jailed and thereby the intellectual freedom of the vast multitude of people that were curbed remains afresh in the memory of Indians. F...