Abstract
Last month, following nationwide protests from journalists, editors and publishers, the Indian government withdrew its controversial Defamation Bill and announced that a national debate on the defamation issue would be intiated. The government's decision, announced by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at the end of September, was greeted with jubilation by members of the press and public. The Bill, which would have considerably weakened the position of defendants in defamation cases, had been introduced into the Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament) on 29 August without any prior consultation with the press, and was passed next day with very little debate. The haste with which the Bill was passed was widely seen as the government's latest attempt to impose censorship on the media, especially on investigative journalism. Here a journalist on the Indian Express and lndex's Asia specialist look at the Bill and the controversy it provoked.