Rights and public health activist Binayak Sen Monday termed sedition laws in the country as ‘draconian’ and said these are often misused to ‘suppress the voice of the people’.
‘The UK does not have a sedition law, but we have it. It was brought to India by the British and we are still continuing it,’ Sen said at a crowded media interaction at the Bombay Press Club.
He said that the sedition laws were draconian and often misused to smother the voice of the people agitating for genuine public causes.
Sen said that his group, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, had discussed the issue in detail and launched a public campaign on sedition laws.
Before the winter session of parliament, one million signatures of people opposing sedition laws would be collected and handed over to the concerned authorities, he said.
Discussing public health, Sen said the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau and the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, have released figures which show that 37 percent of the total Indian adult population have a BMI (body mass index) below 18.5.
Referring to the anti-graft Lokpal Bill, Sen said that ‘we need an agency of Lokpal to check corruption and it is essential’.
He said that it would not be an answer to corruption but it would be an item in the armoury to fight corruption.
