Gautam Sen is frustrated over the lack of progress in Dr.Binayak Sen’s ‘case’. Dr.Binayak Sen, General Secretary of the Chattisgarh People’s Union of Civil Liberties, was ‘detained’ over five months ago under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2006 and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2004:

Over the past few weeks, there has been little movement in Dada’s case. Dada was meant to be produced in court today to begin the first hearings in his trial in the district court. Instead the “trial” began in the form of a videoconference between the magistrate and the lawyers in court, and Dada in jail. The brazen impunity of the Indian state in abridging the ordinary rights of citizens - like conferring with one’s lawyers at a trial - while continuing to polish its international image as a centre of high technlogy grows apace. Whom was this videoconference supposed to impress, I wonder?