• Loksatta office in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar attacked because the newspaper did not publish Shivaji’s picture on the front page on the occasion of Shiv Jayanti.

2007

• Members of Hindu Rashtra Sena attacked the office of Star News in Mumbai over a story on the elopement of a boy and girl from different communities.

• Shiv Sena members attacked the office of Outlook in Mumbai for calling Balasaheb Thackeray a villain.

Editors Guild demands action, says every right to express views on public issues

New Delhi: Condemning the attack on the residence of Kumar Ketkar, the Editors Guild of India today demanded stringent action in the matter. “In a democracy every editor and journalist has the unfettered right to express his or her views on public issues,” the Guild said in a statement here.

Such independent views need not necessarily meet the approval of the dominant groups and personalities in government and politics and they cannot attack the editor for expressing such views, said the statement issued by Alok Mehta and K S Sachidananda Murty, the president and secretary general of the Guild respectively.

“The Maharashtra Government should ensure that no one, however powerful they might be, would threaten the freedom of the press,” the statement said.

THE PIECE THEY SET AFIRE:

All the problems have been solved. So let’s build the statue -Kumar Ketkar