The government is not a fan of free speech. That statement is evergreen and can easily be transplanted across political parties or states. It doesn't matter if it's the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jammu and Kashmir or Tamil Nadu. Our authorities think expression is a dangerous thing and they don't want you to have power over it. Does that sound alarmist? It isn't, unfortunately, because it's beautifully and paradoxically enshrined in law under the ominous title of "reasonable restrictions".

On Saturday, the Indian Express reported that the Information & Broadcasting Ministry has issued show-cause notices to three private news channels alleging that they "showed disrespect" to the judiciary and President of India. Their alleged crime? Broadcasting content on the day 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon was hanged; content that did everything from assert Memon's innocence to criticising the death penalty.

Going by the alleged violation of the Programme Code cited in the report, the channels, NDTV 24x7, ABP News and Aaj Tak, are said to have aired programmes that had half-truths in them, could have incited violence and criticised the President and the judiciary. Aaj Tak and ABP News had aired phone interviews of Chhota Shakeel, a wanted criminal, who claimed Memon was innocent. NDTV 24x7's coverage featured Memon's lawyer criticising the death penlaty.

In a sense, these notices can very easily be justified. It's true that the coverage could easily have fallen afoul of the Cable Television Network Rules' Programme Code, which governs what programmes channels are allowed to broadcast. The problem is that almost anything on TV, especially any news programme but also plenty of entertainment shows, could also be seen as violating the code. Read it in full below.
6. Programme Code. (1) No programme should be carried in the cable service which ‒
(a) offends against good taste or decency;
(b) contains criticism of friendly countries;
(c) contains attack on religions or communities or visuals or words contemptuous of religious groups or which promote communal attitudes;
(d) contains anything obscene, defamatory, deliberate, false and suggestive innuendos and half truths;
(e) is likely to encourage or incite violence or contains anything against maintenance of law and order or which promote anti-national attitudes.
(f) contains anything amounting to contempt of court.
(g) contains aspersions against the integrity of the President and Judiciary;
(h) contains anything affecting the integrity of the Nation;
(i) criticises, maligns or slanders any individual in person or certain groups, segments of social, public and moral life of the country;
(j) encourages supersition or blind belief;
(k) denigrates women through the depiction in any manner of the figure of a woman, her form or body or any part thereof in such a way as to have the effect of being indecent, or derogatory to women, or is likely to deprave, corrupt or injure the public morality or morals;
(l) denigrates children;
(m) contains visuals or words which reflect a slandering, ironical and snob-bish attitude in the portrayal of certain ethnic, linguistic and regional groups;
(n) contravenes the provisions of the Cinematograph Act, 1952 (37 of 1952).

It wouldn't be hard to point out what portions most of our programming violates.

Bollywood movies come to mind immediately (denigrating women? Snobbish attitude to regional groups? Obscenity?).  So do countless hours of religious programming (encouraging blind belief and superstitions?). Not to mention comedy shows (offending good taste and decency). But the gold standard has to be the broadcast of any political or governmental press conference ever: "deliberate, false and suggestive innuendos and half-truths" many of which I could easily argue "affect the integrity of the nation". (The latter might also apply to any broadcast of what's happening at Parliament).

By that measure, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry should have its hands full, sending notices left and right. Yet these happen to be the first such notices sent in the last year or so of this government. It is this selectivity that causes eyebrows to be raised. If everything on TV is falling afoul of the code, why is it only sending notices to those channels that, coincidentally, appear to be criticising controversial decisions of either the government or the judiciary?