NEW DELHI: Booker Prize-winning Indian novelist Arundhati Roy could be prosecuted for a 2010 speech about Kashmir after a top official signed off on the move, local media reported Tuesday.
Roy, 61, is one of India’s most famous living authors, but her writing and activism, including her trenchant criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, has made her a polarizing figure at home.
A criminal complaint accusing her and several others of sedition had languished in India’s notoriously glacial criminal justice system since it was first filed in 2010.
But on Tuesday, Indian media reported that V.K. Saxena, the top official in the administration governing New Delhi, had given approval for the case to proceed before the courts.
Saxena’s directive said there was enough evidence for a case to proceed against Roy and her codefendants “for their speeches at a public function” in the capital, The Hindu newspaper reported.
The original complaint accuses Roy and others of giving speeches advocating the secession of Kashmir from India, which partly governs the disputed region and claims it in full, along with neighboring Pakistan.
Kashmir is one of the most sensitive topics of public discussion in India, which has fought two wars and countless skirmishes with Pakistan over control of the territory.
Tens of thousands of people, including Indian troops, militants and civilians, have been killed in Kashmir since an insurgency against Indian rule broke out in 1989.
Roy’s home in New Delhi was besieged by protesters in 2010 when her remarks from the panel discussion became public.
Two of her codefendants have died in the 13 years since the case was first lodged.
Roy became the first non-expatriate Indian to win the prestigious Booker Prize for her acclaimed debut novel “The God of Small Things” in 1997.
She is also known for her passionate essays on the plight of the poor and dispossessed in India, occasionally earning the ire of the country’s elite.
In recent years her work has marked her as one of the most high-profile critics of Modi’s government, which has been accused by rights groups and others of targeting activists for criminal prosecution and working to suppress free speech.
Reporters Without Borders warns “press freedom is in crisis” in India. Since 2014, India dropped from 140 to 161 on its rankings of media freedom, including 11 places since last year.
Booker winner Arundhati Roy facing prosecution in India — media
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Booker winner Arundhati Roy facing prosecution in India — media
- A criminal complaint accusing Arundhati Roy, others of sedition languished in India’s judicial system since 2010
- Delhi Lt. Governor V.K. Saxena has approved case against Roy to proceed before courts, says media
TikTok finalizes deal to form new American entity
TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new American entity, avoiding the looming threat of a ban in the United States that has been in discussion for years.
The social video platform company signed agreements with major investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX to form the new TikTok US joint venture. The new version will operate under “defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for US users,” the company said in a statement Thursday. American TikTok users can continue using the same app.
Adam Presser, who previously worked as TikTok’s head of operations and trust and safety, will lead the new venture as its CEO. He will work alongside a seven-member, majority-American board of directors that includes TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew.
The deal marks the end of years of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the US if it did not find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January 2025 deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration sought an agreement for the sale of the company.
In addition to an emphasis on data protection, with US user data being stored locally in a system run by Oracle, the joint venture will also focus on TikTok’s algorithm. The content recommendation formula, which feeds users specific videos tailored to their preferences and interests, will be retrained, tested and updated on US user data, the company said in its announcement.
Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX are the three managing investors, who each hold a 15 percent share. Other investors include the investment firm of Michael Dell, the billionaire founder of Dell Technologies. ByteDance retains 19.9 percent of the joint venture.
