I count myself lucky for not being frog-marched to the nearest police station and slapped with a host of non-bailable offences when the Government of India deemed it fit to censor my presence on social media by blocking my Twitter handle in August this year. Others have been less fortunate. For instance, S Ravi, who owns a small enterprise in Puducherry, was tracked down and arrested for tweeting about Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram. Stunningly, the police sought two weeks custody of Ravi to ‘interrogate’ him. Thankfully, the judge ordered his release.

We are now informed that a young woman was arrested and charged with “hurting religious sentiments”, among other things, by the police at Palghar, some 90 km from Mumbai, on Sunday after she posted a statement on her Facebook page that read “With all respect, every day, thousands of people die, but still the world moves on. Just due to one politician died a natural death, everyone just goes bonkers. They should know, we are resilient by force, not by choice. When was the last time, did anyone showed [sic] some respect or even a two-minute silence for Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Azad, Sukhdev or any of the people because of whom we are free-living Indians? Respect is earned, given, and definitely not forced. Today, Mumbai shuts down due to fear, not due to respect.”