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Guwahati | Updated 4/22/2014 9:45:32 AM IST

Guwahati: Charging Trinamool Congress with throttling democracy in West Bengal by intimidating voters, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar today said the Left will do better in the state if polling is done without any fear.

He also said that TMC's dream to create a base in Tripura "will never be true."

"Democracy is being throttled in West Bengal by Trinamool Congress. In three years of their rule, 145 Left leaders were killed, 44,000 Left supporters were forced to leave their homes and our organisational structures were burnt to ashes," the CPI(M) Politburo member alleged.

People were being threatened to shift their political allegiance and could not vote in a free and fair manner during the panchayat elections also, he alleged.

"However, we are seeing a positive sign. People have started reacting to the call of alternative forces. The silver lining is that, if people come out to vote without fear, then we will perform much better than the last Lok Sabha elections," Sarkar told PTI in an interview.

On post-poll alliances with parties, the senior CPI(M) leader said the Left was open to non-Congress and non-BJP parties, including with Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). PTI

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Trinamool Congress 'throttling' democracy in WB: Tripura CM

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, April 18
Visit http://www.democracynow.org to watch the entire independent, global news hour. This is a summary of news headlines from the U.S. and around the world o...

By: democracynow

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Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, April 18 - Video

Scientific Study Proves US Is Not A Democracy! - MOC #298
A new scientific report took into account 1779 policy issues as well as many variables and found that the people of the United States have little, if any, s...

By: LeeCamp2

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Scientific Study Proves US Is Not A Democracy! - MOC #298 - Video

A democracy's very resilience stems from the fact that you can celebrate opinions you don't agree with. This clearly highlights the value of diversity - to be willing to accept ideas that one doesn't necessarily agree with.

What must be emphasized is that the real value of opinion is the absolute right to be wrong and be wrong without fear and where there is no vindictiveness or its threat doesn't exist.

My previous column, "Will anything change with the new prime minister" got some positive comments like how this was worth a larger discourse, how it could change the country for the positive and how an action agenda needs to be set to get the idea in motion.

What, though, came as a surprise were the not so positive comments - or, I should say, the near threats or direct threats from the bureaucracy to refrain from such articles because they seemed to believe that opinions and ideas are dangerous; that they can lead to the downfall of the world's largest democracy.

This compels us to look afresh at the true meaning of democracy. At the core is free speech - the right to an opinion, the right to disseminate the opinion and the right to be heard. One thing, though, is definitively true: that no curtailment of ideas can happen or should happen.

Quite remarkably, we don't have to agree with each other's ideas, thoughts or writings. We should be fight to protect the right to tell, suggest, criticize and debate. Thus, we can clearly state that the entrenched power of democracy is its free speech and the ability of the people to self-correct whenever and wherever required.

At times one finds the dichotomy difficult to fathom and understand. On the one hand, we proudly suggest we are the world's largest democracy with the largest number of people voting. But we also have numerous restrictions - implicit or explicit - and straight-jacketing. One cringes at the thought of real freedom of speech when there when there are so many restrictions.

One seemingly faces so many restrictions from a section of the bureaucracy that it is trying to curtail our right to free speech that one would like to ask a few questions:

* How free is our speech when we are beaten down and threatened, if even implicitly, by the very people who are paid to serve us?

* How can we go about changing the country when the bureaucrats would work overtime to find you, work against you and think that even discussing an idea could bring down the world's largest democracy?

Originally posted here:
Opinions aren't dangerous in a democracy (Column: Active Voice)

(2nd UPDATE) The veteran campaigner who formed the NLD with Aung San Suu Kyi in 1988 had suffered worsening ill health in recent weeks

DEMOCRACY. Win Tin, who served nearly 20 years in prison and the country's longest-serving political prisoner after challenging the military rule by co-founding the NLD, dies at age 85 on April 21, 2014, his family said. File photo by Nyein Chan Naing/EPA

YANGON, Myanmar (2nd UPDATE) Win Tin, one of the founders of Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition and the nation's longest-serving political prisoner, died Monday, April 21, at the age of 84 after battling for decades to bring freedom to a nation that suffered under military rule.

A former journalist and veteran campaigner, whose near two decades in jail failed to dull his commitment to the democratic cause, had suffered worsening ill health in recent weeks.

He died in hospital in Yangon early Monday, National League for Democracy party spokesman Nyan Win told Agence France-Presse (AFP). A funeral service will be held on Wednesday, April 23.

A towering figure within the democracy movement, Win Tin formed the NLD with Aung San Suu Kyi in 1988 and was imprisoned the following year in the wake of a student-led pro-democracy uprising.

He reiterated his support for party leader Suu Kyi in the days before he died, according to his long-time assistant Yar Zar.

"We are so sad to have lost him it is like the world has been lost," he told AFP.

"But we have many things to do. We will continue as he asked and will follow his way to democracy," he added. (READ: Suu Kyi cautions Myanmar 'not yet a democracy')

Myanmar began its emergence from nearly half a century of military rule in 2011, under a quasi-civilian government that has won international plaudits for reforms including the release of hundreds of political prisoners.

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Veteran Myanmar pro-democracy campaigner Win Tin dies party