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I wasnt born when India won Independence. I was just one of those privileged Indians who took freedom for granted, and I expected to die in a free country too. I was, however, aware that there was an organisation made up of fat old sickos who worshipped the Nazis, wept into their hankies when the British were kicked out of India, spread rumours and lies like gossipy old aunties, and thought communal riots were a lovely way to pass the day.

My father had warned me about these ghouls when I was little. You see, these fat old sickos used to lurk around kiddy parks when Dad was a teenager in pre-independence India. Such a shame that British plods on duty didnt holler Hoy! and drag the fat old sickos to police stations on the grounds of evil intent.

My father was approached by a couple of fat old sickos when he was playing cricket one evening. They tried to recruit him to their bigoted cause, but he firmly turned them down. I am so proud that he could tell right from wrong when he was in his early teens, unlike so many old editor uncles & aunties, public intellectuals, and businessmen who brought these fat old sickos and their party, the BJP, into power in 2014 and kept them there.

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Reality Bites: I want to live in a free nation again - National Herald

LAW AND JUSTICE (PiS), the party that rules Poland, dislikes critics. Soon after coming to power in 2015, it took control of TVP, the public television broadcaster, and purged its management. Since then, Poland has slipped from 18th place in a World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit group, to 64th, its lowest-ever ranking. Now PiS has turned its attention to TVN, a television station owned by Discovery, an American media giant. A bill limiting foreign ownership of media companies adopted on August 11th by the Sejm, the lower chamber of parliament, could force Discovery to sell. Liberals fear that Polands independent media are in jeopardy.

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The Polish media should be Polish, says Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the ruling partys chairman and the countrys de facto leader. Repolonisation has become a buzzword in all sorts of industries. In March PKN Orlen, a state-owned oil refiner, bought Polska Press, the countrys leading newspaper publisher, from its German owner. Senior editors were subsequently replaced.

Law and Justices latest target is TVN24, a news channel. Unlike TVP, it is critical of the government. It is also influential: its evening news was the most-watched news programme in Poland in the first half of 2021, with an audience share of almost 22%, just ahead of TVPs rival offering.

The amendment to the broadcasting law proposes to bar entities from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) from owning more than a 49% stake in any Polish media firm. The party is defending Polish interests, says Marek Suski, the Law and Justice MP behind the proposed amendment. Critics warn that it is aimed at TVN24, whose licence expires in September and has not yet been renewed. If the amendment is adopted, Discovery may have to divest the channel.

The TVN law could spell trouble for the ruling party, though. American officials, who have leapt to TVNs defence in the past, are concerned. Unfettered press is crucial for democracy, tweeted Bix Aliu, Americas charg daffaires in Warsaw, in response to the draft legislation. It also added to the tensions that brought down the ruling coalition this week. Jaroslaw Gowin, a deputy prime minister and leader of Agreement, a pro-business party that was one of Law and Justices two junior coalition partners, was ejected from the government on August 10th. He had wanted an amendment to the media law that would allow ownership by companies in the OECD, a group of rich countries including America. He also opposed government-backed tax reforms.

The media-nobbling law must still pass the Senate, where Law and Justice lacks a majority. With the next parliamentary elections due in 2023, the party continues to lead in the polls, ahead of the centrist opposition. It has shrugged off criticism, including from the European Commission, which also complains about its subversion of the judiciary. Making Discovery sell TVN will harm relations with America. But Mr Kaczynski clearly values control over Polish media more.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "Unwelcome Discovery"

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Poland's proposed media rules threaten press freedom - The Economist

The CEO of Discovery International vowed Friday to keep ownership of a Polish network aslawmakers in Polandpassed a bill in the lower house earlier this week that would reduce media ownership for non-European companies in the country.

The legislation targets Discovery-owned TVN. The bill, which still requires several other legislative steps before going to the president for signature, would mean that non-European companies in Poland could only retain up to 49 percent of their ownership of a media entity, The Associated Press reported.

In an interview with the wire service, CEO and President of Discovery International Jean-Briac Perrette said the network is worth about $3 billion.

We have no intent to sell or leave, Perrette told the news agency.

Polands government has said the legislation is necessary for sovereignty and security reasons, but opponents, including Secretary of State Antony BlinkenAntony BlinkenTaliban's advance picks up speed, intensifying Afghanistan crisis Biden sending 3K troops to Afghanistan to help draw down embassy staff Poland passes controversial bills, straining ties with EU, US and Israel MORE, say it would hurt the most watched independent news station in the country.

Blinken said in a statement Wednesday that he was deeply troubled by draft legislation passed today by the lower house of the Polish parliament that targets the most watched independent news station, which is also one of the largest U.S. investments in the country.

Poland has worked for decades to foster a vibrant and free media. This draft legislation would significantly weaken the media environment the Polish people have worked so long to build, he continued.

Perrette said during his interview that he has called for intervention efforts from countries in Europe, the European Union and the U.S., but he worries it might not be enough to stop a possible passage of the bill in Poland.

Were seeing great support from the U.S. government and great support from the EU, he told the AP. The problem is, I fear, this (Polish) government is so ideologically dead set.

Discovery has already filed a lawsuit after theTV regulator in Polandsignaled it would not be renewing the license for TVN24, which is the news channel owned by parent company TVN, according to Reuters

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Discovery exec says network will fight to keep control of Polish media company | TheHill - The Hill

Aug 13 (Reuters) - In early July, as Taliban insurgents were seizing territory from government forces across Afghanistan, fighters from the group walked into the offices of Azizi Bank in the southern city of Kandahar and ordered nine women working there to leave.

The gunmen escorted them to their homes and told them not to return to their jobs. Instead, they explained that male relatives could take their place, according to three of the women involved and the bank's manager.

"It's really strange to not be allowed to get to work, but now this is what it is," Noor Khatera, a 43-year-old woman who had worked in the accounts department of the bank told Reuters.

"I taught myself English and even learned how to operate a computer, but now I will have to look for a place where I can just work with more women around."

The incident is an early sign that some of the rights won by Afghan women over the 20 years since the hardline Islamist militant movement was toppled could be reversed if it returns to power.

The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, have overrun many of Afghanistan's biggest cities in recent days and are closing in on the capital Kabul. read more

Under the group's strict interpretation of Islamic law, women could not work, girls were not allowed to attend school and women had to cover their face and be accompanied by a male relative if they wanted to venture out of their homes.

Women who broke the rules sometimes suffered humiliation and public beatings by the Taliban's religious police.

During hitherto fruitless talks over a political settlement in recent years, Taliban leaders made assurances to the West that women would enjoy equal rights in accordance with what was granted by Islam, including the ability to work and be educated.

'THE WORLD SHOULD HELP US'

Two days after the episode at Azizi Bank, a similar scene played out at a branch of another Afghan lender, Bank Milli, in the western city of Herat, according to two female cashiers who witnessed it.

Three Taliban fighters carrying guns entered the branch, admonishing female employees for showing their faces in public. Women there quit, sending male relatives in their place.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to a request for comment about the two incidents. Spokespeople for the two banks did not respond to requests for comment.

On the broader question of whether women would be allowed to work in banks in areas it controls, Mujahid added that no decision had yet been made.

"After the establishment of the Islamic system, it will be decided according to the law, and God willing, there will be no problems," he said.

The United States and others Western powers fear that the Taliban will roll back many of the freedoms won by women.

Gains made in women's right have been touted as one of the biggest accomplishments during the 20 years that U.S.-led forces have been deployed in Afghanistan, although they have mostly been made in urban centres. read more

Afghan women working in fields including journalism, healthcare and law enforcement have been killed in a wave of attacks since peace talks began last year between the Taliban and the U.S.-backed Afghan government.

The government blames most targeted killings on the Taliban, who deny carrying out assassinations. read more

"The Taliban will regress freedom at all levels and that is what we are fighting against," an Afghan government spokesperson said.

"Women and children are suffering the most and our forces are trying to save democracy. The world should understand and help us."

Scores of educated Afghan women took to social media to appeal for help and express their frustration.

"With every city collapsing, human bodies collapse, dreams collapse, history and future collapse, art and culture collapse, life and beauty collapse, our world collapse," Rada Akbar wrote on Twitter. "Someone please stop this."

Reporting by Rupam Jain in Mumbai; Writing by Alasdair Pal; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Mike Collett-White

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Afghan women forced from banking jobs as Taliban take control - Reuters

In 2015, the year that the populist Law and Justice party (PiS) came to power in Poland, the country ranked 18th its highest ever position out of 164 countries on Reporters without Borders (RSF) annual World Press Freedom Index.

By this year it had fallen to its lowest ever position, 64th, continuing an annual slide that has left it just below Malawi and Armenia, in 62nd and 63rd, and just above Bhutan and Ivory Coast, with a classification from RSF of problematic.

The PiS-led governments new media bill, which would ban companies outside the European Economic Area from majority ownership of any TV channel, is widely seen in this context as an attempt to silence the countrys largest independent broadcaster.

TVN, whose broadcasts are often critical of the government, is owned by the US Discovery group, which would have to sell most of its stake if the bill passes.

The move is just the latest in a sustained, three-pronged assault on Polands media freedoms that began soon after PiSs 2015 election victory, when the ruling party legislated to give itself direct control of the public broadcaster, TVP, removing senior management and putting appointments in the hands of ministers.

Since then, aggressively partisan news coverage has been the norm. Analysis of TVPs flagship evening news programme in 2019 found that in the run-up to EU elections that year, of 105 items about the polls, 69 were focused on PiS, of which 68 were positive and one neutral. All 33 items about the opposition were negative.

A separate study found TVP systematically portrayed the ruling party in a positive light, routinely used words such as reform, sovereign, strong, hero and patriotic, while items about the opposition deployed words such as shocking, scandalous, provocation and putsch.

RSF also found bias in coverage of last years presidential elections, with state media openly backing President Andrzej Dudas successful campaign for re-election while doing their best to discredit his main rival, Rafa Trzaskowski, who was accused of working for a powerful foreign lobby and seeking to fulfil Jewish demands.

PiS argues the partys control of TVP is a necessary and proportionate response to what it says is a wider media environment skewed in favour of its liberal opponents, pointing to the fact that many private media outlets are foreign-owned.

That has led the government to also pursue a relentless policy of repolonising privately owned media, including through buyouts by state-owned companies friendly to the administration, insisting the policy is in the national interest.

This year the state oil giant, Orlen, Polands largest company, bought Polska Press, the countrys largest local media owner with a portfolio of hundreds of local newspapers and websites, from Polskas German majority shareholder.

Independent media have been targeted in other ways, such as a proposed solidarity tax on advertising revenue of between 2% and 15%. The government said the plans would help raise public funds for healthcare and culture, but TV and radio stations said it would threaten their survival.

Commercial TV channels, radio stations and web portals briefly went off air in February in protest at the tax proposals, which RSF described as another step in the governments censorship strategy that risked finishing off media outlets whose finances were already weakened by the pandemic.

Finally, Polish police have been accused of failing to protect journalists covering anti-government protests, and of using violence and arbitrary arrests including during mass demonstrations over strict new abortion laws to further intimidate reporters and thus restrict the publics access to free and fair information.

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Polish governments media bill is latest move to silence its critics - The Guardian