Goa, Aug. 19 -- AAKAR PATEL

Independence is linked to freedom and is a meaningless word without it. A few years ago I surveyed the state of free dom in India as the world saw it. I had done this for one of my books but periodically I revisit this list of indices to see what changes have come. On Independence Day I thought it would be apposite to do this. Some of the organisa tions referred to here may be un familiar to readers but they are reputable and their findings are respected. We shall look at what the government says about them at the end. Let us start.

The Pew Research Center is an American organisation that monitors long term trends. It re views government restrictions and social hostilities around the world. Its latest finding...