Hyderabad, Oct. 13 -- A democracy can survive bad weather, bad policies and even bad governments. What it cannot survive for long is the absence of people willing to tell it the truth. That is the job of the journalist: to stand with the crowd, see what power would rather hide, and carry it back to the public. When that person is dragged away mid-sentence, the loss is not the journalist's alone. It belongs to every citizen who was waiting to be told what happened.

What happened at Jantar Mantar

At the protest demanding the Chief Election Commissioner's resignation over irregularities in the SIR exercise, journalists found themselves part of the story. On September 25, at least two reporters said they had been forcibly detained and manha...