About The India Decade

The India Decade is an English-language digital news publication covering India and the world: politics and government, courts and justice, business and markets, conflict and international affairs, technology, science, health, the environment, sport and culture. Every section is listed on the sections page. We are a publisher of news and current affairs content within the meaning of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, and we publish from India. The people responsible for the paper are listed on the masthead.

We publish under the Constitution of India, and in particular the freedom of speech and expression in Article 19(1)(a), subject to the reasonable restrictions that Article 19(2) permits.

We follow the Code of Ethics in the Appendix to the 2021 Rules, which applies to us the Norms of Journalistic Conduct of the Press Council of India under the Press Council Act, 1978, and the Programme Code under section 5 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995.

We are bound by the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, the Copyright Act, 1957, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, among others. The clauses below set out how each bears on what we publish. The use of this site is governed by our terms of use.

Our stories are built from the documents, statements, filings and published reports behind the news, and they name the people and organisations their facts come from. A story’s central claims are checked against independent sources before it is published: at least three for deaths, crimes and allegations against named people, and at least two for other significant claims. A story whose sources have gone stale is not published as news. Where figures conflict, we report the most recent attributed figure and say whose it is. Opinion is labelled as such and kept apart from news. The full rules are in our editorial standards.

Presumption of innocence. A person who is arrested, named in a first information report, charge-sheeted or on trial has not been convicted. We describe them as accused or suspected, attribute every allegation to the police, prosecution, complainant or court that made it, and do not state or imply guilt before a court has found it.

Defamation. Defamation is both a civil wrong and an offence under section 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. We publish imputations against a named person only where they are true and their publication is for the public good, where they concern the public conduct of a public servant or a matter of public question, or where they are a substantially accurate report of proceedings in a court, as the exceptions to that section allow.

Identity of victims and children. We do not publish the name, or anything that could identify, a victim of an offence covered by section 72 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (including rape and other sexual offences); a child who is the victim of an offence under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (section 23); or a child in conflict with the law or in need of care and protection under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (section 74). This covers names, addresses, schools, relatives and photographs.

Courts and contempt. We report judicial proceedings fairly and accurately, which section 4 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 protects, and comment on decided cases as section 5 permits. We do not publish material that prejudges a pending case, attributes motives to a judge, or reports proceedings a court has ordered held in camera or not to be published.

Investigations. We do not publish material that would identify a protected witness or an undercover officer, or that a court has ordered withheld.

In armed conflict, every party is a source with an interest. We attribute casualty figures, territorial claims and accounts of attacks to the government, armed force, agency or organisation that gave them, and we say when a claim could not be independently verified.

We use the terms of international law precisely. We say that an act breaches international humanitarian law, or amounts to a war crime, genocide or a crime against humanity, only where a court, tribunal or United Nations body has found so, or as the attributed view of whoever asserts it.

Consistent with Article 13 of the Third Geneva Convention, which protects prisoners of war against insults and public curiosity, we do not publish images that humiliate an identifiable prisoner or detainee. We do not publish material that glorifies or incites violence, or propaganda issued by a proscribed organisation except as reported, attributed and in context.

Reports of sanctions, international court proceedings and the positions of foreign governments are attributed to their source documents. Where India’s official position differs, we report both and say which is which.

We do not publish the result of any exit poll during the period the Election Commission of India notifies under section 126A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and we observe the restrictions of section 126 in the hours before polling closes.

When we get something wrong we correct it in the story, and every change to a published story is kept in a permanent version history. Our corrections policy explains how to tell us about an error.

A person or organisation that a story makes an allegation against may send a reply to editor@theindiadecade.com. We consider every reply for publication and, where we publish it, add it to the story concerned.

We comply with a lawful order of a court or competent authority to remove or modify published material. We do not otherwise remove stories because they are unwelcome to someone named in them; we correct them where they are wrong.

The text of our stories is our copyright under the Copyright Act, 1957. You may quote it with attribution and a link; you may not republish whole stories without our written permission, which you can ask for at partnerships@theindiadecade.com. The full conditions are in our terms of use.

We publish photographs only where their licence allows it, and we credit the photographer and licence with each one. Where no suitable photograph exists we use a plain typographic card rather than an image that could be mistaken for a picture of the event. Quotation from other works is limited to what fair dealing for reporting current events allows under section 52(1)(a) of the Act.

If you hold the rights in material we have published and believe we have used it without permission, write to us as set out under Complaints and grievance redressal below, with the story’s address and evidence of your rights, and we will act on it.

We process readers’ personal data in accordance with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. What we collect, what we do not, and the choices you have are set out on our privacy page. Requests to see, correct or erase personal data we hold about you go to our grievance officer at grievance@theindiadecade.com.

Complaints about our content, including complaints that it breaches the Code of Ethics, go to our grievance officer at grievance@theindiadecade.com. Please give the address of the story and say what you believe is wrong with it. We acknowledge every complaint within 24 hours of receiving it and send a decision within 15 days, as the 2021 Rules require. If you are not satisfied with our decision, the Rules provide further levels of redress beyond the publisher. Every other way to reach us is on the contact page.

What we publish is news and comment for general information. It is not legal, financial, medical or other professional advice, and should not be relied on as such. Links to other websites are given so that readers can see our sources. We are not responsible for the content of those sites, and a link is not an endorsement. The rest of the conditions on which the site is offered are in our terms of use.

This statement, and any dispute arising from what we publish, is governed by the laws of India. Subject to the grievance process above, the competent courts in India have jurisdiction over any such dispute.