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A year of hope and change

There are reasons to be optimistic about civil liberties amid the Covid crisis

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Illustration: Binay Sinha

Aakar Patel

5 min read Last Updated : Aug 20 2020 | 11:48 PM IST

It is hard not to feel a sense of optimism and change about what is going on around us. I am not being facetious.

For some of us, this has been one of the worst periods in history. It has been said, by people as diverse as Arun Shourie, H D Deve Gowda and Sitaram Yechury, that the authoritarian state today is worse than it was during the Emergency. In many ways, this is true. The powers of the state which qualify our fundamental rights are being used to full effect by the Union government and also by many states.

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Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper

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