Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul accused the Indian government on Tuesday of persecuting tehelka.com, an Indian news portal which sensationally exposed the bribery of politicians, bureaucrats and military officers two years ago.

"This abuse of constitutional authority must stop," the British-based novelist told a news conference.

The Web site, www.tehelka.com, has faced an inquiry commission and tax and police investigations since it showed film of top officials apparently taking wads of cash from reporters who posed as arms dealers to swing a fake arms sale....

Naipaul, who attended a government-organised conference of the Indian diaspora in New Delhi last week, said he admired the way the editor-in-chief of the Web site, Tarun Tejpal, "has stood up to ... what is simply persecution".

Read the latest on Naipaul's involvement in the Tehelka issue in the Economic Times.

(And the press outside India has started to pick up on the story: see this article in the U.K. Independent; this report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.