Terms of Service

Last updated on June 1st 2021.

PLEASE READ THIS TERMS OF SERVICE AGREEMENT CAREFULLY. BY USING THIS WEBSITE YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT.

These Terms of Use (“TOU”) document the end users’ (hereinafter referred to as “You”/ “Your”/ “User”) access to and use of ‘The Bastion Platform’ (hereinafter referred to as TB) — which term shall be deemed to include the website https://thebastion.co.in or https://thebastion.in as well as its mobile application [as and when the same is made available] or any other technological variants thereof — accessible through a computer, mobile or any internet-connected device(s) or any other means to access the same from time to time) and the services offered thereunder (“Services”).

TB is owned and controlled by Bastion Media LLP, a limited liability partnership incorporated under the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008, with its registered office at Flat 604, Tower 7, Commonwealth Games Village, Delhi – 110092 (hereinafter referred to as “Company”/ “Us”/ “Our”/ “We “). Through The Bastion Platform, the Company provides to You news, analysis, opinion and knowledge in relation to politics and policy, government and governance.

These TOU along with the privacy policy (hereinafter referred to as “Privacy Policy” and available here), which is an integral part of the TOU, constitute a legally binding agreement between You and the Company regarding Your access to and use of the Services offered by the Company including but not limited to delivery of content via TB. By accessing TB and/or by clicking “I agree”, You agree to be bound by these TOU. You hereby represent and warrant to the Company that You are at least eighteen (18) years of age or above and are capable of entering, performing and adhering to these TOU and that You agree to be bound by the following terms and conditions. If You are an individual under the age of 18 (eighteen), You may utilize the Services of TB subject to receipt of consent and guidance from Your parents and/or legal guardians, and under Your parent /legal guardian’s registered account only. You agree to register prior to uploading any content and/or comment on TB and provide Your complete and accurate details including but not limited to complete name, age, email address, residential address, contact number.

The Company reserves the right to modify these TOU in any manner, from time to time at its own discretion, with or without any notification to You. The Company shall be under no obligation to notify or intimate the implementation of any modifications to the TOU at any time. You are responsible for checking the TOU periodically to remain in compliance with these terms at all times. Your access to and use of TB after any amendment to the TOU shall constitute your deemed acceptance of such modified terms. Discontinuing use of the Services will not affect the applicability of the TOU to Your prior use and/ or access of TB.

Changes to TB

The Company reserves the right to suspend/ cancel, or discontinue all or any part of the Services at any time without notice, make modifications and alterations in any or all of the content, products and Services contained on TB, without prior notice.

User Charges

The Company reserves the right to charge subscription and/or membership fees from a User, by giving reasonable prior notice, in respect of any product, Service or any other aspect of TB.

Intellectual Property Rights

  • Unless otherwise stated, all rights (including but not limited to intellectual property rights), title and interest in and to all material presented on TB [including but not limited to copyrights, trade marks, logos, information, data, text, software, video, sound, photographs, graphics, messages (hereinafter collectively referred to as “Content”)] are and shall remain the sole and exclusive property of the Company, its parent, affiliates and associates for the entire world in perpetuity and are protected under all applicable laws to the fullest extent.
  • You agree not to use any framing techniques to enclose any trademark or logo or other proprietary information of the Company; or remove, conceal or obliterate any copyright or other proprietary notice or any credit-line or date-line on other mark or source identifier included on TB, including without limitation, the size, colour, location or style of all proprietary marks. Any infringement shall be vigorously defended by the Company and pursued to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Limited Permission to Copy

  • The Company grants You permission to access and make use of the TB only for non-commercial personal purposes. You agree not to, directly or indirectly download or modify/ alter/ change/ amend/ vary/ transform/ revise/ translate/ copy/ publish/ distribute or otherwise disseminate any content available on TB, or any portion of it; or delete or fail to display any promotional taglines displayed on TB as a result of the Services offered through TB, either directly or indirectly, except with the express prior written consent of the Company. You shall not retain any copies of these pages saved to disk or to any other storage medium except for the purposes of using the same for subsequent viewing purposes or to print extracts for personal/individual non-commercial use only.
  • Subject to the provisions of clause 4 (a) hereinabove, in the event that You make use of any Content available on TB on any digital platform(s) or in any other manner, You will: (i) display the Content on such digital platform(s) in the exact form received by You, and not modify or edit any of the foregoing without the Company’s prior written consent in each instance; (ii) ensure that the fundamental meaning of the Content is not changed or distorted or altered in any manner whatsoever; (iii) comply with all applicable laws and all limitations and restrictions (if any) placed by the Company on the use, display or distribution of the Content (or any part thereof); and (iv) not archive any of the Content (or any part thereof) for access by users at any future date after such Content has been removed from any such digital platform(s). You acknowledge that any such digital platform(s) mentioned herein shall link and redirect to the appropriate TB web page when a user clicks on the Content (e.g. a headline). You shall not display the Content (or any part thereof) in such a manner that does not allow for successful linking and redirection to, and delivery of, the appropriate TB web page, nor may You frame any web page facilitating access to TB.

Content posted/ transmitted to/ at TB

  • Any Content whether publicly or privately transmitted/ posted through or on TB is the sole responsibility of the person from where such content is originated (“Originator”). By posting any such Content as the Originator, You warrant and represent that (a) You are the unencumbered unrestricted copyright owner of such Content; (b) in the event You are not the copyright owner of any part of the Content, that the copyright owner of such part of the Content has granted You unrestricted permission to use such Content; (c) any Content transmitted or posted by You through or on TB shall be consistent with the terms of such use as mandated by the copyright owner, and shall be in accordance with the TOU; (d) You have the rights necessary to grant the licenses and sublicenses described in these TOU; and (e) each person depicted in such Content, if any, has provided consent to the use of such images as set forth in the TOU, including without limitation, the distribution, public display and reproduction of such Content containing such image(s).
  • You represent that: (i) You have valid rights and title in any and all Content that You post or submit for publication on TB; (ii) You have not infringed the intellectual property rights belonging to any party and further that You will indemnify Us and any/ all our affiliates for any and all claims, losses or damages arising out of, or in connection with, Your unauthorized use of any such Content posted or submitted for publication to Us by You.
  • You agree and understand that posting or uploading of any information or material, which is harmful, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, libellous, invasive of another’s privacy, profane, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, or otherwise unlawful in any manner is prohibited and any person found to be involved in such activity on TB will solely be liable for actions under the applicable laws.
  • We accept no responsibility for the said Content. However, You understand that all Content posted by You becomes the property of the Company and You agree to grant/ assign to the Company and its affiliates, a non-exclusive, royalty free, perpetual, irrevocable and sub-licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed throughout the world.

Individual Registration and Access

  • Certain Services offered by the Company through TB, such as email, personal web pages, contests and shopping, require prior registration by the User. To gain access to such Services, You will be required to create an account by completing the registration process. As part of such registration process, You will be required to provide Us with current, complete and accurate information pertaining to such details as prompted by the applicable registration form. You will also be required to choose a unique password and a user name, which shall be entered by You every time You wish to gain access to the said Services. You shall not be entitled to gain, and shall not facilitate, access to TB through a single account and password, by multiple users on a network. You agree and understand that We do not permit any part of TB being cached in proxy servers. You are entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of Your password and account.
  • If the Company reasonably believes that Your account and/or Password is being/ has been misused in any manner, the Company shall reserve the right to cancel access rights immediately without notice, and block access to all users from that IP address.
  • You shall not share your account information and password with others or use anyone else’s account. You are entirely responsible for any and all activities that occur under Your account. You agree to notify Us immediately of any unauthorized use of Your account or any other breach of security. In such event, we shall do Our best to help you recover your account; however, we cannot guarantee that Your account will be restored or the content contained therein will be recovered. We will not be liable for any loss that You may incur as a result of unauthorized use of Your password or account. However, you could be held liable for losses incurred by the Company or another party due to someone else using your account or password.

No unlawful or prohibited use

  • As a condition of Your use of the Services, You will not use the Services for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these TOU. You shall not use the Services in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair the Company’s server(s), or the network(s) connected to the Company’s servers, or interfere with any other party’s use and enjoyment of any Services. You may not attempt to gain unauthorized access to any Services, other accounts, computer systems or to any of the Services, through hacking, password mining or any other means. You may not obtain or attempt to obtain any materials or information through any means not intentionally made available through the Services.
  • The Company forbids You from making any attempt to resell or put to commercial use any part of TB and/ or the Content; any collection and use of any product listings, descriptions, or prices; any derivative use of TB or its contents; any downloading or copying of account information for the benefit of any other merchant; any renting, leasing, or otherwise transferring rights to TB and/ or the Content; displaying the name, logo, trademark or other identifiers of another person (except for TB or You) in such a manner as to give the viewer the impression that such other person is a publisher or distributor of the Services offered through TB or is in any manner associated with TB and/ or the Content (or any part thereof), or any data gathering or extraction tools; or any use of meta tags. You may not (whether directly or through the use of any software program) create a database in electronic or structured manual form by downloading and/ or storing all or any part of the pages from TB.
  • Except as specifically provided under these TOU, no part of TB and/ or the Content may be reproduced or transmitted to or stored in any other web site, nor may any of its pages or part thereof be disseminated in any electronic or non-electronic form, nor included in any public or private electronic retrieval system or service without prior written permission from the Company. Requests to republish any material and/ or the Content made available on TB for any use other than for non-commercial personal purposes should be addressed (prior to such republication) to [email protected].
  • Under no circumstances shall the Company be held responsible or liable, in any way, for any claims, losses, damages, liabilities in relation to any Content which is uploaded to TB, for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to the accuracy of the Content and/or the nature of such Content being derogatory, threatening, defamatory, obscene, offensive to public sensibilities or morals, or by reason of such Content being infringing of any other individual/entity’s rights. You specifically agree that the Company is not responsible for any Content transmitted through, published or uploaded on TB by any third party, in any manner whatsoever.

Advertising and Links to Third Party Sites

TB may contain links to other web sites and applications (“Linked Platforms“). The Linked Platforms are not under the control of the Company, and the User agrees and acknowledges that the Company shall not be held responsible for the Content of any Linked Platforms, in any manner whatsoever. You agree and understand that such Linked Platforms are not associated with TB, and therefore, the inclusion of any link in relation to such Linked Platforms cannot be construed to imply any endorsement or warranty by the Company in relation to the authenticity, suitability, reliability or accuracy of the Linked Platforms and/or the services and/or information provided thereunder. You are requested to verify the accuracy of all information on Your own before relying on any such information.

Termination of Account

  • Upon Your breach of any terms of these TOU and/ or the Privacy Policy or any other restrictions or guidelines of the Company for use of the Services, or applicable law, the Company, in addition to the rights and remedies available to it, reserves the right to take any actions which the Company may deem appropriate. Such actions may include (but may not be limited to) termination of Your access to the Services or immediate suspension of Your access to the Services via TB, without any obligation of TB to refund any registration/subscription fee paid by the User, whether in whole or in any part thereof.
  • You can terminate Your account at any time by writing to [email protected]. Your information will not be stored in archive on our servers after the deletion or the termination of Your account.

User Conduct and Obligations

You hereby agree and assure the Company that TB and the Services provided thereunder shall be used for lawful purposes only and that You will not violate laws, regulations, ordinances or other such requirements of any applicable Central, State or local government or any other international laws. You further concur that you will not, through TB:

  • post, distribute, or otherwise make available or transmit any software or other computer files that contain a virus, trojan horses, time bombs, bots, botnets, malicious content, content theft, data manipulation, threats or any other harmful programs or elements or component;
  • delete from TB  any legal notices, disclaimers, or proprietary notices such as copyright or trademark symbols, or modify any logos that You do not own or have express permission to modify;
  • use TB and/or the Services provided thereunder in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair and not undertake any action which is harmful or potentially harmful to any the Company’s server, or the network(s), computer systems/ resource connected to any Company’s server, or interfere with any other party’s use and enjoyment of TB and/or the Services provided thereunder;
  • obtain or attempt to obtain any materials or information through any means not intentionally made available through TB  and/or the Services;
  • engage in any activity that causes/is likely to cause harm to minors;
  • impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, Company’s official, forum leader, guide or host, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent Your affiliation with a person or entity;
  • take any action which encourages or consists of any threat of harm of any kind to any person or property;
  • carry out any “denial of service” (DoS, DDoS) or any other harmful attacks on application or internet service;
  • make any inappropriate, illegal or otherwise communication prohibited under applicable laws in relation to the Company or the Services provided by the Company to any newsgroup, mailing list, chat facility, or other internet forums;
  • use TB for any illegal purposes;
  • disrupt, place unreasonable burdens or excessive loads on, interfere with or attempt to make or attempt any unauthorized access to any Company website or the website of any other User;
  • transmit through TB any unlawful, harassing, libelous, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene, libelous, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature. This includes text, graphics, video, programs or audio, etc.;
  • collect or attempt to collect personally identifiable information of any person or entity without their express written consent and You shall maintain records of any such written consent throughout the validity of these TOU and for a period of 2 years thereafter;
  • engage in antisocial, disruptive, or destructive acts, including “flaming,” “spamming,” “flooding,” “trolling,” and “griefing” as those terms are commonly understood and used on the internet;
  • forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any Content transmitted through TB;
  • upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising, promotional materials, “junk mail,” “spam,” “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” duplicative messages or any other form of solicitation;
  • encumber or suffer to exist any lien or security interest on the subject matter of these TOU; or
  • make any representation or warranty on behalf of the Company. You agree not to post, distribute, transmit or otherwise make available any data, text, message, computer file, or other material that infringes and/or violates any right of a third party or any domestic or international law, rule, or regulation, including but not limited to:

    1. infringement of any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other proprietary rights of any third party, including, but not limited to, the unauthorized copying of copyrighted material, the digitization and distribution of photographs from magazines, books, or other copyrighted sources, and the unauthorized transmittal of copyrighted software;
    2. right of privacy (specifically, you must not distribute another person’s personal information of any kind without their express permission) or publicity;
    3. any confidentiality obligation.

No Controlling Spam Policy or Unsolicited E-mails

You will not use any communication tool or other means available on TB to transmit, directly or indirectly, any unsolicited bulk communications (including emails and instant messages). You may not harvest information about other Users for the purpose of sending or to facilitate the sending of unsolicited bulk communications. We may terminate Your access or use of TB immediately, with or without any notice, and take any other legal action if You, or anyone using Your access details to TB, violates these terms. We may adopt any technical remedy (including any filtering technology or other measures) to prevent unsolicited bulk communications from entering, utilizing or remaining within Our computer or communication networks. Such filtering technology or other measures may block, either temporarily or permanently, some e-mail sent to You through TB.

Indemnity

You shall indemnify and hold harmless, the Company, its affiliates, any third party content/ networks/ infrastructure providers and their respective directors, officers, personnel, contractors and agents, for and against any and all claims, suits, judgment, losses, damages, cost and expenses arising or relating to Your use of the Services or Your breach of the TOU or the Privacy Policy or any other restrictions or guidelines provided by the Company from time to time. This indemnification obligation will survive this TOU and Privacy Policy and Your use of the Services.

Disclaimer of Warranties and Liability

  • The Services are provided on an “as-is” and “with all faults and risks” basis, without warranties of any kind. The Company does not warrant, expressly or by implication, the accuracy or reliability of the Services or its sustainability for a particular purpose or the safety/ security of the data/Content stored by You. The Company disclaims all warranties whether express or implied, including those of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, or that use of the Services and/or TB or any Content made available thereof will be uninterrupted or error-free. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the Company does not represent or warrant that the Services and/or TB will result in compliance, fulfillment or conformity with the laws, regulations, requirements or guidelines of any government or governmental agency.
  • To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the Company provides no warranty on use of the Services and/ or TB. The Company also disclaims all liability with respect to the misuse, loss, modification or unavailability of the Services.

Data Protection

  • The Company may send information and offer products and other services to You from time to time. For further details relating to our data protection policy relating to such offers please refer to our Privacy Policy.
  • Further, the Company can (and you authorize the Company to) disclose Your name, street address, city, state, zip code, country, phone number, email, and company name to intellectual property rights owners, as We in Our sole discretion believe necessary or appropriate in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity.

Limitation of Liability

  • YOU ASSUME THE ENTIRE RISK ASSOCIATED WITH USING THE SERVICES INCLUDING, THE TB. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COMPANY BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF CONTENT, LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF INFORMATION, OR ANY OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE OR ACCESS OF THE SERVICES, OR TB OR FOR ANY SECURITY BREACH OR ANY VIRUS, BUG, UNAUTHORIZED INTERVENTION, DEFECT, OR TECHNICAL MALFUNCTIONING OF THE SERVICES, OR TB, WHETHER OR NOT FORESEEABLE AND WHETHER OR NOT THE COMPANY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES, OR BASED ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, INCLUDING BREACH OF CONTRACT OR WARRANTY, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, OR ANY OTHER CLAIM ARISING OUT, OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH, YOUR USE OF, OR ACCESS TO, THE SERVICES ORTB. FURTHER, THE COMPANY SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY TEMPORARY DISABLEMENT, PERMANENT DISCONTINUANCE OF THE SERVICES OR DATA/CONTENT LOSS OR FOR ANY CONSEQUENCES RESULTING FROM SUCH ACTIONS.
  • THE COMPANY’S AGGREGATE LIABILITY (WHETHER UNDER CONTRACT, TORT INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE, WARRANTY OR OTHERWISE) AND THAT OF ITS AFFILIATES SHALL BE LIMITED TO INR 100.

Governing Law

These TOU shall be governed by the Laws of India. The Courts of law at Delhi/New Delhi shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any disputes arising in relation to these TOU.

International Users

  • You agree and understand that the Services are controlled and operated by the Company from its offices in India. You agree that: (i) the Services shall be deemed solely based in India; and (ii) the use of the Services do not give rise to personal jurisdiction over the Company, either specific or general, in jurisdictions other than India. You agree that the laws of India, excluding India’s choice of law rules, will apply to this TOU and Privacy Policy and all other policies and guidelines provided by the Company and to the provision of Services by the Company.
  • Access to TB  and/ or the Services from jurisdictions other than India where the same are illegal is prohibited. The Company reserves the right to block access to TB and/ or the Services by such prohibited access by international users. If you access TB  and/ or the Services from a location outside India, You waive any right available under laws of jurisdictions outside of India.

Acceptance of Privacy Policy

By using TB and Services provided thereunder, You signify Your acceptance of the Privacy Policy. If You do not agree or are not comfortable with any policy described in the TOU, your only remedy is to discontinue use of TB. We reserve the right, to modify this TOU at any time.

General Terms

  • All rights and obligations under this TOU which by their nature should survive will remain in full effect after termination or expiration of this TOU.
  • No failure or delay on the part of the Company to exercise any right hereunder will operate as a waiver of that right. No waiver by the Company of any breach by You of any provision of this TOU and Privacy Policy shall operate as a waiver of any subsequent breach of any provision of this TOU and/ or Privacy Policy.
  • If any provision of this TOU and Privacy Policy is held invalid by any law or regulation of any government, or by any court or arbitrator, the User agree that such provision of the TOU and Privacy Policy will be deemed severable, and will not affect the validity or enforceability of the remaining provisions of this TOU and Privacy Policy.
  • This TOU and the Privacy Policy constitute the entire agreement between You and the Company with respect to the subject matter hereof and supersedes and replaces all prior or contemporaneous understandings or agreements, written or oral, regarding such subject matter.
  • None of the provisions of this TOU shall be deemed to constitute a partnership or agency between You and the Company and You shall have no authority to bind the Company in any manner, whatsoever.
  • The Company shall have no liability to You for any interruption or delay, to access TB irrespective of the cause.
  • To the extent permissible under applicable laws, You and the Company agree that any cause of action arising out of or related to TB, only, must commence within one (1) year after the cause of action accrues otherwise, such cause of action will be permanently barred.

Grievance Redressal

  • The Company is not liable for any infringement of copyright arising out of materials posted on or transmitted through this TOU, or items advertised on this TOU, by You or any other User or any third party. If You are the owner of copyright in any of the Content shared or uploaded on TB without Your consent, or You believe that any user of the Services is storing, hosting, uploading or transmitting infringing Content, then You are required to send a written notice to [email protected] providing the following information/details:
  • A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner for the purposes of the complaint;
  • Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed;
  • Identification of the material on TB that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity;
  • The address, telephone number or e-mail address of the complaining party;
  • A statement that the complaining party has a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law;
  • A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice of copyright infringement is accurate, and that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the right that is allegedly infringed.

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2021 Bastion Media LLP. All rights reserved.