Update: Top writers in India have been vocal about the growing culture of intolerance and the censoring of one's freedom of expression in this country. 400 artists have now joined their protest against the ideology of the Modi government. In July, Catch reported on how key positions in 14 cultural and academic institutions had been filled by those handpicked by the government:

Two celebrated Indians - Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor - have separately come out in public, raising one issue: the Modi government's interference in educational institutions.

Sen was scathing in his criticism of what he calls "extraordinarily large" interference of the government in academia. "Nothing in this scale of interference has happened before. Every institution where the government has a formal role is being converted into where the government has a substantive role," he alleges.

He also claimed that his "ouster" from the post of the Chancellor of Nalanda University was a forced one.

Read: Welcome heat: After writers, 400 artists speak out against intolerance

Kapoor focused his criticism on the controversial appointment of BJP member Gajendra Chauhan as the director of the Film and Television of India (FTII).

"FTII is a premiere institution. All that the students want is a chairperson with a body of work they can be inspired from...The institution's autonomy is very important. The students aren't asking for something illogical. All they want is an institution with correct faculty, correct syllabus, one which they can be proud of," Kapoor said in a video released on Wednesday.

But the otherwise apolitical Kapoor did raise an issue that has a larger resonance even outside FTII: institutional autonomy.

The line between autonomy and the lack of it in government institutions of India has never been a clear one.

Almost every government has tried to control cultural, educational and scientific institutions by appointing either pliable individuals to head them or those who were ideologically aligned to it.

The new government, it seems, is no different. However, what increases the discomfort around their political appointments is the absence of process. For the most part, many of these appointees also share an ideological belief that India would be better off as a majoritarian Hindu rashtra rather than a secular polity.

Here's a quick list of some of the controversies that the new government has been involved in.