2024

"Let there not be a contest between the Union and the State", said the Supreme Court while hearing the Karnataka Govt’s plea seeking the direction of the Court to the Centre to release financial aid for meeting its need for managing the severe drought in the State.
The Supreme Court bench consisting of justices B R Gavai and Sandip Mehta was hearing the appeal of the Karnataka Government in the matter of inordinate delay in releasing drought relief funds to the State.
While the memory of (…)

Currently, in Ladakh section 144 has been imposed, the internet is shut and barricades are put on all roads leading to Leh city. All these restrictions are imposed to stop people joining the peaceful Pashmina march demanding statehood to protect people’s livelihoods, and employment and stop corporate encroachment on its land. The struggle was not sudden but started in 2019 with the Union government‘s abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 and changing Ladakh’s status to a Union territory, (…)

A resident student of the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University was found dead in the hostel (dormitory) room on Feb.18, 2024. Those who "found" him dead (including the Dean and the hostel warden) say he was found hanging in the bathroom and they tried to "save" him by rushing to hospital. But the post-mortem report says that the "ligature material was neither present in situ nor brought by the police." And the report concludes by stating that "he had sustained multiple blunt (…)

The release of the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) from August 2022 to July 2023 has sparked discussions and raised eyebrows across the nation. While the survey aims to provide insights into households’ Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure (MPCE) and distribution, concerns about timing, selective data release, and potential manipulation have emerged.
The Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) is a valuable tool for researching income disparity between rural (…)

The general elections commence from April 19, in the midst of the BJP ruled government’s tremendous effort to paralyse any opposition worth the name.
There is an oft quoted statement in legal circles regarding the majesty of law attributed to a seventeenth century English Churchman Thomas Fuller, which says “Be you ever so high, the law is above you.” The single judge bench of Delhi High Court chaired by Justice Swarna Kanta Sharma delivering an order on Delhi chief minister Arvind (…)

The 18th Lok Sabha elections in India are almost knocking at our doors. On the eve of the Lok Sabha poll, The Caravan (April 2024) carried a report titled ‘The Taming of the Election Commission of India’. The author of the Report, Eram Agha, highlighted the ideal role of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in the context of offering her assessment of the institution: “The ECI is the regulatory body that oversees elections in the country. It is tasked with ensuring that the electoral (…)

If once people become inattentive to the public affairs, “you and I, Congress and Assemblies, judges and Governors shall become wolves. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of USA in a letter dated 16 January, 1787
A total expenditure of ₹16336.45 crores has been incurred by by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY)’s Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar number (…)

India’s new code throws into doubt whether its citizens are truly protected from the arbitrary exercise of power by public officials.
Imagine a knock on the door at midnight, not because you are charged with sedition or tax evasion but because you are in a live-in relationship and haven’t registered it.
This could happen to you in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Under Section 378 of the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code, those who are in a live-in relationship are required to register it (…)

Abstract: Is obscenity anti-female propaganda? Is today’s pornography tomorrow’s eroticism? The question is whether it violates the personhood of receiver. On the one hand it is unjustifiable invasion of privacy on the other hand it is another step toward censorship.
Introduction: The issue of obscenity and sexually explicit material has been an area of much contention for most of civilized history. Religion, for example, have historically taken action to define explicit sexuality as (…)

April 7, 2024
We are in the midst of a high-voltage election season in India. Temperatures, both in terms of the weather and electoral rhetoric and shrillness, are rising high. The focus of my attention in this article is on some key issues. Before doing so, let me recall two contrarian quotations about democracy and governance.
Taking a somewhat cynical ( or realistic?) view, Alexander Pope, once said: “for forms of government, let fools contest, what is best administered is best”, (…)