2024

In summing up the role of the Indian judiciary in post-Emergency years, the eminent scholar of Jurisprudence, S. P. Sathe observed: “Post-Emergency judicial activism was probably inspired by the Court’s realization that its elitist social image would not make it strong enough to withstand the future onslaught of a powerful political establishment. Therefore, consciously or unconsciously, the Court began moving in the direction of the people…it facilitated access to the courts by relaxing its (…)

Central Jail Lahore
June 24, 1929
WE, BHAGAT SINGH AND B.K. DUTT, WERE SENTENCED to life transportation in the Assembly Bomb Case, Delhi, on the 19th April, 1929. As long as we were undertrial prisoners in Delhi Jail, we were accorded a very good treatment from that jail to the Mianwali and Lahore Central Jails respectively, we wrote an application to the higher authorities asking for better diet and a few other facilities, and refused to take the jail diet.
Our demands were as (…)

The horrifying imagery of brutal assaults on innocent Muslim students in Gujarat University, Ahmedabad while they peacefully engage in their prayers is utterly gut-wrenching, enough to evoke profound anguish and outrage. It seems that Indian university campuses have become hubs for the expression of bigotry and sectarian conflicts in recent years. This horrible illustration involves the mob attack on international students who were offering Namaz in a hostel premises during the holy month (…)

Indisposed for a few days because of “head injury,” Mamata Banerjee, also known as a firebrand leader, is not likely to remain quiet for long particularly at this crucial time, ahead of parliamentary elections. At present, she is the only woman chief minister in India. She is the also the first woman to hold this office in West Bengal from 2011, to return back to power in 2016 and 2021 assembly elections. Given that she has been literally immersed in the political field for more than four (…)

The Pakistan Supreme Court recently ruled that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was unjustly tried and executed, A similar case to be made to re-open the trial of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru, hanged in Lahore on 23 March 1931 - a story that continues to capture the attention of rights activists and researchers in India, Pakistan and the Southasian diaspora.

The epidemic of loneliness is spreading rapidly in our hyper-connected world of social media. Studies by the World Health Organization suggest that "20-34% of older people in China, India, the United States, and regions of Europe and Latin America experience loneliness." Similarly, there is a crisis of friendship and meaningful connections among young people. Research by the Campaign to End Loneliness in the United Kingdom has revealed that "49.63% of adults (25.99 million people) are (…)

Keywords: Caste, Gender, Violence, Structural Oppression, Agency, Representation, Appropriation
Phoolan Devi: A Symbol of Resilience and Resistance
Phoolan Devi, born into a family of lower caste Mallahs (boatmen) in a rural village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, became an icon throughout her thirty-eight-year existence and a subject of curiosity for the mainstream media both nationally and globally. The media was quick to cast her in the role of the "Bandit Queen," who (…)

WHEN LAKSHMI SMASHES HER BHANDAR It is the crucifixion of humanity in Sandeshkhali of West Bengal that witnessed incessant brutality against women for several years at the patronage of the ruling party of the state. The narratives of barbarism perpetrated by the state agency is certainly not the same as that of the Middle Ages. It is worse than that particularly because such a process of criminalization gained instantaneous protection under the veil of democracy. The nudity of (…)

The expose of India’s behemothic electoral bond scam has unravelled an existential crisis in the country’s democratic future. It may sound obnoxious, but it is a fact and not a mere threat perception. India has already been facing a crisis in the functioning of the institutional pillars of Government. Narendra Modi and his colleagues have been making attempts to control the judiciary after making the bureaucracy scrawl.
In 1996 the Fodder Scam in which Lalu Prasad Yadav was supposedly (…)

India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth surged to 8.4 per cent for third quarter pushing the growth rate to 7.6 per cent for 2023-24. In the context of the forthcoming elections, the robust GDP growth rate and data of Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) for 2022-23 have become important declarations for the government to assure a ‘Viksit Bharat’ (developed nation) by 2047. It is important to reiterate that though economic growth is a necessary and powerful instrument of (…)