Musings on India, the law, and policy
Posted in Human Rights on Jun 14th, 2011
“Forbesganj is a small town on the Nepal border in Bihar. When a few farmers were protesting against a construction of a wall by a factory, the police opened fire on the protesters killing four people including a woman.” If one were to sum up the incident in two lines in its barest sense, this [...]
Posted in Court, Human Rights on May 17th, 2011
List of items that can be purchased by any person having the resources to read this post with 578 Rs ($14); – One Hardrock Cafe legendary 10 oz burger with a beer – two movie tickets in PVR – 5 beers in a restaurant – a single route sleeper class train ticket to New Delhi [...]
Posted in Constitution, Court, Human Rights on Feb 5th, 2011
I had the honour and privilege of speaking with Justice Albie Sachs, former judge of the Constitutional Court in South Africa – transcript in today’s op-ed is here. Those who were in NALSAR for Justice Yacoob’s visit in 2006 will remember his erudition and humility. Albie Sachs, his colleague at the Court is no exception [...]
Posted in Constitution, Court, Human Rights on Feb 3rd, 2011
Tehelka, which received unfettered access to the SIT report submitted to the Supreme Court reports the damning conclusions that the investigating team have arrived at against Narendra Modi. The report was kept under wraps by the SC until now. Three judges (Sathasivam, DK Jain and Aftab Alam) will sit this March to decide on the [...]
Posted in Court, Human Rights on Jan 26th, 2011
In what appears to be an orchestrated attempt at harassing Prof.Ilina Sen, wife of Binayak Sen, the Anti-Terrorism Squad has registered an FIR against her under the Foreigners Act. In The Hindu, Siddharth Varadarajan and I take a closer look at the allegations, which seem sketchy to say the least. Over at Kafila , a [...]
Posted in Democracy, Human Rights on Jan 1st, 2011
For many in lawschool, there’s a time when life is young and angry, the blood is quick to boil, and a revolution always around the corner. It was during one such phase of mine that I had the opportunity to listen to K.G. Kannabiran, when he visited college in 2006. Here was a frail and [...]