Musings on India, the law, and policy
Posted in Democracy, Human Rights, Rights on Dec 16th, 2010
The jurisdiction on the internet is so blissfully twisted, and the implementation of any legal measures so incredibly impossible that the law seems to be many, many notches behind technology. WikiLeaks, to my mind, is perhaps one of the most definitive moments for the law vis-à-vis the internet. The classic debate between freedom of expression [...]
Posted in Court, Democracy, Human Rights on Nov 14th, 2010
In the early hours of March 1, 1976, during the heydays of the Emergency, a student of the Regional Engineering College (now NIT), Calicut was taken into police custody for his alleged links with Naxalites. He was never seen, or heard from thereafter. His disappearance sent shock waves across the entire State of Kerala, and [...]
Posted in Court, Human Rights on Oct 24th, 2010
Why the use of the term ‘keep’ and other such inappropriate references in a recent Supreme Court decision may mean a lot more than what meets the eye. The tirade over use of the word ‘keep’ by a Bench of the Supreme Court in the context of protection under the Domestic Violence Act seems overtly [...]
Posted in Democracy, Human Rights on Sep 20th, 2010
Let’s take a look at three astonishing international developments, two of which have groundbreaking legal consequences. 1. The US Senate [Upper House] is set to debate the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act) which provides for citizenship (conditional permanent residency) to persons who arrived as minors to the United States without [...]
Posted in Human Rights, Politics, Uncategorized on Jul 28th, 2010
Anthropologists generally warn us against ethnocentrism. Witchcraft then is alien to you and I but as normal as normal can be to certain peoples. The celebrated Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande by E. E. Evans-Pritchard was a seminal work in understanding sorcery many years ago. His finding was that witchcraft is used as [...]
Posted in Constitution, Court, Democracy, Human Rights, religion on Jul 15th, 2010
Nussbaum’s piece for the NYTimes on why the burqa ban does not suit the liberal democracies of Europe. Great read – she rips apart legal and moralistic arguments for such a ban, piece by piece. I’ve pasted disjunctive extracts here. The criticism is based primarily on inviolable philosophical underpinnings, and how the said reasons fail [...]