Musings on India, the law, and policy
Posted in Foreign Affairs on Jun 2nd, 2011
Towards the end of the Bush-Blair Patnership era, questions were asked on the plunging relationship between the two nations, who in the recent past have championed the cause of world peace, security and democracy. However the tenor of the recently concluded State visit of Obama to London might speak something else. Amidst all the bonhomie, [...]
Posted in Foreign Affairs, Human Rights on Jul 14th, 2009
Abondoned freight containers, 40 ft by 8 ft by 8 ft – littering the roads were not an uncommon sight in Afghanistan before and during the US led war. ‘Death by Container’, as it was called was seen as a cheap means of mass murder used by the Taliban and the Northern Alliance before the [...]
Posted in Foreign Affairs, india, Politics, Terrorism on Jun 5th, 2009
Two historic speeches were delivered yesterday; one by Barack Obama on America’s new and renewed MidEast policy, in a keynote address at Cairo University – and the other by Pratibha Patil, in her inaugural address to the Indian Parliament. Both are of immense significance; while the former indicates a tectonic, and inevitable, shift in US [...]
Posted in Constitution, Court, Human Rights, Politics, Rights on May 31st, 2009
When Sonia Sotomayor ascends those marble steps to assume her seat on the highest court of the land, America will have taken another important step towards realizing the ideal that is etched above its entrance: Equal justice under the law. Judge Sotomayor’s nomination was bound to (re)generate debate on the plausible influence of race/gender on [...]
Posted in Terrorism on Mar 15th, 2009
The Indian Newspapers report (Sunday TOI, p. 12) of the Obama Administration in the United States of America now doing away with the phrase ‘enemy combatant’; a designation for terror suspects to justify their detention in Guantanamo Bay. After Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Military Commissions Act 2006 gave power to the Bush Administration to define an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ [...]
Posted in Democracy, Human Rights on Feb 19th, 2009
The British Council is co-ordinating a series of lectures to commemorate its 75th anniversary (entitled 75 years of Cultural Relations) and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu will deliver the inaugural address on February 19,2009. The lecture series, named Talking without Borders, is aimed at providing a bird’s eye-view of the most pressing needs in today’s global [...]