Musings on India, the law, and policy
Posted in Constitution, Court, Democracy, Human Rights on Jul 7th, 2011
(Update: A version of this piece with minor tweaks appears on the op-ed page of The Hindu dated July 9, 2011) In the seventies, the Supreme Court of India was called upon to decide the constitutionality of Excise Rules that allowed the State of Punjab to regulate the number of days, even hours, when liquor [...]
Posted in Court, Democracy, Human Rights, Uncategorized on Jul 5th, 2011
Two years ago I had written about Gantal Raju, a tribal in the village of Lingagiri, Dantewada District Chhattisgarh. About how in 2006 his father had been shot by the forces in Chhattisgarh and he had to watch his sister being raped before his eyes. It was part of a report on 40 families returning [...]
Posted in Rule of Law, Uncategorized on May 25th, 2009
I was at Dantewada when there was a protest against the detention of Binayak Sen at Raipur. Four students from the Indian Institute of Sciences at Bangalore had attended it from where they decided to pay a visit to the Ashram (now demolished) at Dantewada. Very enthusiastic people I must say. From what I reckon [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on May 19th, 2009
The violence just never seems to end. I’ve been in Dantewada for the past one week and each day has been more adventerous (in a violent way) than the other. The ahram I was using as my base had just torn down by the CRPF, SPOs and the Judum. An Act of Vendetta considering the [...]
Posted in Court, Democracy, Human Rights, india on Dec 16th, 2008
The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Balakrishnan and Justice Sadashivam, today heard the petitioners’ (Nandini Sundar and ors, Kartam Joga and ors) response to the NHRC report on Salwa Judum. The counsel for the petitioners, Mr. Ashok Desai, pointed out that the report contained a number of findings which supported the petitioners’ grievances, such as [...]