When was the last time the world cared for morality?

If there is a time since the great wars when universal values of solidarity and selfless cooperation were tested, it will be now. It will pivot on the issue of sharing the intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines.  Pfizer has raised its vaccine sales forecast to USD 26 billion. The company is hopeful about a …

Day 37: Law and the Pandemic

30/04/2020 Day 37 I read Prof Baxi’s piece ‘Emerging Laws & Jurisprudence’ dwelling into ‘the exercise of the suo motu jurisdiction by courts’ in India’s fight against Covid-19. As always, his writing is a mixed bag. He places legal researchers ‘among the frontline of combatants against a sinister global pandemic’. Surely that would stand true …

Indian Courts fascinate

“one man’s vulgarity is another man’s lyric”…. Stoked by the use of such flourishes in Kerala High Court’s judgment. I’d want to read more from Chief Justice Antony Dominic and Justice Dama Seshadri Naidu for being so lyrical yet delivering righteous, clear cut judgments. Outstanding use of language in legal realm. May be Ph.D in …

Reading Foucault & thinking college activism

This has been in the making for several years now - trying to identify the causal chain from ideas to action, especially since the first reading of Foucault. The ongoing trouble in colleges and universities of Delhi presents a case to reflect upon this causal chain. There comes a phase in student life when encounters …

Explorations in Marxist social theory & a book review

This one will be a longer post than usual, but delights me especially because I could manage to get a somewhat minimal sense of the range of thoughts and ideas in the Marxist lineage, which has been a long going effort. The post includes a discussion of a clutch of the thinkers in a rather …

On the idea of ‘property’

From a few earlier projects that our firm has handled (in FRA, land acquisition and coastal regulation) and a couple of academic exercises, I began exploring the idea of property and how it has come to be its contemporary understanding. This meant that I begin with earliest conceptions or references to the word property and …

Sexual Harassment & Appropriate Sexual Behaviour: An alternative view (Part 2/2)

Continuing from Sexual Harassment: An alternative view, the following post traces the trajectory of the movement against sexual harassment in India. The first major event that drew attention to this issue was FOWA’s action in the 1980s. A 1991 report from the same organization describes it as – (…) militant action by the Forum Against …

Sexual Harassment & Appropriate Sexual Behaviour: An alternative view (Part 1/2)

his post is inspired from a paranoia-laced militant behaviour that I witnessed last week, of a Professor (in a law school) as she spoke about the law school's sexual harassment code, repeatedly emphasizing how robust the school's code is.
It traces genealogy of terms "sex", "gender" and "sexual harassment" and their connotations in contemporary times.

State & Pace: Criminal Justice in India

Turns out that not just crash courses happen in four weeks, but policies too are made in India in four weeks. Some of them with policy goal as big as fast tracking of justice system in the country.  The Supreme Court's or Chief Justice of India's words wouldn't have probably made a visible impact in …

Prison reforms in India: A quick history

In our work, we figured that a concise history of prison reforms is hard to find. So, in this post I have pieced together the events that led to improving prison conditions and what came of those efforts. Plus, a schematic on criminal justice system. This should be useful for those who'd like to know …