Seven decades ago, the world witnessed a dreadful Human Rights violation. Hitler's regime pledged to wipe out every human belonging to the Jewish sect residing on the German Land. People were tormented, put in concentration camps, locked in gas chambers, and sometimes even executed publicly. After some of those deadly years, the international community lambasted Hitler's actions and pledged to prevent targeted hate crimes against communities.    Seventy years later, here we are again. With its head buried in the sand, the international community chose to remain silent ..read more

(This is a guest post by Rasveen K. Kapoor. Rasveen is a student at Indore Institute of Law).   Arnab Goswami || Siddique Kapan “A man of courage never needs weapons, but he may need Bail.”  – Lewis Mumford, American historian It is the sacrosanct obligation of all concerned with the justice dispensation system to ensure that the administration of criminal justice remains effective and meaningful. Literally, the expression 'bail' denotes a security for appearance of a prisoner for his release. Bail is a grant of conditional liberty to an accused who assures or on ..read more

Sardar Ajit Singh  Over the last two days, thousands of farmers from North India have begun a “Delhi Chalo” march, to protest against the farm law amendments passed by Parliament in September. The farmers continued their march despite facing water cannons and tear gas from the Haryana Police. Led by organizations such as the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, the farmers have shown fierce resistance to the Police forces and the barricades, making this among the most significant farmer movements we have witnessed in recent years. This post aims to draw parallels wi ..read more

This month, we have witnessed two closely fought elections – first in the United States, and then in Bihar. Both these elections saw significantly high voter turnouts, despite the difficulties brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. In Bihar, women voter turnout was higher than men – in 166 out of 243 constituencies. In the US, there was a record voter turnout of 67% - which is the highest voting percentage in 120 years. Such extensive democratic participation is possible only because both US and India have universal adult suffrage – which allows all adults to vote, and grants equal voting ri ..read more

Yesterday, Joe Biden was ‘called’ as the winner of the US Presidential election, as soon as it was certain that he would win at least 270 seats in the ‘electoral college’. The US media outlets who ‘called’ the election in favor of Joe Biden focused solely on whether he was definitely winning 270 electoral college seats, and did not focus on whether he had won a simple majority of the total number of votes cast. So, what exactly is this electoral college system, and why is the election not decided simply by determining which candidate receives more national votes in total? In this post, we sha ..read more

  On 26th October, the Ministry of Home Affairs notified the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization (Adaptation of Central Laws) Third Order, 2020 (‘the Adaptation Order’). This executive order has made wide-ranging amendments to the land laws applicable in Jammu & Kashmir. These amendments are applicable only in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir, and are not applicable in the Union Territory of Ladakh. After explaining the procedure adopted for amending these land laws, we shall discuss the constitutional validity of the Adaptation Order notified by the Home Ministry. We shall con ..read more

In the last Parliament session, three consolidated labor codes were passed by both Houses. The three labor codes that were passed are – (i) The Industrial Relations Code, 2020; (ii) The Social Security Code, 2020; and (iii) The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020. Each of the three labor codes consolidated all labor laws relating to social security, industrial relations, and occupational health and safety of the workers. In this post, we shall limit our focus to the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (‘Occupational Health and Safety Code ..read more

Yesterday, Thomas Issac, the Finance Minister of Kerala, stated thata bunch of State Governments were considering whether they should approach the Supreme Court – against the Central Government’s decision to deny them GST Compensation. But, within 24 hours of this development, the Centre agreed to the demand of the State Governments, and stated it would borrow funds from the RBI – to compensate the State Governments for their revenue losses. In this post, we shall discuss what this controversy is all about. We shall also discuss the constitutional structure of the GST – which shall explain w ..read more

This is a guest post by Rohit Sharma. Rohit is a graduate from NUJS, Kolkata (batch of 2020). Last week, Karnataka High Court Division bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ravi V Hosmani struck down the NLSIU Amendment Act. This Act aimed to bring 25% domicile reservation in NLSIU Bangalore. The Court held that the amendment was contrary to the parent Act, and also failed to satisfy the twin tests of Art 14. The reason domicile was put to the question is because representation was being provided primarily from Bangalore students with elite socio-economic background – who were able to benefit f ..read more

In the early 20th century, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, a schoolboy from the Ratnagiri district, would enter his classroom. He would have to go to a corner and sit all by himself, instead of sitting with his other classmates. Bhimrao would also have to get a piece of gunny cloth over which he could sit. He would take the cloth back home everyday as the servant employed by the school would refuse to touch the cloth. When all other students of his class felt thirsty, they would only need to take the permission of the teacher before going to the tap and drinking water. When Bhimrao felt thirsty, he wo ..read more