The Leaflet / by Anand Teltumbde
The Republic Day symbolized aspirational metamorphosis of India, into a sovereign, democratic republic as the Constitution proclaimed. It conjured up images of Indian people who were self-governing, who decided to give themselves a democratic republic.
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The News Minute / interview by Nandini Nair
Scholar, writer and activist Anand Teltumbde’s voice cracks unnoticeably when he speaks about his mother, the woman who worked hard with her husband to raise their children in a village in Maharashtra. Anand was answering journalist Nandini Nair’s question on his mother and daughters at a session at the Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode, where the two were in conversation on the subject ‘Annihilation of caste’.
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The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha
In 2018, 1,845 people died while incarcerated. That’s the highest number India has seen so far.
Mumbai: “I would see this one prison inmate being brought to the hospital every day for an entire week, and each time turned away. The escort police would invariably walk in around 2:30-3 pm, over an hour after the OPD (out-patient department) hours, and no doctor would be available to treat patients then. The inmate went untreated for over a week,” recalls a young doctor at Maharashtra’s state-run JJ hospital.
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The Wire / by Markandey Katju and Janhvi Prakash
It must be regrettably said that the judiciary has largely surrendered before the political executive.
The words ‘Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting’, from the Bible (Daniel:5:27), were used by Sir Winston Churchill in 1938 to criticise Neville Chamberlain, the then British prime minister, for signing the shameful Munich Pact with Hitler. The same words could aptly be used for the Indian Supreme Court too, for its recent dismal, distressing, disheartening and discomfiting performances in repeatedly failing to protect the fundamental rights of the Indian people – which is its sacred and solemn duty under the constitution.
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Live Law / by Nitish Kashyap
Like every year, the Bombay High Court in 2019 witnessed a flurry of fresh PILs and petitions filed and pronounced orders/judgements in plenty of old cases. Here is a look at the some of the most significant judgements/orders of the Bombay High Court in the past year.
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The Print / by Dilip Mandal
Mainstream Indian historiography has a problem dealing with the battle of Bhima Koregaon. It doesn’t fit into the narrative of Hindu nationalism or the classic anti-colonialism frame. This historical dilemma is the reason why it is easy for the BJP and the Narendra Modi government to dub an anti-caste battle commemoration as the handiwork of ‘Urban Naxals’ and dangerous.
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The Indian Express / by Express News Service
Addressing the 12th conclave of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) at Byculla, Karat accused the Centre of undermining the Constitution and dividing the people in name of caste, creed and religion to serve its “devious larger agenda of (setting up) a theocratic state”. …
“The basic principle of a secular country must be separation of religion from politics… Even today, men and women who fought for the rights of the oppressed and marginalised, like (activist) Sudha Bharadwaj, are in jail in the name of being urban naxals. The state government should withdraw all (Elgaar Parishad) cases,” she added.
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Feminsm India / by Guest Writer (posted by Maduli T.)
The BJP Government, within the first few months of its re-election, passed several legislations that are detrimental to Indian constitutional values and federal structure. India’s democracy has only weakened since the BJP’s coming to power, as they’ve relentlessly worked to consolidate power, weaken regional autonomy, and suppress dissent.
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Thakur Foundation / by Geeta Seshu & Urvashi Sarkar
A study on the killings of and attacks on journalists in India, 2014–2019, and justice delivery in these cases.
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The Hindu / by Gautam Bhatia
Last month, the news website Scroll revealed that more than 10,000 people in the Khunti district of Jharkhand had been chargesheeted by the police for sedition. These people are overwhelmingly Adivasis. Then, in early December, a judicial probe completed a seven-year long investigation, finding that a so-called encounter of “Maoists” in Chhattisgarh by security forces, in 2012, had been a “fake encounter” all along. The people killed had not been Maoists, but innocent villagers.
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