ActionAid Association's (AAA) national level survey among people dependent on the informal economy during the third phase of the national lockdown towards the end of May 2020 (i.e. between May 14th and May 22nd, 2020) has documented the "nature and extent of the transitions in the lives and livelihoods of informal workers, including migrant workers, during the pandemic and provide[s] an insight into the precarity they experience and the coping...

-The Hindu Court was hearing a challenge to Maratha reservation law New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday was urged to set up a 11-judge Bench to reconsider its 50% cap on reservation. The push for it came while the court was hearing a challenge to the Maratha reservation law. A bunch of petitions contended that the law, which provides 12 to 13 per cent quota for the community in Maharashtra, breached the...

-The Indian Express Prashant Bhushan writes: I am shocked that the court holds me guilty of “malicious, scurrilous, calculated attack” on the institution of administration of justice. I am dismayed that the Court has arrived at this conclusion without providing any evidence of my motives to launch such an attack. I have gone through the judgment of this Hon’ble Court. I am pained that I have been held guilty of committing contempt...

-The Hindu In doing so, we risk the disengagement of those most invested in preserving our democratic institutions Ethical explorations often begin with emotional injury. Something simply feels wrong, and you ask yourself whether you are missing an important bit of information or the right perspective. This happened when I read the Supreme Court judgment pronouncing senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan guilty of criminal contempt for his two “scurrilous” tweets. I have known...

-Hindustan Times By effectively insulating employers from paying wages to workers, it has reinforced an unequal power dynamic The coronavirus pandemic — and the measures taken by the central and state governments to contain it over the last five months — has led to widespread disruption across the country. A substantial part of this disruption is asymmetric in nature; that is, it has disproportionately affected vulnerable and marginalised people, those unable to...