-The Economic Times Objections by the Opposition and even treasury benches to the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill - which seeks to make divorce easier - has forced the government to review the legislation. The government appears set to accept the demand for a cooling off period before divorce. It will now be left to the discretion of the judge to determine the time between the petition and granting of divorce. The government...

Recent debates on Internet censorship in India have focused to the allegedly free-for-all nature of the internet. Those of us who have argued against internet censorship have been somewhat misrepresented as arguing for absolute freedom whereby the reasonable restrictions laid down in Article 19 (A) of the Constitution of India don’t apply. Nothing could be farther than the truth. It has been said that the internet can be used to incite...

Raising the bar on child labour, the government is set to debar employment of children below the age of 14 in any industry. Only those between 14 to 18 years can be employed except in hazardous industries. The existing Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, allows employment of children of up to 14 years of age in the industries not considered to be hazardous. Hazardous industries include tobacco, stone crushing,...

The Supreme Court has taken steps to lay down a code for media reporting. This attempt at prior restraint on the media is a dangerous move with precedent from authoritarian polities. In a context where the judiciary has been lax in defending the media from attacks which seek to curb its freedom, such unilateral moves will not remedy bad reporting but rather make conditions worse for the media to play...

This month a group of Dalit (or Untouchables, as they were formerly labelled) students organised a Beef Festival in Osmania University of Hyderabad. It was the festival to assert their culinary rights in public and make a political statement of dietary habits of Dalits and Muslims – by cooking and eating beef Biryani on campus. About 2000 students participated and although it started out well, the festival was disrupted and students...