-The Hindu By repeatedly setting aside convictions under the PoA Act, courts bolster allegations that the law is misused The horror of the gang rape of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras in 2020 is still fresh in our minds. Activists, academics and lawyers argued that the sexual violence took place on account of the woman’s gender and caste and that the scheduled castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act,...

-The Indian Express In a nation where access to education remains a fundamental issue and where an individual’s success largely depends on access to resources, shaped by socio-economic and caste advantages, 'merit' is just another form of discrimination. While a public health crisis grips the nation, the recent incident at IIT Kharagpur where a professor named Seema Singh at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences allegedly made casteist slurs during a...

-Press release by Common Cause dated 19th April, 2021 New Delhi: There are silences and gaps in the law that the questionable elements in the police take advantage of and undermine the rule of law, said Justice Madan B Lokur, former Justice of the Supreme Court of India. Delivering the Keynote Address on ‘Is the Rule of Law Backsliding in India?’ at the launch of the Status of Policing in India Report...

-Down to Earth Among marginalised groups, indebtedness was highest in Muslim-majority and scheduled caste-majority hamlets Indebtedness became more acute in around 70 per cent hamlets surveyed in 75 Indian districts during October-December 2020, according to a study on the effects of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and lockdowns. The figure was 76 per cent in the first few months following last year’s lockdown. There was a slight dip in the indebtedness of...

-The Hindu There is a need to acknowledge the project’s appeal and the intricacies of representation in order to counter it Modern democracies are erected upon the twin pillars of rights and representation. While rights define the minimum due of individuals and communities vis-à-vis the state, representation enables the diverse voices in a polity to be heard. However, most critiques interrogate Hindutva through the limited lens of representation, arguing that it essentially...