-The Hindu Bhuira's women are coping with the higher workload by creating vastly more flexible family and community structures. And they are simultaneously pushing towards modernity much faster than their neighbours. Everyone in the village sneaks a glance when Upasana Kumari drives her White Maruti 800 to work. “Driving a car is intoxicating,” says Kumari. A winding, muddy, single lane road that starts from the edge of the hillock where Kumari’s house...

-The Indian Express Exploring the role of the black economy in political finance and how it subverts democracy. Book: Costs of Democracy: Political Finance in India Editors: Devesh Kapur & Milan Vaishnav Publisher: Oxford University Press Page: 311   Price: Rs 750 Money in politics is an issue of great concern for the Indian polity. Most believe it undermines democracy in India so that what formally looks like a great democracy turns out to be just...

-The Indian Express Supreme Court verdict on Section 377 will spark many more challenges to inequality, discrimination Today is an historic day for India. The Supreme Court has decriminalised sex between consenting adults in private under Section 377. With the judgment of the Supreme Court today, we, Indians, have attained a second azadi for those who have continued to be persecuted after Independence by the law enacted by the British in 1861. It...

-The Indian Express The century-old the law against homosexuality was imposed on pre-independent India in accordance with the Christian principles on which the British kingdom was founded. New Delhi: India was introduced to the law against homosexuality almost 80 years before it became independent. At its zenith, the British Empire as part of its ‘civilising mission’ imposed the criminal law of England, including the anti-sodomy law, on its colonies.  While the...

-TheWire.in New Delhi: Criticising the country or a particular aspect of it cannot be treated as “sedition” and the charge  of sedition can only be invoked in cases where the intention is to overthrow the government with violence and illegal means, the Law Commission has observed in a consultation paper on the subject. The commission, headed by Justice (retired) B.S. Chauhan, also noted that in order to study the revision of Section...