-Hindustan Times The Constitution promises religion-neutral citizenship. NRC and its fallout could upend that The controversy unfolding in Assam over the National Register of Citizens (NRC), published on August 31, has brought to the fore important fault lines in the construction of citizenship in contemporary India. In particular, it places the spotlight on the role of key institutional actors – the bureaucracy and judiciary – in adjudicating citizenship. Crucially, the implementation of...

-The Telegraph It is in the unstoppable human search for truth and justice that the right to information will continue to shine Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party government flexed its legislative muscle, and successfully amended and diluted the Right to Information Act, many people have asked if the RTI Act has been maimed beyond repair and if its obituary should be written. While analysing the Amendments, it is also necessary to...

-The Times of India The middle class that led India’s nation-building project has now embraced a nationalism that has no place for diversity The “Idea of India” has always been grander in promise than in fulfilment. At Independence, the dream was that the people of a country of so much diversity — in language, religion, and tradition — would enjoy constitutionally guaranteed rights and through democratic means, build a just society. A...

-The Hindu With the kernel of the Information Act under threat, the independence of the information commission is in peril When we describe India as a democracy what do we really mean? Are we referring merely to a system of popular sovereignty founded in universal adult franchise? Or are we suggesting something more — perhaps an assurance, grounded in the Constitution, of a set of rights, of the rights, among others, to...

-Hindustan Times The changes empower the government to designate individuals as terrorists, merely if it believes so On August 8, 2019, the President assented to Amendments to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967, introducing a set of changes to an already draconian law. The most fundamental of these changes empowers the government to designate individuals as terrorists, merely if it believes so, leaving little to no recourse for them to protest...