Democracy is, everywhere, a work in progress. Like many other countries, India has imposed electoral quotas to improve the political empowerment of women and racial-ethnic minorities – that is, it has a political system that requires women to be elected to certain leadership positions. These rules represent a form of affirmative action, but they also resemble a feature of our own Constitution that reserves space in the Senate for two representatives...

Within a few days from today we will be crossing over to the second decade of the 21st century. Those of us born in the 20th century and lived through the first decade of the 21st, have indeed been fortunate to experience the impact of several giant steps of progress in human history. Mankind has indeed achieved much more in this period than it had in all the previous periods...

The jinxed women’s reservation bill received a boost today with a parliamentary panel advocating immediate passage in its present form. The panel rejected any dilution of the proposed 33 per cent quota for women with party-based reservation or double-member constituencies. The bill on women’s reservation in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies should be passed “and put in action without further delay”, the standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and...

The independence of the judiciary and the rule of law will be severely compromised if the integrity of the higher judiciary is not protected by an independent, informed, transparent, fair and robust process.  The former Chief Justice of India, P.B. Gajendragadkar, said: “Wise judges never forget that the best way to sustain the dignity and status of their office is to deserve respect from the public at large by the...

A formal move to consider the removal of a sitting judge is extremely rare. In 1991, impeachment proceedings began against Justice V Ramaswami, but were later dropped due to lack of support in Parliament. More recently, a judge of the Calcutta high court is facing impeachment. Now, 76 Rajya Sabha MPs - all from the opposition ranks - have put their signature to a petition seeking the removal of Karnataka...