-The Hindu Just as individuals are punished for legal violations, the government of the day must also be punished for the violation of these basic rights. Three thoughts occur to me in the aftermath of the horrific tragedy in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, where the systemic failure of health care has killed over a hundred children. First, like the constitutional principle of a basic structure, it is time to articulate an equally robust...

-The Hindu The institution can play an important role in refreshing India’s fiscal federalism India’s Constitution-makers thought of India as a union of States with a centripetal bias, done, advisedly, to preserve the unity and integrity of a newly fledged nation. Since then, the Indian economy, polity, demography and society have undergone many changes. The new aspirational India is now firmly on a growth turnpike. It is in this context that we...

-The Hindu Deplores public health infrastructure in the country The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Thursday issued notices to the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry (MoHFW), and all States and Union Territories, over what it termed was the “deplorable public health infrastructure in the country”, an NHRC statement said. The NHRC took suo motu cognisance of several media reports on recent deaths across the country due to “deficiencies and inadequacies in...

-The Indian Express NRC violates constitutional morality, principles of international law. The case of Mohammad Sanaullah — where Sanaullah, a former soldier, was declared a foreigner by an Assam Tribunal — exposed a gaping hole in the National Register of Citizens. No doubt, the state will scramble to correct the injustice. But for the poor in the state, nobody will bother. A tribunal meet on the NRC and the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill...

-The Indian Express To fulfil the constitutional requirement, reservation must be based on a rigorous identification of economic backwardness. The introduction of the 124th constitutional amendment that provides the possibility of quotas for the “economically weaker sections” (EWS) has rekindled the debate on reservations. These quotas diverge from reservation policies for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other socially and educationally backward classes, by jettisoning caste or community identity as the...