-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In what could lead to freedom for thousands of undertrials languishing in jail for years on end, the Narendra Modi government has initiated steps to release prisoners who have served at least half the sentence they would have been awarded if convicted, irrespective of the progress of their trial. However, this largesse will not extend to those who have been held for offences which specify...

-The Hindu Business Line The case against labour inspector raj is overstated. Labour courts need to be strengthened The labour reform debate in India has acquired renewed vigour under the new government. The Rajasthan and the Haryana governments have recently proposed to amend a few Central labour laws. The Ministry of Labour and Employment has also circulated labour reform proposals. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion has issued an "advisory" to the...

-Economic and Political Weekly This paper identifies the channels and processes which have increased the vulnerability of employment in the organised manufacturing sector. It explores the exemptions from specific labour regulations accorded to particular activities and locates the anti-labour positions in the arbitration mechanisms under the state and judicial reinterpretations of existing laws. The popular discourse on labour regulation in India has been arguing in favour of labour market flexibility and...

-Live Mint   Despite its importance, reform of India's legal institutions has been seen as a ‘second order' issue India is a young nation long ruled by old laws-its police, for example, are governed by such colonial-era statutes as the Police Act of 1861, which predates independence by nearly a century. And its expanding economy requires forward-looking regulatory mechanisms to foster markets while curbing crony capitalism. India is also a nation that must...

-Al Jazeera   Activists and feminists seek implementation of law to check violence against women as new government is sworn in. New Delhi - Two days after Narendra Modi emerged victorious in India's national elections, Kiran battled the heat and crowd to see the man she had voted for in the ancient city of Varanasi. Modi, a leader of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, who took oath as the prime minister of India on...