-The Hindu The Delhi High Court order striking down the Begging Act heeds the Constitution’s transformative nature In 1871, the colonial regime passed the notorious Criminal Tribes Act. This law was based upon the racist British belief that in India there were entire groups and communities that were criminal by birth, nature, and occupation. The Act unleashed a reign of terror, with its systems of surveillance, police reporting, the separation of families,...
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How police storage is taking digital leap -Somreet Bhattacharya
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: For decades, the malkhanas in police stations, which store case properties and evidence, have been so poorly organised that legal proceedings have regularly been affected. On many occasions, the case properties have been misplaced, even stolen. At other times, the cops have wasted months trying to locate evidentiary items. These might now change with Delhi Police set to digitise all malkhanas. After a six-month effort, police...
More »The missing 4,007,707 -Sanjib Baruah
-The Indian Express Can a democracy permit so many to be in a state of liminal legality? NRC poses a political and moral question The possibility — whether immediate or somewhat remote — that at the end of the process as many as 4 million people may lose their legal status as citizens should not be a cause of celebration in a democracy. Nor should it generate a mad rush among...
More »Call for attention to excluded -Pheroze L Vincent and Basant Mohanty
-The Telegraph New Delhi: Academics feel that the ambiguity over the fate of those who might eventually be excluded from the final National Register of Citizens in Assam should be cleared at the earliest. Sanjib Baruah, professor of political science at New York's Bard College, told the Telegraph earlier this week: "With a number like four million people being excluded (from the draft NRC), we need the think beyond the question of...
More »Empowering domestic workers -Ujjwal K Chowdhury
-MillenniumPost.in Attention must be drawn to the lakhs of domestic helps in India who do not receive any legal protection. The number of domestic workers in India varies from official estimates of around five million to loosely defined unofficial estimates of 10 million. Between 2000 and 2010, women (young girls included) made up for more than 75 per cent of the new entrants into the domestic workforce. In 2010, more than 68...
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