The Status of Policing Report in India 2023 (SPIR) was released on 31 March in New Delhi by Common Cause and Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. SPIR 2023 study explores public opinions and experiences regarding digital surveillance in India. Recent developments, such as the Supreme Court's recognition of the right to privacy and discussions surrounding data protection, have intensified debates around privacy and surveillance. The study also considers...

-The Indian Express The realities of torture and its prosecution in India would temper our expectations from this one development. The Supreme Court needs to ensure robust implementation of its order and simultaneously plug the gaps so that incidents of torture are curtailed. In a bid to curb torture, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court recently mandated that CCTV cameras be installed in police stations and offices of other investigative agencies....

-IndiaToday.in Biometric systems and CCTV cameras at the server room were not vandalised in the first week of January, contrary to the claims made by the Jawaharlal Nehru University administration that students had destroyed them on January 3, the varsity has said in an RTI reply. A Right To Information (RTI) reply filed by the Jawaharlal Nehru University administration on recent incidents in the university has exposed several discrepancies in the claims...

-The Indian Express What is needed is ‘ease of policing’, better training and infrastructure Common Cause’s recent survey on the Status of Policing in India is said to have affirmed that the black sheep in the police force find nothing wrong with beating up criminals to extract a confession. It is still, however, too judgemental to suggest that torture is endemic to Indian policing, as Maja Daruwala does (‘Exorcising third-degree’, IE,...

-The Indian Express Normalisation of surveillance destroys what sustains a civilisation — human interaction filled with trust, care. Even though Delhi Government’s decision to install CCTV cameras in school classrooms has generated an interesting debate, it is important to see beyond the classrooms, and reflect more intensely on the meaning of living in a society that normalises and sanctifies surveillance. As an ideology that seeks to become hegemonic, the practice of surveillance...