Appearing before a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, for the Kerala government, submitted that pilgrims to Sabarimala cannot claim to be a separate or distinct sect or religious denomination. The customs of the temple were subject to Constitutional principles …
Read More »Yearly Archives: 2018
Cabinet clears Bill to restore the provisions of SC/ST Act
Facing pressure from Dalit leaders within the ruling alliance as well as from the Opposition, the Centre has decided to introduce a Bill to restore the original provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, which the Supreme Court had struck down in a …
Read More »LS passes commercial courts Bill
The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts (Amendment) Bill, 2018. It will designate some courts as commercial courts for speedy disposal of commercial disputes and will reduce the pecuniary jurisdiction of these courts from Rs. 1 crore to Rs. …
Read More »Logo, tagline launched for GI
A GI product is primarily an agricultural, natural or a manufactured product (handicraft and industrial goods) originating from a definite geographical territory. Darjeeling Tea, Tirupati Laddu, Kangra Paintings, Nagpur Orange and Kashmir Pashmina are among the registered GIs in India. Mr. Prabhu said the initiative would help promote awareness and …
Read More »The Indian Reforms
The European Association’s preliminary statement on reform proposals declines to pass summary judgment till the fundamental question of electorates is settled. The Association is not hostile to the principles of compartmental transfer of responsibility but considers that the Indian ministers are judgeable by the attitude towards the reserved rather than …
Read More »Friends or Seoul-mates?
South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s four-day state visit to India early last month came at a time when Mr. Moon’s administration is seeking to upgrade India-South Korea relations. It was evident when Mr. Moon launched a foreign initiative called New Southern Policy last year that he had decided to step …
Read More »Towards war’s end
Talks between representatives of Syria’s Kurdish rebels and President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus bring a ray of hope to hundreds of thousands living in the country’s north and east. After the talks last week, leaders of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, …
Read More »The public-private gap in health care
The recent controversy about transparency in the working of the cadaver transplant programme in Tamil Nadu has provided an opportunity to revisit the vexed question of medical rationing in India. It is a hard reality that not all medical interventions are available to every citizen who may need it. The …
Read More »Election sees rise of anti-blasphemy party
A relatively new anti-blasphemy party, whose leader has reportedly vowed to nuke the Netherlands should he ever come to power, did surprisingly well in Pakistan’s elections. Islamist fundamentalist parties fielded more than 1,500 candidates in Pakistan’s provincial and national elections that were won by Imran Khan. The performance of Tehreek-e-Labaik …
Read More »A fundamental error
August 24 will mark the first anniversary of the unanimous affirmation of the right to privacy by a nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court. The court imposed upon the government a clear obligation to make a law safeguarding a person’s informational privacy, commonly referred to as data protection. The right …
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