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The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has released draft amendments in relation to online gaming. The idea is to ensure that online games are in conformity with Indian laws and to safeguard users against potential harm. The Minister of State at MeitY Rajeev Chandrasekhar stated that the draft …

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) ended 2022 by passing a resolution that asked the body’s highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) , to render its opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian land. The resolution was passed with 87 member countries voting favourably, …

A Prime Minister or a Chief Minister in a country where there is a multi-party system cannot afford to crack the whip every time a Minister makes a statement which may either be in bad taste or disparaging, the Supreme Court said in a Constitution Bench judgment on Tuesday. “The …

The Supreme Court on Monday observed that all religious conversions cannot be presumed by a State to be illegal while agreeing to hear a Madhya Pradesh government appeal against a High Court decision freezing a mandatory provision requiring a person who desires to convert to another faith to give 60 …

It is an oft-repeated judicial view that courts must defer to the elected government’s judgment in matters of economic and social policy. Their interventions are usually limited to instances where executive decisions are palpably arbitrary or patently illegal. In this backdrop, it is no surprise that four of the five …

Assam remerged four districts with the ones they were carved out of four days after the Election Commission of India (ECI) notified the initiation of the delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies in the State on December 27, 2022. Many welcomed the ECI decision but questioned the use of the …

In a sign of escalating conflict between the government and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) over the Forest (Conservation) Rules, 2022, panel Chairperson Harsh Chouhan on Monday said its position on the new rules being violative of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 “will be the same” even as …

The Electronics and Information Technology Ministry on Monday proposed an amendment to bring online gaming within the ambit of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The proposal, released for public consultation, requires all online games to register with any self-regulatory body approved by the …

INDIA’S PRISON FOOTPRINT At the Constitution Day celebrations organised by the Supreme Court in November 2022, President DroupadiMurmu shared a snippet of her journey with the audience. She reflected on her visits to prisons across India and the circumstances of those incarcerated. She highlighted that these individuals were often unaware …

State management of temples is often justified as a way of ensuring access to temples for worshippers and archakas (priests). Regulating secular activities associated with religious practice can be traced to Article 25(2)(a) of the Constitution. Temple control legislation is purportedly justified by this Article. Temple control and temple entry …

The Government of India is paying special attention to the development of border villages, especially from a security perspective. Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on December 29 that borders could be permanently secured only when border villages are populated by patriotic citizens who are concerned for the country. Shah …

Highlighting the difference between substitution and modification, the Madras High Court has ruled that if a government scheme gets substituted by a new scheme, the old scheme cannot resurrect after a court of law strikes down the substitution. On the other hand, a modified scheme will certainly revert to its …

A majority of four judges on a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on Monday found no flaw in the Union government’s process to demonetise ₹500 and ₹1,000 banknotes through a Gazette notification issued on November 8, 2016. The sole woman judge on the five-member Bench, Justice B.V. Nagarathna, however, …

A recent statement by a Member of Parliament that same-sex marriages are against the (so-called) cultural ethos of India has once again stirred up the debate on marriage equality. This is amidst a petition for marriage rights of same-sex couples (under the Special Marriage Act, 1954) pending before the Supreme …

Close on the heels of similar mobility agreements with France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Finland, India will sign a “Comprehensive Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement” (MMPA) with Austria on Monday during External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s visit to Vienna. While India has been keen to finalise these agreements with …

The clash between Indian troops and the Chinese PLA at Galwan in 2020 and the recentaltercationbetweentroops at Yangtse in Arunachal Pradesh have served to highlight the lingering boundary dispute as well as the complex Line of Actual Control (LAC). It is tempting to examine the parallels in India-China relations in …

If 2022 was a momentous year for India and the rest of the world, 2023 is likely to further sharpen the geopolitical fault lines set in motion by the previous year. Amidst all the tectonic shifts around us, what appears to be a certainty is the emergence of an Asia-centric …

As most Union government offices are expected to go fully digital by the end of February 2023, several security measures have been put in place to avoid any cybersecurity incidents such as the recent cyber and ransomware attack on the servers of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) …

OnDecember 23, the Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI)arrested private lender ICICI Bank’s former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD &CEO)Chanda Kochhar along with her husband, Deepak Kochhar. This was in a case pertaining tofraudulentdisbursal of loansamounting to ₹1,875 crore between 2009-11to the Videocon group of companies, during her tenure at …

The border town of Belagavi has been a part of Karnataka since boundaries were demarcated along linguistic lines under theStatesReorganisationAct, 1956. But theinter-State border dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra erupts every now and then.The decades-old dispute flared up again in 2022when Karnataka Chief Minister BasavarajBommaisaid the Karnataka government was considering …