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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 …

The India-China skirmish on the Arunachal Pradesh border has brought the Chinese threat on the front burner again. This has made External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar accept that to counter this threat, “…we have a deployment of the Indian Army… that we have never had.” The threat had never decreased, …

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 …

An invertebrate survey undertaken in the Thiruvananthapuram Wildlife Division has reaffirmed the relevance of the region as a biodiversity hotspot. The four-day exercise to survey the invertebrates of Neyyar and Peppara wildlife sanctuaries and the Agasthyavanam Biological Park with emphasis on arachnids was jointly conducted by the Forest Department and …

The second phase of the Sari Festival “VIRAASAT”- Celebrating 75 handwoven Saris of India will begin from 3rd to 17th January 2023 at Handloom Haat, Janpath, New Delhi. The Ministry of Textiles is organizing the festival, the timing of which are 11AM to 8 PM. The second phase, having 90 participants from different parts …

The National Commission for Indian System of Medicine (NCISM) and the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS), the two prominent institutions under the Ministry of Ayush, Government of India for regulating medical education and conducting scientific research respectively, have launched ‘SMART’ (Scope for Mainstreaming Ayurveda Research in Teaching …

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 …

India’s first case of the XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron was confirmed in Gujarat by the national genome sequencing consortium on December 31. XBB.1.5 has been driving COVID-19 cases in the U.S. Studies of the strain indicate that it is highly transmissible and evades pre-existing immunity. Yet it doesn’t seem to …

For much of the global economy, 2023 is going to be a tough year as the main engines of global growth, the United States, Europe and China, all experience weakening activity, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Sunday. The new year is going to be “tougher than …

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 …

At almost ₹1.5 lakh crore, Goods and Services Tax (GST) inflows in December 2022 signal a recovery of sorts from November, when revenues fell to a three-month low. November 2022 revenues were 10.9% higher than a year ago, but still marked the slowest growth since June 2021. December’s revenues were …

Private Equity and Venture Capital (PE-VC) firms invested $2,614 million across 65 deals in Tamil Nadu-based companies in 2022. Of this 45 firms are headquartered in She state while the remaining 20 now have their base overseas but were headquartered here at some point and also have a substantial part …

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 …

The year 2022 can perhaps be best summarised by a quote by Vladimir Lenin: ‘There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.’ The year began with the ostensible vanquishing of the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to the remarkable collective vaccination efforts of science, business and governments …