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Several women lawyers, from across the country, have written to NLU-D Vice Chancellor, Prof. (Dr.) Ranbir Singh, the Chairperson of the ‘Committee for Reforms in Criminal Laws’, expressing their serious concerns regarding the lack of diversity in the constitution of the committee. They highlight that the committee does not have representation of relevant stakeholders, for there are no women, Dalits, religious minorities, adivasis, LGBTQ persons, or persons with disabilities on the Committee.

Despite launching the “plan for jobs” the chancellor Rishi Sunak can not expect to check mass unemployment. His friends and economic advisers have been advising him to act far more decisively to prevent mass unemployment after unveiling a £30bn mini budget, but it does not appear that he would succeed in his mission.

It suits powerful domiciles that their sleazy secrets remain untold – hidden. And Kanpur ‘don’ Vikas Dubey had lots of beans to spill. The ‘eight-cop-killer’ was on the run for a week and then he surrendered shouting “I’m Vikas Dubey Kanpurwala.’ The next morning he’s is dead as a canned mackerel – shot dead by police while reportedly attempting to flee from police custody. He wouldn’t be telling anybody’s secrets to anybody!

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the apex body in India for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research has been and upright institution of our country and its opinions have been valued widely. But unfortunately like several other institutions in the country the credibility of ICMR has been eroded in the past few months. Initially it was the ICMR which was giving briefings on the status of the COVID in the country.

For the corporate sector, the phase is said to be ‘the golden era of privatisation’. The irony is not lost as the government has declared its decision on which side it would be, and that too openly and ‘unapologetically’ calling privatisation of public sector units as part of the policy of reforms. The government has surrendered its near total monopoly in the railways and invited Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for private players for the operation of passenger train services on 109 Origin Destination (OD) pairs of routes through introduction of 151 modern trains.

The Covid pandemic in India reached a landmark on July 5 when India became the third country, after the United States and Brazil, with the largest number of Covid cases in the world. It is no coincidence that the top three countries in this regard are being run by rightwing authoritarian leaders. India at present is also registering the highest number of cases per day along with these two countries. Currently, a hundred thousand (one lakh) cases are being added every four to five days. The death toll, which is understated, has crossed 20,000.

HAVANA: While the United States tries to disqualify Cuba’s international medical cooperation, the list of brigades sent by the island to fight COVID-19 in different latitudes of the planet grows.

Either history will impinge some wise and learned thinking behind the Supreme Court’s current jurisprudence or it will term it as an absurd phase. Recent instances (see here and here) point heavily towards the latter but for the sake of our learned and wise apex court of the country, let’s assume, as Vasudev Devadasan states, that the court knows what it’s doing. That would mean, the court knows that rule of law is under threat in the country, which would lead the Supreme Court’s current jurisprudence to be in line with Andras Jakab’s suggestion on what the courts should do in such times; that courts should engage in self-restraint and not practice activism when rule of law is under threat in a country. Many would infer that the silence of the court is in line with these suggestions. Below, I argue why that is misplaced and this phase is, in fact, just absurd.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front(LDF) Government has been badly battered by the political storm unleashed by the biggest gold smuggling case Kerala has witnessed in its history.

Most wanted gangster Vikas Dubey may have been arrested from the Mahakali temple at Ujjain but the manner in which he killed eight police officials in Bikru village in Kanpur exposed the nexus between politicians, police and criminals.