people

In view of the revival of the controversial issue of “one nation, one election”, I reproduce below an analysis which I penned when the Narendra Modi government raised the issue. Five years later, the essay is perhaps more relevant today than when it was first written.

In view of the historic case being argued before the Supreme Court on the legality of the abrogation of Article 370, I reproduce below an essay on the genesis of this bond of faith between India and the people of Jammu and Kashmir in the historical perspective of the times and circumstances in which the Article was enacted. This piece was published almost a month before the abolition of the Article on August 5, 2019.

In the recent past, several eminent, reformist political thinkers have been urging the judiciary to call out the Constitutional sins of the executive branch of the government. Prominent among them is Padma Bhushan and Magsaysay awardee Arun Shourie. Last month, in a well-publicised TV interview, this intrepid scholar-journalist-politician called upon the Supreme Court “to behave as if it’s at war in defence of the Constitution”.

There is a rainbow on the cover of this issue of India Legal. When our editorial team sat to discuss how best to illustrate the theme of our latest cover story, we unanimously invoked the rainbow—the Indradhanush. Why? Because nature in no other form depicts its “vibgyor” colours more emphatically than in the vibrant arc that cuts a swathe across the skies after a rain.

This week’s cover story is part of our continuing reportage on a subject that is perhaps the most explosive constitutional showdown since the Founding Fathers, in 1950, framed the principles, laws, rules and regulations within whose framework the institutions of the newly-founded Indian Republic are designed and meant to function.

This issue of India Legal is dedicated to the nation’s most celebrated and hallowed secular text that is, in its evangelical message, as powerful as any holy book: The Indian Constitution.

December 10th should be considered, along with all major religious landmark events like Diwali, Xmas, Eid, Gurpurab, Hanukkah, a day of reflection and the celebration of the power of the human spirit.

While the media is rightly focused on the pathetic plight of countless million jobless individuals who have been turned into refugees in their own land, trekking or trying to hitch a surreptitious ri...

The Indian armed forces can justifiably boast of having played a sterling, even majestic role in protecting the nation against external threats, as well as safeguarding the strategic interests of the...

When I read Nobel Laureate Albert Camus’ “The Plague” as a teenager, I shivered all the way through it. But when I put it down, I was relieved that I had returned to my own world and my own planet, fa...