All posts by Lawrence Liang

Everyday Life, Frontiers, Identities, Right watch, Violence-Conflict

Under the sign of security – Why the bogey of ‘the illegal Bangladeshi immigrant’ is so powerful across urban Indian homes: Sahana Ghosh & Rimple Mehta

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Guest Post by SAHANA GHOSH & RIMPLE MEHTA

From the night of July 11 when Zohra Bibi did not return home to the evening of July 16 when union minister Mahesh Sharma, member of parliament for Gautam Budh Nagar, UP met with residents of Mahagun Moderne, much has transpired. Promptly after the minister’s assurances of ‘justice’ and even retribution to the flat-owners, the settlement of tin walled shacks in which Zohra Bibi and other workers like her lived with their families was demolished the next day. Many of the ‘facts’ of the matter remain disputed – while Zohra Bibi maintains that she neither admitted to the theft of cash nor hid in the basement of the building, the allegation that her employers Harshu and Mitul Sethi harassed and detained her, confiscating her mobile phone is denied by them. Meanwhile, thirteen men, a majority of them Bengali Muslims from West Bengal, arrested from the workers’ settlement are denied bail on the charge of attempted murder on the might of three FIRs filed by residents of Mahagun Moderne and languish in judicial custody. The Noida police are yet to commence any investigation of the Sethis as required by the FIR filed by Zohra Bibi and her husband Abdul Sattar. What does this language of the riot, of murderous mobs with which residents of the swanky apartment complex took to social media with #MaldainNoida accomplish? As security cards, required by domestic and other workers to enter the gated community, were revoked for 80-odd workers under the cry of ‘ban the Bangladeshi maid’, the bogey of the illegal Bangladeshi immigrant reared its ugly head. Continue reading Under the sign of security – Why the bogey of ‘the illegal Bangladeshi immigrant’ is so powerful across urban Indian homes: Sahana Ghosh & Rimple Mehta →

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Wrought of Iron Until She Was No More – Jayalalithaa’s Passing: Francis Cody

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This is a guest post by FRANCIS CODY

All who did and most who did not support the Chief Minister are in mourning, in some form or another.  J. Jayalalithaa is no more.  A cinema star-turned-leader, whose determination in the face of massive adversity had won her the titles of ‘Iron Butterfly’ and ‘Revolutionary Leader’, Jayalalithaa captured the imagination as a woman not necessarily of the people, but certainly with the people as a ubiquitous presence and force in political and popular life.  It’s hard to fathom the Tamil landscape with the knowledge that all of those portraits of the leader no longer point back to a living, sentient being.  The outpouring of emotion she commanded in life and now in death never cease to amaze those do not have a feel for how the political and popular affect have been collapsed into one another, for better and for worse.  Without getting into the task of proving the sincerity of sentiment leading some to go so far as to take their own lives in acts of political devotion, or the opposite and equally misguided one of showing that those who participate in public displays of mourning are doing so because of some culture of political ‘sycophancy’ as it is often dubbed, we must shift the terms of debate on the nature of her power while appreciating the massive loss Tamil Nadu has sustained with her passing.

  Continue reading Wrought of Iron Until She Was No More – Jayalalithaa’s Passing: Francis Cody →

Capitalism, Debates

Jana Gana Mana and the Danger of Passing Sentiment as Law

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This originally appeared in The Wire

This is clearly the winter of Karan Johar’s discontent. Barely had the controversy over the illegal fine imposed on him by the Mahrashtra Navnirman Sena died down when the ghost of a controversy about his earlier film, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (K3G), has resurfaced in the form of the mind-boggling order from the Supreme Court making it mandatory for the national anthem to played in cinema halls before the screening of a film:

All the cinema halls in India shall play the National Anthem before the feature film starts and all present in the hall are obliged to stand up to show respect to the National Anthem.

Prior to the National Anthem is played or sung in the cinema hall on the screen, the entry and exit doors shall remain closed so that no one can create any kind of disturbance which will amount to disrespect to the National Anthem. After the National Anthem is played or sung, the doors can be opened.

When the National Anthem shall be played in the Cinema Halls, it shall be with the National Flag on the screen.

The national anthem is “the symbol of the Constitutional Patriotism and inherent national quality”, the judgment says. “It does not allow any different notion or the perception of individual rights, that have individually thought of have no space. (sic) The idea is constitutionally impermissible.”

Continue reading Jana Gana Mana and the Danger of Passing Sentiment as Law →

Bad ideas

The Radical Significance of the DU Photocopy case for Global Copyright

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protest

While the immediate beneficiaries of the Delhi high court’s judgment in the Delhi University photocopy case are obviously the university, the photocopy shop and the students and academics who filed intervention petitions supporting the right to photocopy, the import of Justice Endlaw’s finely reasoned judgment goes well beyond this specific case as well as its impact on access to knowledge in India. The judgment and its treatment of educational exceptions in copyright law is unprecedented and could well become a model of how national IP laws should be interpreted. To understand its global significance we should turn to a short history of norm creation in copyright and its relation to specific national and local needs. 

The Berne convention in 1886 for the first time laid out uniform global norms for copyright protection and established minimum standards that would apply to all signatory states. This was concretised further through the TRIPS agreement in 1994. In addition to laying out the common minimum standard that would define the global intellectual property regime, these treaties also allowed countries some amount of flexibility in customizing their national legislation to respond to their access to knowledge needs. These were by way of exceptions and limitations that a country could impose on the exercise of intellectual property rights, and  it in this tricky terrain that many global IP battles have been fought. Both the Berne convention and the TRIPS agreement allow for fair dealing exceptions in national legislations, and in the case of the Berne convention there is also a special exception allowed for educational uses.  Continue reading The Radical Significance of the DU Photocopy case for Global Copyright →

Culture, Debates, Education, Law

Historic Delhi High Court Judgement Dismisses Publishers’ Copyright Infringement Petition

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In its much awaited judgment in the Delhi University photocopying case (The Chancellor Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford v. Rameshwari Photocopy Services), the Delhi High Court has dismissed the copyright infringement petition initiated in August 2012 by three publishers (Oxford, Cambridge and Taylor & Francis) against a photocopy shop located in the premises of Delhi University. This case, which was being closely tracked by students, teachers and the publishing industry alike, was seen as one with immense significance for questions of access to knowledge. While initially involving only the publishers, the photocopier and the university, the case also saw intervention petitions being filed by a student group (Association of Students for Equitable Access to Knowledge) as well as by teachers and academics (Society for Promoting Educational Access and Knowledge). While the publishers made the argument that the creation of course packs and the photocopying of academic material for the same amounted to an infringement of the exclusive copyright of the authors and publishers, the defendants argued that the reproduction of materials for educational purposes fell within the exceptions to copyright under Section 52(1)(i) of the Copyright Act.

Not a moral right

In his considered and sharply reasoned judgment, Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw examines the gamut of arguments made by both sides and arrives at the conclusion that copyright is a statutory right and not a natural right, and hence any right that is granted to owners is also limited by exceptions carved out by law. The nature of Section 52 of the Copyright Act is such that any act falling within its scope will not constitute infringement. Section 52(1)(i) allows for the reproduction of any work i) by a teacher or a pupil in the course of instruction; or ii) as part of the questions to be answered in an examination; or iii) in answers to such questions.

Continue reading Historic Delhi High Court Judgement Dismisses Publishers’ Copyright Infringement Petition →

Bad ideas

The new war on piracy

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This is a piece that has come out in today’s Hindu

 

Recent reports about the change in copyright infringement warnings on various websites have triggered anxiety among many Internet users in India. While the government has maintained a list of banned websites for quite some time, the warning that one earlier saw merely mentioned that the website had been blocked under directions from the Department of Telecommunications, while the new message warns against the viewing, downloading, exhibition and duplication of the contents of the URL as being offences which are punishable under Sections 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act. It further states that these provisions prescribe a punishment of up to three years and a fine of up to Rs.3 lakh.

Internet users in India, many of whom routinely use torrent sites to access a range of entertainment and other content, are understandably worried about the new punitive rhetoric that underlies the warning. It may therefore be useful to unpack what the law actually says on the point and also examine the impulse behind this rhetorical shift within the logic of copyright enforcement.

Conflating various provisions

Sec. 63 of the Copyright Act, which deals with the offence of infringement, provides that any person who ‘knowingly’ infringes copyright or abets in the infringement of the same may be punished with imprisonment (minimum of six months and extendable to three years) and fined up to Rs.2 lakh. The new warning seems to have accounted for inflation and arbitrarily extended the fine amount to Rs.3 lakh, but that is only one part of its disingenuity. What the warning does is to conflate all the provisions and flatten them as though they all deal with a singular thing called infringement. Continue reading The new war on piracy →

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URGENT ACTION / APPEAL regarding deteriorating political and humanitarian situation in Jammu and Kashmir

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On behalf of  JAMMU KASHMIR COALITION OF CIVIL SOCIETY [JKCCS]

To:

  1. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
  2. Christof Heyns, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
  3. Juan Ernesto Mendez, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
  4. Maina Kiai, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association
  5. David Kaye, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression

 

From:

Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society [JKCCS]

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir

July 16, 2016 

Re.: URGENT ACTION / APPEAL regarding deteriorating political and humanitarian situation in Jammu and Kashmir

 Excellencies,

  1. With grave concern and urgency we write to you today to bring to your immediate attention the ongoing State violence and repression against civilians in Jammu and Kashmir including repeated attacks on medical services, particularly hospital ambulances, carrying the dead and critically injured civilians. Jammu and Kashmir once again faces a humanitarian crisis that requires urgent international attention and intervention.
  2. With the presence of an estimated 7, 00,000 armed forces, Jammu and Kashmir is today the most militarized zone in the world and its civilians have faced widespread and systematic attacks at the hands of Indian State forces over the last 26 years. Thus far, the region has seen the commission of human rights violations, including war crimes that have resulted in70,000+ killings, 8000+ enforced disappearances and innumerous cases of torture and sexual violence. The armed forces, through special legislation but more importantly due to direct political support of the Indian state, enjoy total impunity and to date not a single armed forces personnel has been prosecuted for criminal actions in civilian courts of law. Continue reading URGENT ACTION / APPEAL regarding deteriorating political and humanitarian situation in Jammu and Kashmir →
Government, Movements, Politics, Violence-Conflict

Statement on Kashmir from concerned individuals

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STATEMENT FROM CONCERNED INDIVIDUALS

We the undersigned, express our grave concern regarding the current state of affairs in Kashmir. The disproportionate use of state violence on unarmed protesters in Kashmir reflects severe human rights violations. Setting aside the paramount concerns in terms of continuous interventions in the normal lives of the people, the alarming loss of civilian lives and reports of serious injuries, including blinding from pellet wounds are deeply disturbing.

Attacking hospitals, ambulances, stopping funeral processions and even burning down residential buildings cannot be the response of a democratic nation. The attack on civilians and the ethical implications this has on our armed forces are not justifiable. Images of police, army and task force brutalities against women, children and youth are spreading across the social media. At the same time, partial and prejudiced reports on television and print are becoming the basis for racism, regionalism and religious intolerance among people who are not afraid to bully Kashmiris and other minorities.

We appeal to our government to consider the state of affairs in Kashmir democratically, prioritizing the right of Kashmiri citizens to normal lives. Continue reading Statement on Kashmir from concerned individuals →

Culture, Right watch

Guggenheim Breaks Off Negotiations with Gulf Labor: Statement from Gulf Labor Coalition

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This is a statement issued by the Gulf Labor Coalition

Guggenheim Breaks Off Negotiations with Gulf Labor

 

On April 13, 2016, Guggenheim Board of Trustees unilaterally severed negotiations with the Gulf Labor Coalition (GLC). In a conference call, the Guggenheim[1] informed GLC that they will no longer meet with us, nor listen to our proposals about the living and working conditions of the workers who are and will be building museums in Abu Dhabi.

On April 17, 2016, Richard Armstrong, Director of the Guggenheim Museum, sent an email to artists, art critics, curators, and museum directors all over the world describing GLC as a group that “continues to shift its demands,” is “continuing to spread mistruths,” and uses “deliberate falsehoods.”[2] He insisted that no work had begun on the Abu Dhabi site, a recurring claim that GLC has already challenged.[3]

Since the announcement of the artist boycott of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi in 2011, GLC has published research reports, analyzed each Pricewaterhouse Cooper (PwC) monitoring report, invited NGOs and labor organizations (e.g., ILO, HRW, ITUC) to join discussions, and initiated multiple meetings with Guggenheim.[4] In response to all this work by GLC, statements made by the museum made it clear that the Guggenheim was never serious about dialogue with artist groups towards fair labor standards Continue reading Guggenheim Breaks Off Negotiations with Gulf Labor: Statement from Gulf Labor Coalition →

Bad ideas

Sedition and the Problem of Discretionary Exercise of Police Power: Mathew John

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This is a Guest Post by Mathew John

The interpretation of law does not only take place in courts. In our season of ‘seditious’ speech this would seem an obvious point as the police administration is as much engaged in the process of legal interpretation or, as legal speak would have it, exercising discretionary powers. However, while courts have to at least minimally ensure that their decisions are backed by reason and aligned with previous decisions, the cases filed against Kanaihya Kumar and others seems to suggest that the police administration can operate almost as a universe unto itself in its interpretation of Indian criminal law. Of course police action will have to tested and defended in court but what if the police bring flimsy cases to trial to inflict long drawn out legal process as punishment for dissenting speech?

There has been an avalanche of excellent recent writing in recent days on the criminal offence of sedition. These have emphasised two broad points. On the one hand they have traced the offence of sedition to the authoritarian designs of the British colonial state seeking to control restive Indian opinion. On the other, opinion has also noted that Indian Courts while upholding the constitutionality of the offence of sedition have held that the speech can be penalised on this ground only when accompanied by an imminent threat of disorder, disturbance or violence. However, the JNU fracas as other similar cases in recent memory involving Arundhati Roy, Binayak Sen and Aseem Trivedi among others, demonstrate that this judicial standard reading down the offence of sedition to a very narrow set of speech acts has not constrained subsequent police action. On the contrary police administrations in the current JNU case have pursued citizens for seditious speech even when their speech could not in any objective manner be tied to imminent threats of disorder. That is, the criminal provisions on sedition section are used against the spirit of the law as laid down by the Supreme Court and is mobilised to with little cause but the harassment of dissenting opinion. In such situations what can defenders of free speech do to ensure that legal process is not abused to harass dissent?

Continue reading Sedition and the Problem of Discretionary Exercise of Police Power: Mathew John →

Law

Judicial Indiscipline or a Cry for Help – The Interim Stay Order of Justice Karnan: Amita Dhanda

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This is a Guest Post by AMITA DHANDA

Justice Karnan a sitting judge of the Madras High Court was transferred from Madras to Kolkatta to resolve the administrative logjam between Justice Karnan and the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court. 21other judges of the High Court also complained that it was difficult to work with Justice Karnan. The soft solution did not yield the desired result as the transferred judge invoked his alleged judicial power and pronounced an interim stay of his own transfer order. The stay he ruled would hold until the Chief Justice of India filed a written statement explaining the transfer order, which he contended was in breach of a 1993 judgement of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court punctured this defiance by asking the Chief Justice of Madras High Court not to allocate any judicial work to the Judge. The judicial crisis has passed but the administrative and human challenge remains.

How should we as citizens view this exchange? How should this incident be understand by us? One way of looking at the episode is through the legal lens of constitutionality, due process and jurisdiction. The other is to perceive the lived reality of a Dalit judge when elevated to the higher judiciary. An analysis of the incident, only vis a vis the requirements of the law, would not provide even a working hypothesis on what caused Justice Karnan to adopt a course of action, which many would perceive as suicidal for his career. The eccentricity explanation, which is doing the rounds, conveniently escapes the matter of caste discrimination. Consequently, this piece firstly examines the manner in which existing law speaks to Justice Karnan’s decision; then dwells on the question of caste discrimination and lastly cogitates on possible ways of addressing this all pervasive discrimination.

Continue reading Judicial Indiscipline or a Cry for Help – The Interim Stay Order of Justice Karnan: Amita Dhanda →

Debates, Genders, Law

The Blackhole called Bastar: Aritra Bhattacharya

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This is a guest post by Aritra Bhattacharya

Unidentified persons attacked tribal leader Soni Sori on February 21, hours after she bid farewell to Shalini Gera and Isha Khandelwal, lawyers at the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group and journalist Malini Subramaniam, when they hurriedly packed their belongings and left Jagdalpur. Over the last few months, they had withstood all forms of harassment and hostility from police officials and pro-police ‘civil society’ organisations in war-torn Bastar. They had been heckled, threatened with dire consequences and targeted via a sustained vilification campaign calling for their ouster from the region on grounds that they were stalling Bastar’s ‘development’.

Beginning 8 February, the pressure intensified. Police first landed at Malini’s house and then JagLag’s residence; they intimidated their landlord and domestic help, kept them in jail for hours together over several days and threatened to implicate them in false cases. Within ten days, Malini and JagLag lawyers had to leave Jagdalpur due to relentless pressure and harassment from the police.

Continue reading The Blackhole called Bastar: Aritra Bhattacharya →

Debates, Right watch

Vilification from the apolitical: The Dreyfus Affair and the case against JNU: Joyojeet Pal

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This is a guest post by Joyojeet Pal

In 1894, a case of espionage broke out in France. Alfred Dreyfus, a young officer was arrested in connection with a letter suggesting a transfer of sensitive documents to the German attaché in Paris. Dreyfus was arrested for the crime, his family was intimidated and he was swiftly convicted despite weak evidence. After being publicly shamed as a traitor in a court-martial, he was sent to ‘Devil’s Island’ in French Guinea, a notorious penal colony. Within a couple of years of his conviction, a movement emerged to re-examine the facts of the case. Dreyfus would be eventually re-tried and re-convicted despite overwhelming evidence in his favour.

Dreyfus was Alsatian, Jewish, and a graduate of the elite École Polytechnique, one of the most competitive institutes in the country. Alsace had been lost by France following the Franco-Prussian war, the French were bitter about this, and Alsatians were often seen as a suspicious regional minority. The case that came to be known as the “Dreyfus Affair” in time became a landmark in modern French history because of the multilayered schisms in French society that it threw open.

Continue reading Vilification from the apolitical: The Dreyfus Affair and the case against JNU: Joyojeet Pal →

Debates

Letter of Solidarity from International Association of Women in Radio and Television (India Chapter) for JNU

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We the undersigned, from the India Chapter of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT), would like to place on record our solidarity with the students and teachers of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). We find the recent events that have taken place in JNU –  arrest of the JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar on charges of sedition, and a lookout by the police for several other students who allegedly raised anti-national slogans – extremely disturbing. We also feel that the use of the sedition law, which was enacted by British colonial government, draconian and has no place in India. A fundamental principle in a democracy is the right to free speech. Article 19 of the Indian Constitution grants it as a fundamental right, and the Indian courts have recognised this in the past, including in the case of Balwant Singh vs. State of Punjab. In this context, the framing of charges against the students of JNU is unacceptable, and should have no place in a democratic society.

Continue reading Letter of Solidarity from International Association of Women in Radio and Television (India Chapter) for JNU →

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Letter of solidarity from members of the faculty of IIT Bombay

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[This statement is issued in our individual capacities, and does not represent the institution’s opinion]

 

We, the undersigned, members of the faculty at IIT Bombay, are deeply concerned with the recent events that have undermined the autonomy of institutions of higher education in this country. We believe that these institutions are spaces of critical thinking and expression. Matters of contention that might arise in the conduct of intellectual and social engagements need to be addressed democratically and rationally. These methods in turn should be within the purview of institutional procedures that are responsible and accountable.

The state cannot dictate on the many meanings of what it is to be ‘Indian’ or mandate the meaning of ‘nationalism’. Rather, the state should be the one that makes sure that multiple ways of imagining one’s relationship with the nation are allowed to flourish especially when it might contradict dominant ways of thinking. In this context, we condemn the overreach of the state in the recent incidents in a number of institutions and the attempts of the Hindu Right to stifle dissent and suppress differences.

Signatories:

 

Abhijit Majumder, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Aftab Alam, Professor, Department of Physics, IIT Bombay

S. Akshay, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

Alka Hingorani, Associate Professor, Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay

Aliasgar Q. Contractor, Professor (retired), Department of Chemistry, IIT Bombay

Amitabh Bhattacharya, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Amitabha Nandi, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, IIT Bombay

A. Sanyal, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay.

UK Anandavardhanan, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT Bombay

Anil Kottantharayil, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Azizuddin Khan, Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay

A. Chatterjee, Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Bombay

Dayadeep Monder, Assistant Professor, Department of Energy Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

Dibyendu Das, Professor, Department of Physics, IIT Bombay

Dipankar, TREELabs, IIT-Bombay

Douglas Allen, Professor of Philosophy, University of Maine, USA, and Visiting Chair Professor in Gandhian Philosophy, IIT Bombay

Kushal Deb, Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay

Madhu N. Belur, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Mukta Tripathy, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Mithun Kumar Mitra, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, IIT Bombay

N.C. Narayanan, Professor, CTARA, IIT Bombay

Om Damani, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

D. Parthasarathy, Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay

Paulomi Chakraborty, Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay

Pradeepkumar P. I., Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, IIT Bombay

Purushottam Kulkarni, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

Raghunath Chelakkot, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, IIT Bombay

M S Raghunathan, Distinguished Guest Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT Bombay

Priya Jadhav, Assistant Professor, Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas, IIT Bombay

Raja Mohanty, Professor, Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay

Ramesh Bairy T. S., Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay

Ratheesh Radhakrishnan, Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay

Ravi N. Banavar, Professor, Systems and Control Engineering, IIT Bombay

C. D. Sebastian, Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay

Sharmila Sreekumar, Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay

Shishir Kumar Jha, Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay

Shrikrishna G. Dani, Distinguished Guest Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT Bombay

Siby K. George, Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay

Siddhartha Chaudhuri, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

Sriram Srinivasan, Adjunct Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

Supratik Chakraborty, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

V. S. Borkar, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Sudhir R. Ghorpade, Institute Chair Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT Bombay

Harish K Pillai, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay

V. Sarma, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay

Anurag Mehra, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Ravi Raghunathan, Department of Mathematics, IIT Bombay

P Sunthar, Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Siddhartha Ghosh, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay

Kishore Chatterjee, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Naresh K. Chandiramani, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay

R. Chakrabarti, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, IIT Bombay

Sushil K Mishra, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Anindya Datta, Professor, Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Arup Ranjan Bhattacharyya, Professor, Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science, IIT Bombay

Indradev S Samajdar, Professor Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science, IIT Bombay

Mrinmoyi Kulkarni, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay

Sachin C. Patwardhan, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Bad ideas

Statement on behalf of the students, alumni and faculty of law schools against clamping down of university spaces

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This is a statement signed by over 450 lawyers, law teachers and law students expressing their solidarity with JNU and Kanhaiya Kumar

 

We, the undersigned, as current students, alumni and professors of law universities, stand in strong opposition to the recent events which have unfolded at JNU, especially those involving the arrest of the JNUSU President, among other disproportionate measures. We strongly disapprove of the free reign given to the police to question, detain and arrest any student or faculty member for voicing their opinions.

We believe that university spaces are forums to discuss, question and debate fundamental political issues from different perspectives. University campuses are, and should be, spaces where people can peacefully voice their opinions, raise questions and disagree with each other on issues which concern us all as a part of the polity. The only way to uphold the ethics and values of safe spaces on university campuses, is to counter through dialogue and debate, not state backed violence. What a university campus cannot be is a site for stifling dissent and opinions with the threat of violence and a state backed misuse of the Indian Penal Code especially that of provisions such as sedition which were earlier used against many of our freedom fighters, those we eulogize as defenders of our “national” identity.

Continue reading Statement on behalf of the students, alumni and faculty of law schools against clamping down of university spaces →

Bad ideas

Compilation of Resources on Sedition Law

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Given that there is considerable debate on sedition right now, and how woefully off some of the reporting and comments on the ongoing JNU case has been, thought it may be useful to compile a set of existing resources to help anyone writing or commenting on the issue.
This is a compilation of resources on various facets of sedition law in India. I have provided a link with a very short summary of what the article/monographs say, and they contain very detailed historical and legal overviews,  highly recommended for anyone writing on sedition and looking for material.

Continue reading Compilation of Resources on Sedition Law →

Bad ideas

Arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar : A Short Summary of the law of Sedition in India

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News reports are indicating that an FIR has been registered with respect to a public meeting organized on the JNU campus on the evening of 9th February. These reports claim that the meeting was about the hanging of Afzal Guru, and it is alleged that during its course, some people raised incendiary slogans. According to reports, the FIR has been registered under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (sedition), and the Police have already arrested one person.

It is important to note that under the Indian law of sedition, the events at the public meeting, even if completely true, do not even come close to establishing an offence. In Kedar Nath Singh’s Case, 5 judges of the Supreme Court – a Constitution bench – made it clear that allegedly seditious speech and expression may be punished only if the speech is an ‘incitement’ to ‘violence’, or ‘public disorder’. Subsequent cases have further clarified the meaning of this phrase. In Indra Das v State of Assam and Arup Bhuyan v State of Assam, the Supreme Court unambiguously stated that only speech that amounts to “incitement to imminent lawless action” can be criminalized. In Shreya Singhal v Union of India, the famous 66A judgment, the Supreme Court drew a clear distinction between “advocacy” and “incitement”, stating that only the latter could be punished.

 

Continue reading Arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar : A Short Summary of the law of Sedition in India →

Debates, Law

Vocabulary of justice and being

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After the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation (2014) overruling the Delhi High Court’s decision, the National University of Juridical Sciences brought out a special law review issue assessing the judgment. Prof. M.P. Singh, the constitutional scholar and former vice chancellor of the university, wrote an article praising the judgment for its judicial restraint, in which he described the use of constitutional litigation by sexual minorities as a case of “misplaced hope in courts”. Prof. Singh prefaced his article with a cautionary extract from Judge Learned Hand that warns us against “placing our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes”. Prof. Singh similarly suggests that what activists ought to do is to educate legislators rather than pin their hopes on the judiciary. Underlying these opinions seemed to be an unwritten rule of an economy of hope (that one could have a little but not too much of it) but the essential trait of hope is that it is greedy sentiment that demands the impossible, and the Naz judgment with its rich evocation of dignity, liberty and equality had already proven that we could not just demand but hope for the impossible.

Continue reading Vocabulary of justice and being →

Capitalism, Law, Technology

In solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub

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Please share widely

http://custodians.online/

A Letter in solidarity with Library genesis and Sci-Hub

In Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s tale the Little Prince meets a businessman who accumulates stars with the sole purpose of being able to buy more stars. The Little Prince is perplexed. He owns only a flower, which he waters every day. Three volcanoes, which he cleans every week. “It is of some use to my volcanoes, and it is of some use to my flower, that I own them,” he says, “but you are of no use to the stars that you own”.

Continue reading In solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub →

Politics, Technology

The Indiscreet charm of Narendra Modi: Joyojeet Pal

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Guest post by Joyojeet Pal

Why the Silicon Valley (Generally) Loves Narendra Modi

“Indians are the most prosperous group in the United States of America,” said comedian Rajiv Satyal, the compère of the Narendra Modi speech at the San Jose Arena in the Silicon Valley on Sept. 27. No flash of Gandhian embarrassment stood in the way of the booming cheer that followed. Later on when repeated technical bungling (ironic next to the tech bombast of the setting) led the compère to step back on stage, he kept repeating this idea alongside “Bharat Mata ki Jai!” to keep the ardor up among the 17,000-strong crowd. There appeared to be a few thousand more outside, either supporting or protesting the event. Several U.S. legislators were present, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

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