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2002 research outputs found
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Decolonization and the Indian University
No full textNiveditha K Prasad (Deputy Managing Editor, LSPR) sits down with Prof Atreyee Majumder of NLSIU to discuss the Indian University as a site of decolonization. They discuss the history of decolonization of the mind and the loss of one’s language as a source of fragmentation of self. They also touch upon the course the Indian University must take in the future given this context. The conversation is based of Prof Majumder’s two-part piece on the subject
The History of India Is Complex and Complicated. It Cannot Be Neatly Sanitised
No full textGiven recent government initiatives to edit NCERT history textbooks, this timely article examines how we “consume” history along with its emotional and psychological implications. The article highlights the “sense of history through which our everyday life is made possible, considering that the historical imagination is accessed all the time even though most people do not study history in university or go on to become professional historians.” In doing so, the article offers evidence of Indian syncretic culture, which comes from various sources, including contemporary history
Marriage Matters for Same-Sex Couples
No full textExcerpt: “The ongoing litigation around ‘same sex marriage’ in India raises the need to understand the importance of marriage to same-sex couples. It is also essential to understand the jurisprudential reasoning behind opening up the institution of marriage and extending the bundle of marital rights, benefits, and privileges to same-sex couples.
One Hundred (and Fifty) Years of Solitude: The Indian Evidence Act 1872 as a Lost Project of Law Reform
No full textThe Indian Evidence Act 1872 was a significant component of the legal codification project of colonial India. It aimed to consolidate scattered common law rules of evidence into an organized and workable code. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, its principal draftsman, attempted to design a statute that would not only reorganize evidence law into cogent provisions but also improve its most confusing aspects, such as the fact-evidence distinction, hearsay, and relevance. Stephen did this by introducing conceptual categories and amending existing rules. In this paper, I show how the design of the Act aimed to achieve substantive reform of evidence law. I argue that judicial interpretation and academic scholarship have misconstrued the Act’s principles and structure, undermining its intended improvements on common law rules. Consequently, the legal confusions it had sought to resolve have continued to persist in evidence law
Reviewing the Organization of the Consumer Right to Withdraw in Electronic Transactions in Qatar
No full textThis research identifies and analyses weaknesses in Qatar’s legal regulatory framework for the right to withdraw in electronic transactions, understands the causes of consumer dissatisfaction and their impact, and conducts a comparative analysis of European law to extract insights for improving Qatar’s legal regulations and organizational structure. This research employs a quantitative methodology, utilizing a survey administered to a random sample of 391 consumers. The survey will gather data on consumer perceptions, experiences, and satisfaction levels related to the right to withdraw in electronic transactions in Qatar. The results revealed a need for more confidence among Qatari consumers when purchasing from local suppliers online, attributed to various factors, including inadequate regulation of the right of withdrawal and its failure to safeguard consumer interests effectively. The study demonstrated that the Qatari Legislature could have defined electronic transactions more effectively, taking inspiration from European law. This study recommends extending the consumer’s right to a withdrawal period from three to at least fifteen days. To address legal issues and enhance protection, contractual clauses restricting or diminishing this right should be invalidated. A list of exceptions should be included to safeguard traders’ legitimate interests, and increased protection should be provided if the consumer needs to be properly informed about exercising this right
The Difference Method Makes: Judicial Restraint and Judicial Creativity in Rana Nahid v Sahidul Chisti
No full textRestraint and creativity are both necessary judicial attitudes. But when should judges exercise restraint in adjudication and when, creativity? This is the question posed by the Supreme Court’s 2020 split verdict in the case of Rana Nahid v Sahidul Chisti, which required the Court to decide whether Family Courts had jurisdiction over maintenance claims under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. By contrasting the two approaches taken by the judges to statutory interpretation in this case, the note argues that while judges should refrain from arbitrary rule making, creativity must be viewed as duty when it can fill a gap in the law or prevent an unreasonable outcome and is in furtherance of pre-existing legal principles
Dalit Movements in India
No full textBook description: Beginning with the 1990s, the subject of caste has seen a profound increase in interest among scholars. What was until then approached as a fossilized tradition of the ritual-obsessed Hindus refusing to see the progressive spirits of the emerging world and studied as a branch of anthropology, suddenly began to be seen as a complex reality deeply embedded in a range of institutions and social practices, attracting scholars from a wide range of disciplines—sociology, political science, history, literature, and even economics. Underlying this opening of the subject of caste were many factors: epistemic, empirical, and political. Caste is no longer approached through the classical binaries of \u27traditional\u27 and \u27modern\u27; the \u27East\u27 and the \u27West\u27; or the \u27closed\u27 and \u27open\u27 systems of stratification. With the growing consolidation of caste-based identities among those ranked lower down in the hierarchy since the 1990s, raising questions of citizenship and dignity, the subject has acquired a new salience. As the emerging research shows, the realities of caste on the ground have always been diverse across regions, often contested and ever changing. This Handbook presents a wide range of essays written by authors representing diverse academic disciplines and perspectives, bringing together the emerging trends in the research, imaginations, and lived realities of caste
India’s Policy Responses to Big Tech: And an Eye on the Rise of ‘Alt Big Tech’
No full textThe term ‘big tech’ offers a helpful and widely used label for describing the world’s most powerful technology companies. The challenges posed by big tech across the domains of competition, innovation, human rights, and social and political impact are real and immediate. So is the need for building more effective checks against them. India is still in the early stages of formulating its strategy on big tech, through the traditional playbook of competition, enforcement, and domain-specific regulatory interventions. But it has also adopted a more novel strategy of relying on open APIs and interoperability standards to counter the market features that enable the concentration of power in the hands of dominant tech players. The paper studies the Unified Payments Interface, the Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture, and the Open Network for Digital Commerce as examples of such technical systems. It argues that while recognising the innovation and progress of these new systems, it is also important to keep an eye on their potential to emerge as ‘alt big tech’ – systems that create new opportunities for dominance and power play that can bear significant consequences for competition, innovation, and public interest in the long run
The Oracle’s Foretelling & the Case for Ambiguity: Exploring the Prophesies of Fintech & Financial Surveillance
No full textThis article explores the historical, social, and technical underpinnings of the global financial order predicated on massive data collection and surveillance. In particular, the article discusses the instruments of international financial regulation, and challenges the prescience of fintech, contrasting it with alternative narratives. The article does so by examining the history of financial surveillance mediated through biometric identification systems and socio-financial infrastructures, particularly in India and other post-colonial nations. The discourse is facilitated through the study of indigenous banking practices in colonial India, and the role of coloniality and slavery in shaping modern banking and surveillance practices both in India, and the United States.The article argues that understanding this history, both of India and other countries, is key to understanding modern-day biometric identification programmes and the ensuing financial surveillance; and may open pathways to present surveillance architectures that do not encompass sufficient human agency. Lastly, the article hopes to manoeuvre the vocabulary in fintech and financial regulation from prophesies of precision and specificity to one of deliberate ambiguity in the creation of mutable and humane identities