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26th December 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: The First Amendment
In May 1951, the Jawaharlal Nehru-led Congress party proposed the first amendment, which made the following modifications to the fundamental rights: Article 19 was amended...
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18th December 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: The Minority Report
18th December of every year is celebrated as Minorities Rights Day in India: to highlight the constitutional minority rights – specifically religious minorities. In this b...
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10th December 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Cartooning India’s Powerful
Last week, a comic artist, Rachita Taneja, was charged with contempt of court, because her work (a satirical cartoon) portrayed the Supreme Court being biased towards the ...
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30th November 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Matchmaking in the Indian Constitution
Two recent tv shows – A Suitable Boy and Indian Matchmaking– have reaffirmed what many have always known: that religion, class, and caste have always been important consid...
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26th November 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief - Constitution Day: Some Writings on the Framers of the Indian Constitution
Today, 26th November, is nationally celebrated as Constitution Day. It was on this day in 1949 that the Constituent Assembly formally adopted the Constitution of India, af...
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18th November 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Jaipal Singh Munda & The Demand for Jharkhand
Sunday (15 November) was Jharkhand Foundation Day. On that day in 2000, the state of Jharkhand was formally established through the Bihar State Reorganization Act.
Sin...
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7th November 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Should the U.S. have a Centralized Election Commission?
The ongoing U.S. presidential elections are the most contentious in recent memory. Even before Election Day on 3rd November, over 300 lawsuits had been filed challenging v...
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28th September 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Bhagat Singh’s Legacy – A Constitutional Revolutionary?
Today, 113 years ago, Bhagat Singh was born in undivided Punjab. His role in the Indian freedom movement has been immortalised in literature, art, and film owing to his dr...
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14th September 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: The Demand for Gender Equality in Property Law
In August 2020, the Supreme Court in Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma held that Hindu women could claim equal rights as men in ancestral property. Although the Hindu Succes...
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31st August 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: H.V. Kamath Wanted the Right to Bear Arms
Protestors who had assembled to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed African-American man, in the city of Kenosha in Wisconsin, were recently targeted by an arm...
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30th August 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Education and Universal Adult Franchise
India, unlike many other nations, adopted universal adult franchise immediately after it gained independence. Under British rule, franchise was subject to certain qualific...
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24th August 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: The Demand for 'Mother Tongue Instruction' in the Constituent Assembly
The National Education Policy, released in July 2020, has proposed major reforms to India’s education system. It reiterates the controversial ‘three-language formula’ whic...
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14th August 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Tracing Constitutional Values in India’s Education Policies
Since independence, the Central Government has released three different policy frameworks for the Indian education system. The first and second, known as the National Po...
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31st July 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Did the Framers Think the Constitution Was 'Socialist' and 'Secular'?
A petition before the Supreme Court has asked it to declare the insertion of the words ‘Socialist’ and ‘Secular’ by the Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976 as unconsti...
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29th July 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: People's Participation in the Indian Constitution Process
Our blog post over the weekend looked at how the Constituent Assembly reacted to proposals that wanted to include referendums into the Constitution. Today, we highlight an...
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17th July 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: India - The First Republic in the Commonwealth
26th January 1950 was a momentous day in history: not only did the Constitution of India, 1950 come into force, but India also became a republic – marking the first time t...
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7th July 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: The Constituent Assembly's Alter Ego
Most of us know that the Constituent Assembly of India sat on 165 days to draft India’s Constitution over a period of 2 years and 11 months. But did you know that the memb...
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3rd July 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: The Shared Constitutional Heritage of India & Myanmar
Myanmar is due to hold general elections on November 8th, in an event that is widely seen as a test of the country’s transition to democracy. Much as when it gained indepe...
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26th June 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Crime and Punishment in the Gandhian Constitution
On 27 June 2020, the National Constitution Society along with the Centre for Law and Policy Research will organise a webinar on Prisoners & the Pandemic: Health, Safet...
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20th June 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: ‘Bharat’ vs. ‘India' - Using History in Constitutional Interpretation
The Supreme Court recently dismissed a plea to rename India as Bharat by amending Article 1 of the Constitution. Article 1(1) of the Draft Constitution, 1948, declared tha...
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12th June 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: 'State Citizenship' and Public Health
The Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, recently declared that Delhi hospitals were closed to non-residents of the state. Although the order was overruled by the Lie...
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5th June 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Ambedkar was Influenced by the American Civil Rights Movement
The death of George Floyd, an unarmed African-American man, at the hands of a white police officer has sparked large-scale protests across the world. Floyd’s death has ser...
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28th May 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Ambedkar and the Annihilation of Social Distancing
Defined as ‘keeping space between yourself and other people outside of your home’, social distancing has been prescribed as the most effective counter to the spread of COV...
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23rd May 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: B.H. Khardekar: The Constituent Assembly’s ‘King of Good Times’
On 24th November 1948, B.H. Khardekar stood up in the Constituent Assembly to speak for the first time. He confessed he was nervous, and told members that he had never spo...
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20th May 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: India's Stimulus Package - A Socialist Move?
The impact of the ongoing pandemic on the world economy has caused many states to announce economic stimulus packages. Some commentators have described this move as social...
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16th May 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Public Health and the Marginalised
The ongoing lockdown in India has resulted in economic insecurity for millions of people, particularly those working as casual or daily wage labourers. Migrant workers wer...
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30th April 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Liberty during Lockdown
For almost a month now, the Central and State Governments have issued extraordinary orders to battle COVID-19: travel has been banned, national and state borders have ...
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27th April 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief | India’s Public Health Wonder Woman: Rajkumari Amrit Kaur
COVID-19 continues to test the resolve of nations – their institutions, leaders and people. India too is in the thick of this global fight. While COVID-19 is unique ...
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21st March 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: The Supreme Court and its ‘Special’ Power
The Supreme Court of India is one of the unique apex courts in the world. It acts as an appellate and constitutional court. The Constitution of India, 1950 mandates the Co...
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24th February 2020 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: A Beginning of a Constitutional Culture?
On the eve of Republic Day this year, Mandakini Panda and Prithwik Mishra got married in Berhampur, Odisha taking their vows on the Indian Constitution. In Karnataka, gues...
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29th November 2019 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Rights to Duties?
This week, India celebrated Constitution Day.
26 November 2019 marked the 70th anniversary of the Constituent Assembly adopting the Constitution. In a joint parliament...
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26th November 2019 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Happy Constitution Day
Exactly 70 years ago, on 26 November 1949, Constituent Assembly President Rajendra Prasad for the last time put a question to the house -
President: It now remains to p...
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11th November 2019 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Interstellar
On 31st August 1949, the Constituent Assembly was slotting 'items' into the Union and State Lists. The Union government would have legislative and executive power over the...
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14th October 2019 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Home and the World: Cosmopolitanism in Indian Constitution Making
The Indian freedom movement sought total Independence from British colonial rule but saw India firmly tethered to the world affairs. When Indians were drafting their Const...
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8th October 2019 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Gandhi in Indian Constitution-Making
There is a dominant view that Gandhi's role in constitution-making was minor. Gandhi’s vision of basing India’s federal, political and administrative set up on the panchay...
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23rd September 2019 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: Hindi: A National or Official Language?
Last week, on Hindi Diwas, Union Minister Amit Shah controversially suggested that Hindi be adopted as India's national language.
Sure enough, this triggered push back ...
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18th December 2017 | Editorial Team
Desk Brief: भारतीय संविधान में मैचमैकिंग ( कुंडली मिलान)
हाल ही में आये दो टीवी शो - सूटेबल बॉय और इंडियन मैचमैकिंग ने एक बार फिर से इस बात को साफ किया है जो कई लोगो को पहले से पता भी था की - धर्म, वर्ग और जाति हमेशा से भारत में...