Regulating content in the age of social media

Back in 2018, Facebook’s highest executives met every other Tuesday to discuss the problems of misinformation, hate speech, and other disturbing content spread across their platforms. These discussions resulted in the establishment of the Content Standards Forum run by Facebook’s lower level administrators. The working group at this forum considers…

Inherent fault-lines in the new reservation policy

Lack of education apart, the latest reservation for the ‘backward’ may, above all, be proof that our legislators continue to struggle with ideological constructs that are both anachronistic and debunked. Allow me to explain. On January 14, 2019, the Central Government notified the 103rd constitutional amendment which confers States with…

Why the dance bar ban had to go

Fifteen years after the Maharashtra government decided it wanted its bar girls to dance no more, the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association v State of Maharashtra has delivered the reassuring message that liberal winds continue to blow through the fair corridors of the Supreme Court.…

Who’s afraid of sovereign Snoopers?

Should the government be allowed to spy on its citizens? Less than three months after the Supreme Court cut the ever-proliferating Aadhaar card down to size, individual privacy has taken another body blow. On December 20, 2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs conferred powers under the IT Act 2000 to…

Are lawyers obsolete?

The dynamics of the legal market continue to amaze me. India has lakhs of jobless lawyers sitting around exterminating houseflies in district courts around the country. In any random sample, less than 10% make a living wage. As has always been the case, without a daddy or uncle in the…