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Showing posts from 2019

Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019

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Image source: The Hindu Businessline Gazi Hassan Tansgender is defined as a person whose gender does not match with the gender assigned to that person at the time of his/her birth. Tansgender includes trans man or trans woman, a person with intersex variations, queer and a person having known by identities such as kinner, hijra and aravani. Transgenders have been living in India since time immemorial and exist in the Indian historical records since the 9th century BC. They have held prominent positions in the society like political advisors to King and administrators. However, their status started degrading when the British government, after the fall of the Mughal Empire, passed Criminal Tribes Act in 1871 which targeted them. Although after the independence of India the Act was repealed, the damage it had caused is still visible. History of the Bill The first version of Transgender Rights Bill was introduced in August, 2016. The Bill defined transgender individua

How is NRC Shaping a New Identity?

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Image source: The Hindu Gazi Hassan The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a register maintained by the Government of India containing names and relevant information for identification of Indian citizens of the state of Assam. The first NRC was compiled in 1951, after the Census was completed that year. The aim is to identify the so-called “illegal immigrants” believed to have entered Assam after the Bangladesh War of 1971. In 1979, eight years after the war, the State saw an anti-foreigner agitation led by the All Assam Student Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP). In 1985, the anti-foreigner agitation led to the signing of Assam Accord. The accord was signed between the AASU, the AAGSP, the Government of India and the Assam government. Under this accord, those who entered the State between 1966 and 1971 would be deleted from the electoral rolls and lose their voting rights for 10 years, after which their names would be restored to the rolls.

How Can Congestion Pricing Solve Traffic Woes?

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Image source: LiveMint By Devika P V, The term ‘congestion pricing’ is used to describe a distance, area or cordon-based road user charging policy around congested areas to reduce the use of private vehicles and increase the use of public transportation. Congestion pricing is also known as electronic road pricing. Drivers usually ignore the social costs of using the road and only calculate their benefits which result in traffic congestion and air pollution. Singapore was the first country to implement Congestion pricing in 1975, followed by London in 2003 and Stockholm in 2007. The need for congestion pricing is increasing every year due to many reasons, the main being population growth which affects the number of vehicles on the roads and causes delays, air pollution and increased fuel consumption. While the number of vehicles is increasing, the size of the roads remains the same. As of now, Delhi is considered to be the highly congested state followed by Mumbai, Bangalore a

Powering Kerala’s Electric Vehicles

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Image source: topgear.com By Jacob Thamarappally, India is set to move further towards an automobile industry that is primarily electricity powered. The government has introduced certain initiatives in an effort to reduce the carbon footprint in India’s mobility scenario by 2030 and electric vehicles (EVs) are seen to be pivotal to these plans. With schemes like the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) and the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME), the government has set lofty targets that if realised would result in a significant increase in the number of EVs on roads in India. Currently, India is aiming for 30 per cent of all vehicles on the road to be electric by 2030. As reported by Autocar India, in the FY2019, the number of EV sales reached a total of 7,59,600 units. However, this is a small fraction of the more than 252 million registered vehicles on Indian roads as on 2017. And with an annual growth rate of 9.48 per cent (for 2016

Libertarian Principles of Intellectual Property

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By Saira Banu,  Image source:  pmcorporatelaw.com Libertarianism as a philosophy emerged in an attempt to cure the unfairness that plagues our world. This blog will attempt to question the basis for its very existence, along with assessing the effect of libertarian principles on intellectual property. While it rose from a need to make living fairer, whether this principle is translated into the libertarian view of intellectual property (IP) is explored throughout this blog. Libertarianism assumes the existence of a natural harmony between productive people, and an analysis of how this harmonious existence seeks to protect or prevent intellectual property rights (IPRs) will be done. Essentially a political doctrine, human flourishing and human happiness are seen as the central takeaways of libertarian philosophy. Freedom of speech is celebrated in libertarianism, and the role and power of the government is optimally kept to a minimum to allow humans to exercise their o

Some Thoughts on National Education Policy Draft

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By Rajesh K P, The Draft National Education Policy (Committee for DNEP 2019) is a vision document which aims at a major overhaul of our present education system — school as well as higher education. The document is very detailed and gets into every aspect of the education system including governance, regulation and accreditation. With the mention of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), there is a significant change in the way we look at foundational education. There is an emphasis on revamping teacher education with higher education reforms providing ways to achieve these goals. Talking of higher education, one could see that the policy document aims at a significant revamp of the higher education system. Two major policy documents with regard to education in recent times were the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) in 2005 and Right To Education (RTE) in 2008. ECCE is expected to make its way into the RTE Act, while NCF could see a significant direction change with t

India and IPRs Laws

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By Ayush Kukreja, (Image source: LegalDocs) Copyrights, trademarks, patents, etc are terms which are often non-synonymous with economic significance and put away as indifferent to the facets of micro and macro trade. It suffices to attach the notion of ‘proprietorship’ and hence the meaning of ‘intellectual property rights’ is lost. Intellectual property rights (IPRs) basically refer to industrial and copyright laws. Industrial laws can be further broken down into trademarks, patents, industrial designs and geographical indications. While copyright laws are mostly restricted to the entertainment industry, we lay specific significance to industrial laws because they bear the most relevance for the economy. Amidst the crippling trade war between the US and China, IPRs should be given more importance now than ever. India seems to be the next target of the US conglomerates, who cannot stand the 5th largest GDP churning country free riding the tariff benefits it enjoys. Indi

Green Bonds for Sustainable Development

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By Puja Meiyammai S, (Image source:  Smart Prosperity Institute) What are green bonds? How can they tackle major environmental issues faced by India and save the environment for the future generation? In the early years, institutions like banks and non-banking sectors financed environmental projects. However, a huge investment requirement for these projects made it financially unviable. Thus, the concept of green bonds came into existence to keep these projects on track. Green bonds are fixed income financial instruments that are lined up in the process of promoting and implementing climate change and environmental solutions. The funds are raised by issuing bonds to investors who are interested in financing green projects. The green bonds assure the investors of prompt repayment of the amount that is borrowed by remunerating them with either fixed or variable rate of return. Second, they create positive public relations and help in diversification of investors. Th

TRIPS Agreement and Challenges

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Image source: ictsd.org By K A Dhananjay, Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement is a framework which brought a unified Intellectual Property standard across the globe. It is a complementary standard to the existing WTO regime, and tries to accommodate GATT principles in its text. Now, what does TRIPS protect? TRIPS protects copyright and related rights (i.e., the rights of performers, producers of sound recordings and broadcasting organisations); trademarks including service marks, Geographical Indication (G.I), industrial designs; patents including the protection of new varieties of plants, layout-designs of integrated circuits, trade secrets and test data. When we talk about the legal aspects of TRIPS, it is necessary that we go by the fundamentals. TRIPS has two main pillars — Most Favoured Nation (MFN) principle and National Treatment principle. MFN principle states that there shall be no discrimination and reciprocity shall be bind

Refugee Resettlement: Humanitarian Governance vs the Politics of Refugee Protection

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Image source: shutterstock.com By Jacob Thamarapally The term ‘Refugee’ is one that is often misrepresented in political discourse. As per the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), a refugee is a person fleeing armed conflict or persecution. The situation in this person’s country of origin is often so perilous and intolerable that they cross national borders to seek safety in nearby countries. These people have a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular group. As per this definition, there are currently more than 21.3 million refugees worldwide. Out of these, more than 1.4 million refugees need resettlement right now. These refugees still in need of resettlement mostly come from Syria. In fact, two-thirds of all refugees come from just five countries: Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia. Although all countries are obligated by the UNHCR to take in refugees

Strengthening India’s Bond Market

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Image Source: LiveMint By Pavithra Manoj, The bond market in India is still not completely developed, even after several committees being formed throughout the years to augment the bond market. This means that the bond market is unable to share the credit burden that the banking system in India is currently facing. Since there is an absence of a well functioning bond market in the country, it is the banks and the government that take on the task of financing infrastructural projects like roads, airports, bridges and ports. This puts the banks under pressure, since they are buying into long-term assets such as bridges or highways that have a long gestation period, while they entertain short-term liabilities such as deposits of 3–5 years. This invariably creates an asset liability mismatch. This in turn leads to inefficient resource allocations on the banks’ part and ultimately weakens their balance sheet. This pressure, then, is reflected in the increase in bad loans among

Can Strict Laws Rein in Social Media during Polls?

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(Image Source: theasiadialogue.com) By Deepit Mudaliar, In India, there are nearly 400 million Internet users who are easily accessible to the political party campaigners through Facebook and WhatsApp. There is a huge potential for social media to alter the course of election campaigns. A sensational content stirs the mind and can help false news spread in no time. Even a minor swing of over two per cent is enough to influence the electoral outcome. The recently held general elections were greatly influenced by the use of social media during campaigning. The Election Commission (EC) of India had to dig deep into the existing legislations to provide for adequate measures to control and prevent the misuse of the medium. Social media as a tool of empowerment has been used by major political parties who have unleashed media campaigns all over the world. For example, Donald Trump’s controversial but highly effective digital campaign for the 2016 presidential elections. The