Society

Across two days of intense legal arguments, the Supreme Court scrutinising the 2023 Act governing the appointment of Election Commissioners, as petitioners argued that replacing the Chief Justice of India with a Union Minister creates a "Home Umpire" system, while the Bench questioned the limits of parliamentary power, counsel warned that executive dominance over the "referee" of democracy threatens the basic structure of free and fair elections

While emphasising gravity and custodial interrogation, Sessions Court order leans heavily on narrative of “organised influence”—raising concerns over evidentiary thresholds, criminalisation of religious interaction, and expansion of bail-stage reasoning

In a sharply reasoned ruling, the Court holds that when police investigate their own, fairness cannot merely exist—it must be demonstrable, credible, and constitutionally defensible

Acting on suo-moto proceedings triggered by media reports, the Court condemns “degrading” bail conditions imposed on Dalit and Adivasi accused, warns against judicial overreach, and reinforces that liberty cannot be conditioned on humiliation or caste-based labour

On World Press Freedom Day 2026, the Free Speech Collective (FSC) assembles a powerful, deeply layered account of repression, incarceration, and systemic silencing—centring the stories of jailed journalists Rupesh Kumar Singh and Irfan Mehraj to expose the widening fault lines in India’s democratic promise

A spate of anti-Dalit incidents—from a youth killed over leftover food in Amreli to a suspicious death after an inter-caste relationship in Tamil Nadu, and social boycotts in Khargone—also includes temple bans and clashes over Dalit wedding processions

When Safdar Hashmi wrote a play on the centenary of May Day, 1986.