This article was originally published in Deccan Herald. This week, a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court will adjudicate on limited questions of stay orders in the Aadhaar case. After numerous attempts by the petitioners in the Aadhaar case, the court has agreed to hear this matter, just shy of the looming deadline of December […]
Category: Opinion Pieces
Breeding misinformation in virtual space
This article was originally published in The Asian Age. A well-informed citizenry and institutions that provide good information are fundamental to a functional democracy. The phenomenon of fake news has received significant scholarly and media attention over the last few years. In March, Sir Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has called […]
India’s data protection regime must be built through an inclusive and truly co-regulatory approach
This article was originally published on The Wire. We must move India past its existing consultative processes for rule-making, which often prompts stakeholders to take adversarial and extremely one-sided positions. Earlier this week, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology released a white paper by a “committee of experts” appointed a few months back led […]
New recommendations to regulate online hate speech could pose more problems than solutions
This article was originally published on The Wire. The T.K. Viswanathan committee’s recommendations could prove to be dangerous for free speech if acted upon without resolving its flaws. It was reported last week that an expert committee headed by T.K. Viswanathan, former secretary general of Lok Sabha, recommended that the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the […]
Supreme Court sidesteps privacy definition trap, but eloquently explains why we still need it
This article was originally published on The Wire. While the judgement does not strictly defines the right to privacy or catalogue all of its parts, it has attempted to address the broad arguments that are used in justification of and in opposition to privacy. The judgment by the nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court was […]
Not just Aadhaar, privacy verdict affects other issues too
The article was originally published on The Quint. On 24 August, a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously held that a fundamental right to privacy exists under Article 21 and Part III of the Constitution of India. The ruling by the constitutional bench was with respect to a reference order made by a two […]
Infographic – The arguments in the Puttaswamy case
This article was originally published in The Wire. The infographic is designed by Pooja Saxena and the content is provided by me. Over the last month, a nine-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court has heard arguments on the existence of a fundamental right to privacy in India. Media coverage of judicial hearings in the […]
Should an inability to precisely define privacy render it untenable as a right?
This article was originally published on The Wire. The judges may still be able to articulate the manner in which limits for a right to privacy may be arrived at, without explicitly specifying them. Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in his book, Philosophical Investigations, that things which we expect to be connected by one essential common feature, […]
Privacy is not a unidimensional concept
This article was originally published in The Economic Times. Right to privacy is important not only for our negotiations with the information age but also to counter the transgressions of a welfare state. A robust right to privacy is essential for all citizens in India to defend their individual autonomy in the face of invasive […]
Aadhaar case: beyond privacy, an issue of bodily integrity
This article was co-written with Aradhya Sethia, and originally published on The Quint. The insertion of Section 139AA in the Income Tax Act has been challenged and is being heard by a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court. The Finance Act, 2017, among its various sweeping changes, also inserted a new provision into the Section […]
