In Part I, we looked at the Women’s Indian Association’s (WIA) involvement in constitutional negotiations with the British in the late 1910s. The WIA vociferously demanded equal voting rights for women – but the British did not budge. During this time, Indian leaders were also demanding measures for greater levels of self-government. These too, the British dismissed. Indian legislators across the country were becoming restless.
Unlike the American constitutional founding – spearheaded by men, the Indian Constituent Assembly, that drafted the Indian Constitution, comprised women. Until recently, public memory had discarded the contribution or even the presence of these women. But what about the period before the formal constitution-making process?
On 23rd November 2018, the Centre for Law and Policy Research (CLPR) organised the National Constitution Society (NCS) Convention 2018. The one-day Convention took place at the Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Bangalore.
East Regional Round of ConQuest 2017 in partnership with NUJS: India’s only national level quiz on Indian Constitution, Politics and history.
Centre for Law and Policy Research’s (CLPR) CADIndia website has undergone significant changes and improvements over the past year.
One of the objectives of the Constitutional and Civic Citizenship Project has been to create a robust civic citizenship. In furtherance to this aim, we will organise an annual Quiz on the Indian constitution and its history aimed at university students to engage with the Constitution in an interactive way.
Participants of the National Finals included the winners and runners-up of the four Regional Rounds that were held across the country. Over 200 hundred teams, from varied disciplines – political science, history, engineering, law, Buddhist studies etc. – participated in the Regional Rounds.
Around 45 student teams participated in the Preliminary Rounds from colleges Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in teams from leading law schools including NLU Delhi, Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA, Campus Law Centre, Army Law Institute Mohali, RGNUL, Patiala; and teams from other prominent institutes like St Stephen’s College, JNU, Department of Buddhist Studies, Hindu College.
Around 50 student teams participated in the Preliminary Rounds from colleges in Orissa, Kolkata, Assam, and other states. Teams from leading law schools NUJS, KIIT Law School, and NLU, Odisha competed with teams from other prominent non-law Universities like College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneshwar.
The Preliminary Round saw intense competition. The Preliminary Round needed a sudden death elimination to decide the 6 teams which would qualify to the Final Round. In the end, two teams from Symbiosis Law College, and one team each from V.M. Salgaocar College of Law, SVKM Pravin Gandhi College of Law, ILS and New Law College Pune qualified for the Finals.
Over 50 student teams participated in the Preliminary Rounds from colleges in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Kerala. Teams from leading law schools SCLU, NLSIU, TNNLS, and NUALS competed with teams from other prominent Universities like IIT-M, St Josephs College, RVCE, APU and BITS-Hyderabad.
The theme of the first session was ‘Constitutional Challenges and Concerns’. The speakers for this session were Mr. N. Venkataraman (Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India), Prof. (Dr). Sudhir Krishnaswamy (Professor, Azim Premji University) and Mr. Alok Prasanna Kumar (Senior Fellow, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy).
The launch event consisted of a discussion around ‘Constituent Assembly Debates in Contemporary Times’. Vineeth Krishna, Research Consultant/Associate Editor, at the Centre for Law and Policy Research, has written a detailed report on the discussion.
The Indian constitution used devices of liberal constitutional thought but rejected the liberal idea that constitutions had to perform the sole function of limiting state power. The Indian constitution had to empower the state to enter into the realm of Indian society and transform it by eradicating deeply embedded economic, political and social hierarchies. Whether the project of social transformation has succeeded or failed is another question. But the fact that the framers of the Indian Constitution attempted to use it as a means of revolutionizing Indian society – which no country at that time had done – is something to be proud of.
By Aparna Ravi and Apurba Kundu When it comes to tobacco control in India,…
On October 5, 2015, the Bastar Bar Association in its General Body Meeting passed a resolution prohibiting any lawyer who is not enrolled in the State Bar Council or enrolled in the local bar from practicing in the local Court. The Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group which was established in 2013 and has ever since been working for the cause of the Adivasis in Chhattisgarh has been greatly affected by this resolution.
Vikram Raghavan’s talk was geared to resonate with diverse audiences. For the layman, the talk would have given him/her a useful and exciting nudge into exploring the history of the Indian constitution. For lawyers and academics already familiar with Cornerstone, unknown biographical details of Austin Granville was a treat
In its comments to the Draft National IPR Policy prepared by the IPR Think Tank, CLPR argues that the Think Tank needs to rethink its approach of trying to formulate an omnibus IPR policy and treating stronger IPR protection as being synonymous with innovation and economic development. Instead, any IPR policy needs to find the optimal balance between IPR protection and promoting the democratic diffusion of knowledge and cultural goods, based on empirical evidence and taking into account the domestic political economy context of a country. In particular, CLPR makes three arguments: