Macaulay’s IPC was radical in 19th century. Now, shift power balance toward Indian citizens

According to a report in The Hindu Sunday, Home Minister Amit Shah has asked the Bureau of Police Research and Development to move ahead on reforming the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure. When Macaulay drafted it in the 1830s, it was an exceptional piece of work. In the following decades, the colonial government modified it to serve its interests. While courts and legislatures have made many changes to the IPC over the past century, it now lacks overall coherence and comprehensiveness.Read more 

What the Congress party needs is a palace coup

While the government of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah has received severe criticism for its policies, the Congress has largely been excused for its failure to effectively hold the end of opposition. The BJP has turned many parts of the Congress legacy into a debilitating political liability. My indictment of the Congress is threefold: most of its leaders do not know what they stand for, its organisation is hopelessly out of date, and it lacks the quality of top leadership that the situation demands.Read more

If India is in crisis, it is because good guys like ex-IAS Kannan Gopinathan rather quit

Ex-IAS Kannan Gopinathan’s resignation would have captured public attention even if it had not been in protest against the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah government’s clampdown in Jammu & Kashmir. In his ethical calculus, the benefit of fighting from the inside was lower than the costs of suppressing the voice of his conscience. So, he rightly quit. Yet, a different person in his shoes could have done the right thing by staying in service. Consider.Read more