Wing Commander U C Jha (Retd)

Wing Commander U C Jha (Retd) worked in the Indian Air Force for 24 years. After taking pre-mature retirement Wing Commander Jha enrolled at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, JNU as Ph D student in July 2002. He submitted his thesis tilted "Military Justice System in India" in July 2007.

He has worked as Consultant (Legal) with National Human Rights Commission for three years. He has been visiting faculty at Indian Law Institute, the Indian Society for International Law, and the United Services Institute, New Delhi. He is also a resource person for the International Committee of the Red Cross on International Humanitarian Law.

Rohit De

Rohit De is a graduate student at the Department of History at Princeton. His primary interest is in South Asian legal history and he is particularly interested in studying the courtroom as a space where the relationship between the state and the citizen is mediated. His recent research focuses on Muslim family law, gender and the discourses of modernity in late colonial India. Rohit graduated with a B.A, LL.B (Hons) degree from the National Law School of India University and completed his LL.M at the Yale Law School in 2006. Before starting at Princeton, Rohit spent a year as the Fox International Fellow at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University

Swethaa Ballakrishnen

She is a '04 graduate of the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research and a recent ('08) graduate of Harvard Law School (where she did an LL.M with a shared focus in international finance and the sociology of legal education).


Before coming to Harvard, she was a corporate lawyer with the Mumbai offices of Amarchand Mangaldas and a research associate and lecturer at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (where she taught parts of the legal methods and family law courses and offered for senior students a seminar in international finance). At HLS, she worked closely with the Harvard History Project (her graduate thesis was a paper on the history of South Asian law students at HLS) and was on the board of the South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA).

MADHAV KHOSLA

I am a recent graduate of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and have begun work as a Research Assistant to Prof. Madhava Menon at the Commission on Centre-State Relations, Government of India. My primary areas of interest and public law and human rights. Last year, I had the opportunity to work at the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University where I analyzed the operation of the right to health during the United Nations Mission in Haiti (UNMIH, 1993-1996) and the problems experienced as a result of the Mission's narrow mandate that privileged civil-political rights over socio-economic rights. I have also been a Junior Ethics Fellow at the World Health Organization, Geneva, where I researched on substantive equality and the allocation of scarce medical resources. In addition, I have clerked with Justice SB Sinha and Justice HS Bedi at the Supreme Court of India, as well as worked with organizations such as Lawyers Collective, Pratham and the World Bank. My published in journals such as the International Community Law Review, Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, Judicial Review, Economic & Political Weekly and so on.

DOUGLAS HAY

B.A., Toronto (1967), Ph.D. (Warwick, 1976). Teaches legal and social history at Osgoode Hall Law School and the Department of History at York University, Toronto. Visiting appointments as Professor of Canadian Studies at Yale and as SSRC Professorial Fellow in Socio‑legal Studies at the University of Warwick; visiting scholar at Centre for Criminology University of Toronto and Columbia University Law School. Co‑edited and contributed to Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth‑Century England (1975), Labour, Law and Crime in Historical Perspective (1987), Policing and Prosecution in Britain 1750‑1850 (1989), Friends of the Chief Justice: The William Osgoode Correspondence (1990), Eighteenth‑Century English Society (1997) Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire (2004); articles and chapters on English and Canadian legal history appear in other collections and in history and law journals. Elected to the Board of Directors of the American Society for Legal History 1985‑88 and for the term beginning 2000, and member of the board of Law and History Review from 1983‑1992. Service on committees, boards, or journals of the Law and Society Association, the Canadian Historical Association, and the Social Science History Association. The Chorley Lecturer (London School of Economics), the Iredell Lecturer in Legal History (University of Lancaster), The Hugh Alan Maclean Lecturer (University of Victoria Faculty of Law), the Weir Memorial Lecturer (University of Alberta School of Law) the Annual Lecturer for the American Society of Legal History 2002, the Hugh Fitzpatrick Lecturer in Legal Bibliography. Co-director of the York International Master and Servant Project on employment law in what was the British Empire from the 16th to 20th centuries; current work also includes studies of the administration of English criminal law and of the court of King's Bench in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Courses taught include History of Canadian Law, Law and Social Change in an Age of Freedom of Contract, Western Legal Histories, Law Property and Freedom in Britain and its Empire, History of Criminal Law and its Administration, History of Canadian Legal Institutions, Law and Social Justice. On sabbatical leave 2008-2009.

LASS INAUGURAL CONFERENCE 2009

WE ARE REALLY GRATEFUL FOR THE WONDERFUL AND OVERWHELMING RESPONSE TO THE CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE LASS INAUGURAL CONFERENCE

THE CALL FOR PAPERS IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED AND WE ARE EXTREMELY SORRY THAT WE ARE UNABLE TO ACCOMODATE MORE PAPERS.

THIS IS TO FORMALLY THANK YOU ALL AND APOLOGISE TO EVERYONE WHO HAS WRITTEN SINCE WE CLOSED OUR CALL FOR PAPERS.

WE WILL BE IN TOUCH WITH EVERYONE WHO SENT AN ABSTRACT SOON. THANKS

LASS CONFERENCE STEERING COMMITTEE

SC blasts Gujarat on FIR against Nandy

"Nothing in the article is objectionable," a Bench headed by Justice Altamas Kabir said, while restraining the Narender Modi Government from arresting Nandy
New Delhi: The Supreme Court today rebuked the Gujarat government for initiating criminal proceedings against political analyst Ashis Nandy for writing an article in a national daily allegedly having communal overtones.
"Nothing in the article is objectionable," a Bench headed by Justice Altamas Kabir said while restraining the Narender Modi Government from arresting Nandy.
"Concerned authorities and officials of the Gujarat Government will not take any steps to arrest Nandy in respect of the proceedings arising from the FIR registered in relation to the article," it said.
However, hours after the order was pronounced, Nandy's counsel Rakesh Khanna and Gaurang Kanth informed the bench that the scholar has been served with a summons notice by the Gujarat Police to appear before Satellite police station officials in Ahmedabad on July 8.
Taking their submission on record, the Bench cancelled the summons and said "Any further summons issued against Nandy in future relating to the case will stand quashed."
During the hearing, the Bench disapproved the prosecution of 71-year-old scholar for the article saying "there is no ground for harassing a journalist."
"Let him live in peace. You (Gujarat) are prosecuting this man for his article," the Bench said referring to the article on post-assembly election analysis.
"There are worst things happening in this country," it said expressing anguish over the state government's move to register an FIR on a private complaint.
The apex court was also critical of V K Saxena, President of the Ahmedabad-based NGO, National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), on whose complaint the FIR was registered under section 153A (promoting communal disharmony) and 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) of Indian Penal Code. "What is the grievance of the complainant. How does it (article) bother him. Is he a staunch nationalist," the Bench observed, questioning the motive behind filing the complaint.
"People coming from the land of Gandhiji have become so intolerant that they can't even tolerate an article," the Bench, also comprising Justice G S Singhvi observed.
"They look for a soft target to catch but not even a single politician or small municipal councilors are caught ...," the Bench further said refusing to consider the submission of Gujarat government counsel Hemantika Wahi that the investigation was in initial stages.
The apex court was hearing the petition filed by Nandy against the order of the Delhi High Court which had refused to provide him an interim protection against arrest.
The High Court will now hear his writ petition in which he has sought quashing of the FIR.
In the FIR, it was alleged that Nandy's article related to assembly election results disturbed communal harmony between Hindus and Muslims.
However, Nandy contended that the FIR was registered out of malafide intention. He said that the FIR was aimed at penalising and depriving him of expressing his bonafide views.
His counsel said that the state government has picked up a line from the article published in a national daily and accused him of promoting communal disharmony.

Recognize sexwork as legitimate work

Recognize sexwork as legitimate work
Criminalizing sexworkers or clients is counter productive
National Day of Action1st JULY 2008 (Tuesday),
Bangalore
Don't destroy the livelihood of Sexworkers by criminalizing their clients
Drop Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act amendment process Immediately
Karnataka State Coalition Against ITPA(Constituent Organizations: Aneka, Ashodaya Samithi, Jyothi Mahila Sangha,Karnataka Sexual Minorities Forum, Karnataka Sexworkers Union, LesBiT,Samara, Sangama, Sangram, Suraksha, Swathi Mahila Sangha, Veshya AnyayMukthi Parishad, Vijaya Mahila Sangha) invites you to the 3 PM PUBLIC RALLY from Chikka Lalbagh (Majestic) to Mysore BankCircle 5 PM PUBLIC MEETING at Mysore Bank CircleSitamarhi, Bihar: Mob attacks sexworkers and burns down 250 houses infront of policeCalicut, Kerala: Sexworkers evicted from their homes and their housesburnt by the cadres of the ruling partyChannapattana, Karnataka: Goondas (supported by police) brutally attacksexworkers who had gathered to peacefully demonstrate for rightsDelhi: Police forcibly pick up 70 adult sexworkers in Delhi, in grossviolation of their basic rights and detain them in jails and protectivehomes of Andhra Pradesh, under the guise of rescuing/ helping/ reformingsexworkersThese are not isolated incidents but witness to the growing intoleranceand prejudice against sexworkers. Sexworkers face constant policeviolence, goonda violence and extreme social rejection. Hounded by thegoondas and constantly harassed by the police, sexworkers are in danger ofnot only getting marginalized but also becoming far more vulnerable toHIV-AIDS. As sexworkers are forced to run from street to street, adoptingsafer sex practices, accessing health care services or even using condomsbecomes almost impossible in spite of their best efforts to save theirlives. As a large part of their earnings go to police, goondas and theGovernment (as court fines), they are forced to work long hours, servemore clients and often put themselves at risk. Constantly they are coercedto compromise with everyone because of the fear of false cases beingfoisted on them, as well as being insulted and humiliated in public anddenied even basic dignity and respect.The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA) criminalizes most aspects ofsexwork by equating 'voluntary adult sexwork' with trafficking.Trafficking - the business of forcing children and adults against theirwill into various forms of work including sexwork, is totally unacceptableto us. Sexworkers have been struggling against the unfairness in ITPA.Police make use of ITPA to harass, abuse and extort money from sexworkersmost of who are disadvantaged in many waysTo make matters worse the Central Government has proposed to amend theITPA to punish the clients of sexworkers. The logic behind the move issupposedly to prevent trafficking of people into sexwork by reducingdemand for sexwork. There is enough evidence from numerous countries thatcriminalizing clients of sexworkers doesn't help in combating traffickingbut only pushes sexwork underground making sexworkers more vulnerable toviolence and HIV infection. The Central Government is planning to go aheadwith this in spite of protests from sexworkers and human rights activistsfor the last few years. This process will deny sexworkers basic right forsurvival and livelihood. In a democracy, the government must duly consultall concerned and affected people before amending any law. But the Uniongovernment has been ignoring the voices of the sexworkers in the ITPAamendment process. The role of the government should be to enable sexworkers to access their social entitlements and rights.Sexworkers have broken their long silence. They have been forming theirown organizations, strengthening their communities, engaging with thesociety at large and supporting Governmental efforts in combatingHIV-AIDS. They have been extending solidarity and support to the strugglesof various marginalized people including women, dalits, adivasis,minorities, the poor, workers and others.We request all citizens to join hands with us to demand that thegovernment drop the ITPA amendment process immediately.

Call for Papers

INDIAN JOURNAL OF JUSTICE STUDIES – INVITATION FOR SUBMISSIONS

The National Judicial Academy, India (NJA) has been set up under the guidance of the Supreme Court of India for judicial education, policy and research, as a means for improving the quality of justice delivery in the country. As part of this mandate, the NJA has decided to publish a peer-reviewed annual journal for discussion, thinking and deliberation on the theme of "quest for justice"- broadly defined. Named the Indian Journal of Justice Studies, this journal aims to contribute to thinking on issues of justice, like, for example, the various and often competing concepts of justice; ideas and social, political, religious and economic forces shaping these concepts; struggles and social movements for justice; institutional frameworks and formal and informal networks influencing justice delivery; state policies, including developmental policies and their impact on justice; the role of judicial institutions in relation to justice; the role of the legal profession and legal education in the quest for justice; multidisciplinary approaches to justice; legal frameworks and their impact of justice, international and comparative approaches to justice, etc.
The Editorial Board of the Journal invites submissions for the 2007-08 issue, in keeping with the editorial policy provided below. The deadline for submission of manuscripts is July 25, 2008.
The editorial policy and the Call for Papers are also available at http://www.nja.gov.in/journal.html.

EDITORIAL POLICY

Objective

The Indian Journal of Law and Justice ("Journal") aims to foster thinking, research and writing centered on the theme of "quest for justice"- broadly defined. It encourages scholarship drawing on a variety of theoretical bases, research methodologies and disciplines.

The Journal welcomes submissions from judges, lawyers, academics as well as law students. In addition, given its policy of encouraging interdisciplinary scholarship, it also welcomes submissions from specialists from other disciplines.

Solicited and Unsolicited Articles, Review Procedure and Selection

The Editorial Board of the Journal may, at its discretion, invite articles, comments and reviews from individuals who are leaders in their fields. Apart from such solicited pieces, the Journal will also consider unsolicited papers that are submitted to it for publication. All articles, comments and reviews, whether solicited or unsolicited, will be reviewed by the Editorial Board to determine publishability. The decisions of the Editorial Board will be final and no request will be entertained for further review.

The Editorial Board will carefully consider all manuscripts received by it. All unsolicited pieces will be reviewed anonymously, without regard to the author's name, affiliation, prior publications, etc.

The editorial policy of the Journal seeks to afford substantial deference to authors. Therefore, the Journal only accepts manuscripts that are well written and completely argued at the time of submission, as it will not be possible for the Editorial Board to engage in detailed editing of the substantive content of the manuscripts. The changes that are suggested by the Editorial Board are intended to hone the ideas advanced by the author, not to replace them. Therefore, after the editing process, the Board will send the author a marked copy of the manuscript, highlighting the suggested changes. These changes are meant as reasoned suggestions, not editorial diktats, and the author's judgment regarding whether the changes should be made or not, will be respected.

Articles, Notes, Comments, Reviews, Essays

The Journal seeks to publish a variety of legal and other writings on the issue of justice. The only consideration is that the writing should be scholarly in nature. Based on the length of the piece and the merit of its substantive content, the Editorial Board will decide whether to publish the accepted pieces as articles, notes, comments, reviews or essays. Generally articles will be of 10,000 words or more and will either develop a theory, or apply theoretical and/or research findings from law and other disciplines to legal subject matter.

A comment is a shorter piece of about 5,000 words which discusses one particular issue of legal or policy significance in detail. A piece will be considered an essay if it is around 3,000 words and its primary purpose is to advance an idea, or to initiate or engage in analytical discussion.

Notes and reviews are descriptive pieces which summarize a recent legal or policy development like a new legislation, judicial decision or policy and place them in their wider legal and social context. The main purpose of such these writings is to familiarize the reader with current developments. The reviews section will also include book reviews.

Citation Style

The Journal follows the Blue Book citation style. (The Blue Book: A Uniform System of Citation (Columbia Law Review Ass'n et al. eds., 18th ed. 2005). However, the manuscripts need not necessarily comply with this citation format in draft form.

Exclusivity

The Journal will publish only original articles and research papers. Manuscripts are accepted for publication on the understanding that their contents, all or in part, have not been published elsewhere. Every contribution should be the author's own original work, and should not constitute a substantial repetition of work already published or to be published elsewhere.

Copyright

Submissions are considered for publication on condition that copyright in any material included in the Journal is assigned to the National Judicial Academy on the understanding that the Academy can re-publish the article elsewhere, or can allow third parties to publish the piece. Authors are free to use their own copyright materials in other publications, provided that the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication. The author also retains his or her moral rights in the submission.
Submission format

All submissions should be made in electronic format only, in a MS Word document. The manuscripts should contain footnotes and not endnotes. The manuscripts can either be e-mailed to: njabhopal@nja.gov.in (put the words "To the Editor" in the subject line) or be sent in a disk to: The Editor, Indian Journal of Juridical Studies, National Judicial Academy, Surajnagar, Bhadbadha Road, Bhopal- 462044, India. Please ensure that the disk is virus free, and is not corrupted.

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in the Journal are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Editorial Board, the National Judicial Academy, or any other persons or institutions affiliated with it.

Lakshmi Arya

Lakshmi Arya is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore. She has recently submitted a doctoral dissertation on rape laws and trials in colonial times (British India and princely Mysore, 1860 – 1947) at the history department in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests lie in the field of gender, state and the law.

Narayan Chandra Sarangi

Narayan Chandra Sarangi is a Postgraduate in Law from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar –Orissa. Presently employed in a nationalized Bank as a middle management functionary in Legal Department, he was a faculty at University Law College, Bhubaneswar and a practicing advocate at Orissa High Court. He is also a research scholar in Law at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar –Orissa. His area of interest includes Labour and Industrial Law, Intellectual Property Law and Laws relating to Displacement. He has published a number of articles in various journals; presented papers at various UGC sponsored seminars and designed study materials for 5 year LLB course. His published articles include Intellectual Property Law and Banking Law.

Som Raj Choudhury

Som Raj Choudhury is a student of law at University College of Law, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar. His primary interests are to understand the relationship between law and governance. He seeks to do this by working on the policies developed by both Central and State Government, and how their implementation benefit the people, and becomes an welfare instrument for the society at large. He has undertaken a project on the study of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) programme and its implementation and the success of this project at the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat levels. He has presented a paper on “Geography of Crime and Justice” at the 14th International Annual Conference on Criminology held at Sacramento, California. At present, he is working on the theme of Resettlement and Rehabilitation with UNDP.

S. Vivek and Kalyani Ramnath

Vivek is an undergraduate student at the National Law School, Bangalore. His area of interest is public law and jurisprudence and in this context, the interlinkages between law, language and the state. Kalyani is also an undergraduate student at National Law School, Bangalore and she is, at this time, attempting to study the place of languages in the law and looking at contrasting legal interpretations in different settings – the courtroom and the classroom, for example. Both of them subscribe to the view that there is nothing as practical as a good theory.

Srinivas Chokkakula

Srinivas Chokkakula is a Ph D candidate at the Department of Geography, University of Washington, Seattle, USA. He is pursuing his doctoral research on interstate water disputes and democratization in India. He has his earlier degrees in civil engineering, environmental planning and geography. Before moving to US for doctoral studies, he worked in India for about ten years in the broad areas of development planning and environmental management in nonprofit settings. His research interests include local planning and governance in India, state-society relations, natural resource planning and development, and, disaster management.

Hester Betlem

Hester Betlem completed B.A.in South Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999, went on to complete a Masters in Human Rights Studies from the School for International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, New York City in 2003. She is currently working towards her PhD in Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. Her interests include Law, Belief and Sexuality. She is presently doing her field research among Mathamma women in Nellore district, Andhra Pradesh, where she is looking at the manner in which dedicated women inhabit (or not) the languages of law and social reform in everyday practice.