'Honour' Killings, Love Commandos and what Liberal-Secularists must do

Lok Sabha discussed 'honour killings' yesterday, the Supreme Court convicted three 'honour killers' for murder, the Khaps demanded a ban on same-gotra marriage, further details of the legal changes being considered by the Group of Ministers to curb these killings emerged, and 'Love Commandos' have set up a helpline to protect victims of family honour. It has been a busy week!

Some of the GoM proposals raise familiar liberal dilemmas: while the liberal horror at these killings is evident, should we support reverse onus clauses for murder? (See also, this earlier post). Of course, not all proposals are questionable. Simplifying the procedure under the Special Marriage Act is perhaps of utmost importance.

But those of us who consider ourselves liberal and secular can act at a personal level too. If these 'Love Commandos' are a serious bunch, they can do with legal help. Let the lawyers and law students volunteer to provide help where we can and where it is needed. Second, we must choose the secular alternatives in family law, wherever available. The Special Marriage Act will stop being 'Special' and become the norm only when citizens use it extensively - even when they are marrying someone from the same community.

Setalvad, Bar Exams, Disability

1. Gautam Patel's moving obituary on Atul Setalvad is worth reading.

2. On Bar Exams - If the Bar Council is going to regulate entry into the profession using a separate bar exam, shouldn't it get out of the business of regulating legal education? Does any one know if law schools are demanding autonomy as their fair share in the bargain?

Update: A reader says 'KN Chandrashekharan Pillai and NS Soman of CUSAT School of Legal Studies have argued for precisely this in a recent article in the "Kerala High Court Cases". I am sorry I cannot provide the citation as I don't have access to this journal right now.' Does anyone else have a scan/soft copy they can share?

3. Disability - In an apparently regressive judgment in Dalco Engineering v Padhye (March 2010), Justice Raveendran of the Supreme Court has held that the non-discrimination obligations under the Persons with Disabilities Act apply only to the State, and not to the private sector. The judgment fails to appreciate global trends where most democracies prohibit discrimination on the ground of disability in public as well as private sector. The case turned on the interpretation of section 2(k), which reads thus:
"establishment" means a corporation established by or under a Central, Provincial or State Act, or an authority or a body owned or controlled or aided by the Government or a local authority or a Government company as defined in section 617 of the Companies Act 1956 (1 of 1956) and includes Departments of a Government;"
Interpreting this clause, the SC held that a company registered under the Companies Act is not 'a corporation established by or under a Central ... Act'. In light of precedents cited in the case, this appears to be an inescapable conclusion. Was it time to revisit those precedents? Or is it best to leave this for Parliament to clarify?

All India Bar Examination case: an update

Legally India has this update on the case, and the outcome of the last hearing in the Supreme Court on July 30.

Truth about encounters

There is an excellent piece by Rajesh Kasturirangan at India Together on the truth about encounters. While I agree with him substantially that in practice the line between genuine and fake encounters is often blurred, there is need for laying down certain guidelines which would merit calling an encounter as genuine. Those encounters failing such a test must be labelled as fake, and treated as murder. In my view, therefore, the Parliament attack case merits being called as a genuine encounter, when all terrorists were killed. 26/11 also would fall under this category. This is not to suggest that only televised encounters deserve to be labelled as genuine. The Supreme Court is currently hearing on guidelines for encounters, in the case of People's Union of Liberties v. State of Maharashtra. The responses of the States and the Centre to some of the proposals by the petitioner in this case merit attention.

For those readers, who would like to know more about this case, my article published in 2009 may be of use. Manoj Mitta has written this piece on July 31.

ICJ Advisory Opinion

Guest Post: Pathik Gandhi

The Declaration of Independence by Kosovo has been given a clean chit by a majority of the judges of the ICJ in it's ICJ's Advisory Opinion of 22nd July 2010. The question which the UNGA put to the ICJ was whether the Declaration of Independence by Kosovo was valid under international law. The Court while opining on this central issue, also determined several questions as regards the admissibility of the UNGA reference, since the United Nations Security Council was also concerned with the situation in Kosovo. The Majority Court decided to exercise the discretion vested in the ICJ (with the notable dissent of Judges Tomka, Koroma, Keith, Bennouna, and Skotnikov.

As regards the principal issue, the International Court of Justice relied primarily on the argument that there has been no practise in customary international law, where a Declaration of Independence has been rendered invalid, to declare Kosovo's Declaration legal in international law. The Court narrowed down to the question - who were the authors of the Declaration of Independence? This question was the crux of the issue because the members of the Provisional Assembly in Kosovo had been elected under the Framework created by the United Nations, throught the Representative of the Secretary General, thereby rendering any Declaration by them beyond the ambit of the Framework Resolution of the Security Council.

The Opinion has come for criticism for the radical approach taken by the International Court of Justice, where it has sought to refrain from crucial International Law principles such as self-determination, territorial integritiy, inviolability of borders, use of force etc. An interesting critique is that by, Dr. Alexander Mezyaev International Law Department Governance Academy available here. The Opinion can be accessed here: Accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo (Request for Advisory Opinion) - Advisory Opinion - Advisory Opinion of 22 July 2010.

This Opinion, besides an interesting study of Judicial Process, leads one to ponder over the feasibility of such measures being declared legal in other areas of conflict such as Kosovo or Basque.

Pathik Gandhi has recently graduated from NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.

Talk on Corporate Governance

V. Umakanth will speak on corporate governance at NUJS, Kolkata tomorrow. The talk begins at 4 pm in Room 006. All are welcome to attend.

Umakanth will be familiar to readers of this blog, as he posts on corporate law and policy issues on LAOT. He is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore (NUS). He specializes in corporate law and governance, cross-border investments and financial sector regulation. While his work generally encompasses the Asian markets, his particular focus is on India.

He has co-authored a book on Singapore corporate governance, published articles in international journals and founded the Indian Corporate Law Blog. He has also taught on a visiting basis at the Fordham Law School, New York and the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. He is the recipient of several academic awards: the Lee Kong Chian Scholarship (at NUS), the Hauser Global Scholarship (at New York University School of Law) and eight gold medals (at the National Law School of India University). Prior to his foray into academia, Umakanth was a corporate attorney in India with the leading corporate law firm of Amarchand Mangaldas, where he was also a partner.

Details of his talk are as under:

INDIAN CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AT THE CROSSROADS: WHAT NEXT?

The concept of corporate governance, which relates to the systems by which companies are directed and controlled, has received significant recognition in India over the last decade. Within the short period, however, they have not only been prone to constant change but their efficacy has also been subjected to severe stress testing by way of corporate scandals such as Satyam. Regulatory responses to such episodes have tended to be incremental by fine-tuning existing norms.

The speaker suggests that the current corporate governance model, borrowed largely from the U.S. and the U.K., may not altogether fit within the corporate structures prevalent in India. This is an opportune moment to reconsider India’s model of corporate governance and to develop one that resonates well with Indian business values and practices from the standpoint of economic, social, and political factors.

Article alerts

* My analysis of MCOCA and its application to Hindutva terror groups.

* My appreciation of the Supreme Court's judgment in the James Laine case.

*How lack of transparency in the appointment of information commissioners is likely to weaken the RTI Act.

Bangladesh Supreme Court bans religious parties

The full text of the historic judgment delivered by the Bangladesh Supreme Court banning religious parties and upholding secularism in that country is here.

A Marxist approach to rights

Prabhat Patnaik's article in the latest EPW on how the Left must adopt a "rights-based approach" to development makes for enjoyable reading. Patnaik has long been the key economic thinker for the CPI(M), so he speaks for more than himself. In painting "rights" red, Patnaik must perform a two card trick. The first card is to dissociate rights from it bourgeouis origins. The second card is to place it within the Marxist canon; this despite Marx's own contempt for human rights as giving workers the unfettered "right" to sell their property to a grasping economic structure. For legal thinkers hungry for a Left economist trespassing into their domain, bon appetit!

PRS Analysis 2010

Legislative analysis competition organised by PRS Legislative Research, New Delhi.

PRS Legislative Research is a Delhi-based research initiative hosted at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. PRS works with the objective of making the legislative process more transparent, informed and participatory. We have interacted with over 250 MPs across 22 political parties.

To facilitate greater awareness generation and engagement of the youth, PRS conceptualised a legislative analysis competition - Analysis. Being organized for the fourth year in succession, Analysis is a national-level competition that encourages students to reflect on issues of national importance by analysing a proposed government Bill. Participants are expected to produce a succinct three-page analysis of the Bill with MPs as the target audience.

Entries will be evaluated by an eminent panel of judges from the fields of politics, law and the media. In the past years judges have included Justice Ruma Pal (former judge at the Supreme Court), Justice Y. K. Sabharwal (former Chief Justice of India), and Prof. N.R. Madhava Menon (Member – Commission on Centre State Relations), and Mr. Sam Pitroda (Advisor to Prime Minister on Public Information, Infrastructure and Innovation).

The last date for submission is September 5, 2010. In addition to prize money, the winners will be invited to the annual PRS Conference on Effective Legislatures to be held in New Delhi.

For additional clarifications, please do not hesitate to contact Anirudh Burman at 011-41048021, or at competition@prsindia.org. For further details please go to the ANALYSIS 2010 page (www.prsindia.org/analysis2010) on our website www.prsindia.org.

Dalit Christians and Caste Disabilities Removal Act

Does anyone know of the status of this case filed by the All India Christian Federation challenging the unconstitutionality of the Constitution Order 1950 which excludes Christian and Muslim dalits from the benefits of affirmative action measures available to scheduled castes? I was wondering whether an old colonial law, the Caste Disabilities Removal Act 1850, may be relevant to this litigation. This is what the operative section of this Act says:

So much of any law or usage now in force within India as inflicts on any person forfeiture of rights or property, or may be held in any way to impair or affect any right of inheritance, by reason of his or her renouncing, or having been excluded from the communion of, any religion, or being deprived of caste, shall cease to be enforced as law in any Court.

This legislation raises a number of interesting issues. Firstly, much will turn on the meaning of the phrase 'now in force'. I would think that, despite this unhelpful terminology, the legislation should apply to administrative orders and secondary legislation made after 1850. Primary legislation, on the other hand, will clearly override a preceding legislation (doctrine of implied overruling). Second, and it follows from the first point, a court will need to decide whether the 'public notification' issued by the President under Article 341 is primary or secondary legislation. I doubt very much it will have the authority to impliedly overrule pre-existing primary legislation, but I have not researched this point. Does anyone know of any case on this point? Thirdly, if the 1850 Act continues to apply to secondary legislation passed after 1850, and if the Presidential Order of 1950 is indeed one such legislation, the latter must conform to the 1850 Act. Fourthly, it seems obvious to me that dalit Christians and dalit Muslims are deprived of the benefits of reservations 'by reason of his or her renouncing, or having been excluded from the communion of, any religion, or being deprived of caste', and that such deprivation amounts to 'forfeiture of rights'. As such, Courts cannot enforce their exclusion from these benefits.

I recognise that this is, at best, a plausible (rather than the only possible) interpretation. I am just thinking aloud, from a position of ignorance of jurisprudence surrounding the 1850 Act or the 1950 Order. Some of you will know more than I do, and I look forward to being enlightened.

As an aside, I find the 1850 Act fascinating. It may well be the first legislation protecting freedom of religion in colonial India. Also, it uses gender-neutral language in 1850! More interestingly, it does not invalidate laws that fall foul with it - instead, it demands that the courts refuse to 'enforce' them (presumably while they continue to be valid laws). The distinction between invalidation and non-enforcement has been salient in the second Factortame case, where the House of Lords decided that British law that is inconsistent with EU law will not be enforced by courts, even though it will continue to be valid law. Finally, this Act may also be relevant to the various decisions on excommunication that have been decided by our courts. I wonder whether it was cited by the parties in any of these cases.

LAOT titbits

* Lok Sabha Speaker's reasoning as to why she disallowed the notices for adjournment motion. (Pages 4-5). Considering that a Government cannot consider itself failing in its duties, can an adjournment motion be ever admitted?

*The continuing saga of the Ghaziabad Provident Fund scam probe: Read this SC order on March 23 and today's Mail Today story.

Supreme Court: Case updates

*PUCL v. UOI. W.P.(C) 196/2001. (Food security case) Order dated July 27. Next date of hearing: August 12, 2010.

*HT report on the hearing by Justice Katju Bench (M/s Nouveau Capitaland Fin.Ltd. v. State of Bihar, W.P.(C) 672/2004). Justice Katju has opposed SC-constituted monitoring committees.

*Supreme Court constitutes Second Forest Bench.

TRAC Cracks the Takeover Code

The July 19 Report of the Takeover Regulations Advisory Committee is available here. While the policy implications of the proposed changes are likely to be discussed in great detail over the coming months [for now, see Thakur and this debate], I found the following black-letter changes interesting:

(1) Early Warning Threshold: Acquisitions beyond prescribed thresholds (5%, 10%, 14%, 54%, 74%) set off obligations to make disclosures. Three thresholds in particular, i.e. 5%, 10% and 14%, serve as early warnings against hostile acquirers. The committee’s recommendations make the warnings more prevalent. Their recommendations require that disclosures be made at 5 per cent, and for every acquisition of 2 per cent or more thereafter, i.e. potentially 10 warnings before the 25% trigger is crossed [see Proposed Regulation 28].

(2) Trigger Pushed: A tender offer must mandatorily be made when an acquirer gets to 15% or more. The committee has recommended that this trigger be pushed to 25%, enabling some shareholders like institutional investors to increase their stakes without making an all out tender offer [see Proposed Regulation 3(1)].

(3) Creeping Acquisition: When your shareholding in a corporation is 55% or more, you can’t acquire any additional shares without making a tender offer. The committee has recommended that up to 5% can be acquired in any year without making a tender offer [see Proposed Regulation 3(2)] [Note: this shelter is not available via the new “voluntary offer” route]

(4) Offer Size: The minimum size of the mandatory tender offer is 20%. The committee has recommended that the offer now be made for “all the shares held by all the other shareholders of the target…”, i.e. not exactly for “100%” as commentators have been couching it, but certainly the remaining 75%, assuming the acquirer holds 25% when the tender offer is made [see Proposed Regulation 7(1)].

(5) Alienation of Assets: The acquirer is required to furnish an undertaking that it will not alienate any “substantial asset” of the target without prior shareholder approval. The committee has recommended that the acquirer be permitted to declare its intention to alienate "material assets". This may potentially increase the acquirer’s ability to finance the acquisition. [see Proposed Regulation 25(2)].

(6) Target Board Defensive Tactics/Obligations: The defensive actions that the target board can take are proposed to be further weakened in the face of hostile overtures: for example, ESOP based poison pills are proposed to be abolished [see Proposed Regulation 26 (f)]. Further, while the target board may today give “unbiased comments” to its shareholders once the tender offer is made, the committee has recommended that the target’s board ought to constitute a committee of independent directors to mandatorily provide recommendations to shareholders [see Proposed Regulation 26(6)-(7)]

Military Power and the Constitution

In the current issue of Seminar, Sudhir Krishnaswamy and I reflect on the relationship between military power and the Constitution through studying the Supreme Court's examination of the constitutionality of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958. The paper is available here.
Those interested in the relationship between military power and constitutional design should look out for Bruce Ackerman's forthcoming book 'The Decline and Fall of the American Republic' (based on his 2010 Tanner Lectures) which has a wonderful chapter that explores this often ignored issue.

Article and other alerts

* Sitaram Yechury's provocative piece on why we should keep the word socialism in the Preamble: Rework the Agenda

*Shyam Divan's obit on Atul Setalvad: Raising the Bar

*The All India Bar Examination case is coming up before the Court of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and H.L.Dattu on July 30. [Item No.301- SLP (C) 22337/2008 -BCI v. Bonnie FOI Law College.]

Symbols of national honour

Guest Post by Shekhar Hattangadi*

A fountain-pen and a few paintings have recently captured the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Here is my column (“Pens and Pennants”) on the Gandhi Pen and Tagore Paintings imbroglios written for the DNA. The thrust of my argument is that both the controversies could have been nipped in the bud by the Centre with some timely and thoughtful action.

My original submission had an additional angle relating to international law, which was excised for space constraints. On the issue of jurisdiction in the international arena—which appears to render symbols of our national honour vulnerable to commercial exploitation outside of India’s territorial limits—I point out that these could be safeguarded abroad as if they were part of a patent or a trademark. For this, the concerned government would need to register those symbols/emblems with the registering authority of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, 1883.

On the paintings, I suggest that no existing statute anywhere in the world gives India any legal right to those [Tagore] painting. Does that mean a symbol of national honour becomes a legal orphan beyond our borders? Not really. Article 6 of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, a treaty administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization and signed by 184 member-countries including India, recognizes prohibitions concerning “state emblems and official hallmarks” and protects them from commercial exploitation in the global marketplace.

But clearly, these refer to our national flag and other state-endorsed insignia such as the Ashok Chakra crest, and even a Tagore-worshipping Bengali would have to concede that a painting by the Nobel Laureate, however artistic, falls short of being a state emblem and is therefore outside the purview of the Paris Convention.

* The author is a Mumbai-based lawyer and law professor.

NALSAR Student Law Review

The Board of Editors announce the release of the fifth edition of the NALSAR Student Law Review. This issue comprises of articles dealing with corporate law, intellectual property, arbitration, international law and the Constitution.

The following are the pieces published in the Law Review:

1. “The Doctrine of State Action- Politics of Law Making - A comparison of US & Indian Constitutional Law” - Hina Doon.
2. “Doctrine of Arbitrariness and Legislative Action: A Misconceived Application” -- Deepika Sharma and Raadhika Gupta. This article is a reply to Abhinav Chandrachud, “How Legitimate is Non- Arbitrariness? Constitutional Invalidation in the light of Mardia Chemicals v. Union of India”, (2008) 2 Indian J. Const. L. 179.
3. “The Changing Contours of Self Defence: From Article 2(4) to the Bush Doctrine” -- Manav Kapur.
4. “Regulation and Responsibility of the Credit Rating Agencies vis-a-vis the Current Economic Crisis: A Comparative Analysis” -- Brajendu Bhaskar.
5. “Rethinking the Linkages between Foreign Direct Investment and Development: A Third World Perspective” -- Shashank Kumar.
7. “The Place of Reasonableness in the Restraint of Trade: Just How Much does India depart from the Common Law” -- Shantanu Naravane.
8. “Lost in Transit: The Fate of Anti- Assignment Clauses in Patent Licensing Agreements in the Case of Mergers” -- Shreya Atrey.
9. “RK Anand v. Registrar, Delhi High Court: An Examination of the Law on Media Trials” -- Sneha Mohanty and Vrinda Bhandari
10. “Stretching the Limits of Statutory Interpretation: Critical Review of Bhatia International v. Bulk Trading" -- Vidhu Gupta
11. “The Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 : The Provenance of E- Policing” -- Sakshi Sawhney

The Law Review is available at www.nalsarstudentlawreview.com and www.somethingaboutthelaw.com.

Update: Arun's earlier post also covered this new issue.

Alternative Thinking Outside the "Law Firm" Box?

Many of us have lamented the fact that although the "national law schools" have churned out very gifted lawyers, we've lost many of them to law firms. It is but natural that many of them are attracted to financially rewarding jobs that law firms typically guarantee. However, given that these law schools were established to induce alternative forms of lawyering aimed at improving society, we have to admit that there has been a failure of sorts...and a massive one at that.

It pains me to see so many of our students devastated during the campus recruitment phase when they fail to land jobs with prestigious firms. And the one question I always ask is: are you sure this is what you want to do? Or are you merely following in the illustrious footsteps of your seniors? Surely, there are a million different ways of putting legal skills to use? Thinking "out of the box" and doing something different than being a mere cog in the wheel of corporate transactional lawyering is certainly more appealing?

More importantly, if you expand out the "base" of potential legal career opportunities, you don't need to depend so heavily on firms that come to recruit? And surely, this will help future generations of law students that take inspiration from you... and relieve themselves of the herd mentality to think differently?

Why don't you try something different, I ask in all earnestness?

I see a blank face...a blank stare...and often times, a smirk...

So what ails? Why don't many of our students consider alternative legal careers and look beyond law firms? Or perhaps join firms, but move beyond the typical corporate transactional work to do more pro-bono stuff?

I hope to engage with these maladies another day. In the meantime, I'm delighted to report on a fabulous alternative lawyering initiative sparked up by a bunch of bright lawyers who recently graduated.

Styling themselves as the Pre Legislative Briefing Service (PLBS), these young turks have begun engaging with the Indian law making process in a fairly intense way. They pick up drafts of recent bills that are before Parliament, study it extensively and come up with nuanced reports on the various legal/policy implications of the bill.

Most recently, they've done an in-depth study of the nuclear liability bill and raised points that stalwarts who've been shouting in the media have simply failed to appreciate. If you wish to read their analysis of this bill, please see this report posted on SSRN.

Engaging with legal policy at this level will no doubt improve the quality of our laws in the long run. And we will have to much to thank this bright bunch for.

I list out details of their service and the team below:

The Pre-Legislative Briefing Service (PLBS)

i) To provide rigorous, independent and non-partisan legal and policy analysis of Bills introduced in Parliament

ii) To suggest appropriate legal reform to enable bills to pass tests of constitutionality if challenged

iii) To suggest appropriate policy reform if the legislative policy is to be sound in principle and efficacious in practice

Members:

1. Arghya Sengupta, B.A.LL.B. (Hons.), National Law School of India University, Bangalore (2008), Rhodes Scholar (2008), B.C.L., University of Oxford (2009) Current Status: M.Phil. Candidate in Law, University of Oxford.

2. Prashant Reddy T., B.A.LL.B. (Hons.), National Law School of India University, Bangalore (2008) Current Status: Research Associate, Ministry of HRD Chair on Intellectual Property Rights, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.

3. Sanhita Ambast, B.A.LL.B. (Hons.), National Law School of India University, Bangalore (2009) Current Status: Candidate for the Masters in Law and Diplomacy and LL.M. joint degree, at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and Harvard University.

4. Shivprasad Swaminathan, B.S.L; LL.B., Indian Law Society, Pune (2004), B.C.L., University of Oxford (2006), Clarendon Scholar (2008) Current Status: D.Phil. Candidate in Law, University of Oxford

Contact: prelegislativebriefingservice@gmail.com

For those of you who've engaged with law making in this country and are privy to the legal illiteracy widely prevalent amongst Parliamentarians, you'll appreciate how valuable this offering really is.

More importantly, from the perspective of inspiring younger law students to think of alternative careers, the PBLS team couldn't have done better. Rather than playing around with the nitty-gritty of the law in badly drafted statutes, these recent graduates have decided to influence the very formation of the law itself. Certainly a much higher and more valuable terrain to play on. Perhaps law schools need to take a cue from this and focus more on the art and science of law making, rather than merely interpreting statutes and cases.

Recent legal scholarship on India and South Asia

Several law journals are continuing to post their content online for free. Here are some recent issues of interest:

i) The NALSAR Law Review's latest issue features articles by student authors on issues relating to criminal law, constitutional law, arbitration law, commercial law, trade/foreign investment law, and international law. Most of these focus on Indian law, though some have a broader perspective. The issue contains an article titled 'Doctrine of Arbitrariness and Legislative Action' by fourth year law students at NALSAR, Deepika Sharma and Radhika Gupta, that analyses equality law under Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, and takes as its foil a 2008 article in the Indian Journal of Constitutional Law by Abhinav Chandrachud, who is a contributor to this blog. My recent research on the Indian Supreme Court's equality jurisprudence reminded me of the doctrinal fluidity - and ambiguity - that characterises this area of the law, and the exchange between these pieces brings this out quite sharply.

The issue also contains an interesting case comment on the decision in R.K. Anand v. Registrar Delhi High Court (which was briefly discussed in this previous blogpost). The website of the journal appears to be temporarily down, but links to individual articles can be found on the blog Something About the Law here.

ii) The print issue of the NUJS Law Review's last issue (dated Oct-Dec 2009) has been out for a while, but is still unavailable on the journal's website. Hopefully, the editors will get their act together, because the issue has some very good pieces, including perhaps the first detailed treatment of the Supreme Court's decision in Santosh Bariyar's case (which has been discussed extensively in previous blog posts).

iii) Lastly, the latest issue of the recently established Drexel Law Review focuses on 'Perspectives on Fundamental Rights in South Asia' . It contains articles on : the use of foreign decisions in constitutional cases in India, Sri Lanka and South Africa, including such use in the Naz Foundation case (by Shylashri Shankar); socio-economic rights in Nepal (by Elisabeth Wickeri); uterine prolapse and gender rights in Nepal; gender rights and federalism issues in Jammu and Kashmir (by Sehla Ashai) and political censorship in Indian cinematographic laws (by Arpan Banerjee). The issue features a preface by Anil Kalhan and a foreword by Marc Galanter. Links to the PDF full text versions of each of these articles are available here.