India – RightsViews

The Right to Healthcare for LGBTQIA Indians: A Relentless Fight towards Equality

January 13, 2023 by Varsha VijayakumarNo Comments

By Guest Writers Srushti S Kekre* and Udisha Surana** Of all forms of inequality, ‘injustice in healthcare’ is the most shocking and inhumane. -Martin Luther King Jr. Since time immemorial, the LGBTQIA community has been subjected to regressive and dehumanizing practices. Pervasive intolerance and prejudice has forced them to live on the margins of society and fight for something as indispensable as healthcare. The Indian healthcare system has historically functioned around a heteronormative mindset, actively dismissing the interests of people with gender diverse identities. Yet Article 14 of the Constitution of India guarantees protection against any discrimination on the basis of caste, race, gender and religion. Meanwhile, the Indian Supreme Court, in the landmark case of L.I.C of India v. Consumer Education and Research Centre, expressly applied the principles of equality to eliminate any form of discrimination and protect the right to health and adequate healthcare facilities. Lamentably, bigotry has progressed to an extent where, throughout the Covid-19 global pandemic, the LGBTQIA community was intentionally...

A Person-Centered and Compassionate Health Care System

October 21, 2021October 19, 2021 by Larissa PeltolaNo Comments

By: Carina Goebelbecker, staff writer. How can we put “care” back into health care? This was the central question posed by the “A Person-Centered and Compassionate Health Care System” zoom webinar on Friday, October 15th at 8:30am EST, organized by the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health as a part of their Centennial programming. Current Yusef Hamied Fellow Dr. Vikram Patel used personal experience, research on class division within the system, and medical data to highlight the ways in which India’s healthcare system is failing its people while proposing concrete solutions for a promising way forward. Dr. Patel began the lecture with a story about his mother, who experienced intense mistreatment within India’s health care system over the course of more than fifty years until her death. Patel stated that through his mother’s encounters, he never came across “a physician who actually saw [his] mother as a person,” but rather viewed her as just a diagnosis. This lack of visibility is a...

Recognition of “Marital Rape” As a Valid Ground for Divorce – An Affirmative Step towards Marital Equality and Women’s Rights in India

September 10, 2021September 8, 2021 by Larissa PeltolaNo Comments

By guest contributor Yamika Khanna* The Madras High Court in a remarkable judgment (case name was redacted due to the sensitive nature) upheld that marital rape, although not penalized under the Indian Penal Code, is a valid ground to claim divorce. The judgment is a light at the end of a very dark tunnel in recognizing the heinous nature of marital rape as a gross violation of bodily autonomy, privacy, and dignity of a married woman, especially under a legal regime that considers non-consensual sexual intercourse with the “wife” by the “husband” as an exception to the crime of rape. An appeal was filed before the Hon'ble Court against the judgment of the Family Court. The Family Court vide its judgment allowed the petition for divorce sought by the wife on the ground of cruelty. The gravest contention of the wife with reference to cruelty against her pertained to the worst forms of sexual perversion including unnatural intercourse against the wife’s will. In...

Inadequacy of Laws Against Cross-Border Sex Trafficking Between Nepal and India

July 8, 2021 by Larissa PeltolaNo Comments

By guest contributor Ayush Kumar* Globalisation has caused the emergence of new technologies that facilitate trade and transport, making business more rewarding. A negative ramification of this change is the proliferation of cross-border human trafficking. The UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) defines Human Trafficking as the “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of people through force, fraud, or deception, intending to exploit them for profit.” Men, women, and children of all ages and from all backgrounds can become victims of this crime, which occurs in every region of the world. There are nearly 36 million victims of human trafficking in the world, out of which two-thirds are from Asia, making it the third-largest crime in magnitude and profit after arms and drug trafficking. With Covid-19, the situation is anticipated to turn grimmer. Open Borders: A Facilitating Factor Nepal is an indispensable neighbour of India because of its cultural, historical, and economic connections. It also holds a vital place in India’s foreign policy...

COVID-19 in India: Violation of the Right to Health and the Collapse of Healthcare Infrastructure

May 17, 2021 by Larissa PeltolaNo Comments

By guest contributor, Ayush Kumar is a law student at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, India. On the 13th of March, as a gesture of accountability, Jordan’s health minister resigned after six Covid-19 patients died due to lack of oxygen at a hospital ward. Accountability is the linchpin of a functional democracy as it compels a State to explain what it is doing and how it is moving forward in times of crisis. In the past few weeks, India has faced a massive oxygen shortage as the healthcare infrastructure collapsed like a house of cards due to exponentially rising cases of Covid-19. Alone in the capital city, twenty-five patients died due to the shortage of oxygen on 24th April. The government’s inadequacy in providing healthcare facilities to its people is a serious violation of their human right to health. Patna High Court’s division bench expressed strong displeasure over the deaths due to oxygen shortage and further stated that lack of adequate...

Suffering , Grievability and Covid-19 – An Indian Nightmare

October 21, 2020October 21, 2020 by Rowena KosherNo Comments

By Guest Contributor Yash Karunakaran. Yash is an alumnus of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign College of Law and the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR). He is currently an advocate practicing before the Supreme Court of India and the Delhi High Court. He is also involved with a civil society organization that helped arrange for travel, food and medicine for migrant workers stuck as a result of the Covid-19 lockdown in India. This organization has filed Petitions before various Courts challenging state restrictions placed on the return of migrant workers. The primary weapon used to counter epidemic outbreaks within the Indian subcontinent has, for the past 123 years, remained the 1897 Epidemics Act. The legislation grants special powers to State Governments, allowing them to make their own regulations to counter the spread of disease. This piece analyses the colonial history of the Indian response to epidemics, highlighting how it colours the manner in which the Indian...

Erosion of the Right to Freedom in Kashmir: How India Violated Established Principles of Constitutional and International Law

December 11, 2019 by Rowena KosherNo Comments

Guest Contributor Bhaskar Kumar is a 3rd year student at National Law School of India University, Bangalore. His areas of interest include criminal justice, human rights, constitutionalism and international law. He writes for a number of platforms including law review blogs and media platforms like The Hindu, Live law JILS-NUJS etc. In anticipation of unrest after altering the special constitutional status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian government detained several political leaders and imposed a broad restriction on freedom of movement and press in August 2019. These restrictions were imposed in the aftermath of abolishing article 370 of Indian Constitution. This article was part of the Constitution of India which provided special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. By virtue of this article, the people of Jammu and Kashmir used to enjoy some privileges including exclusive property rights. The government justified this amendment by considering it a step that ensures the complete integration of the state into...

The Ayodhya Ruling and the Rule of Law

December 11, 2019 by Rowena KosherNo Comments

Guest Contributors Prannv Dhawan and Parth Maniktalaare are law students at NLSIU Bengaluru and Campus Law Centre, Delhi respectively. Prannv is the founding editor of the Law School Policy Review and Parth is an editor of the online journal, Polemics and Pedantics. A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court in India has unanimously held that the possession of the most-contested piece of land in Indian political history—the 2.77 acres where the Babri Masjid Mosque once stood—should in fact be exclusively given to the Hindu claimants of the case. At the same time, the Court invoked its special power to do ‘complete justice’ under Article 142 to restitute the damage caused by ‘egregiously illegal’ idol installation (1949) and Masjid demolition (1992). Hence, it ordered the government to allot an alternate plot of 5 acres to the Sunni Muslim Waqf Board at a ‘prominent place’ in Ayodhya for the construction of a new mosque. A few words have become an indispensable part of the...

On Constitutional Morality: Thoughts from Delhi

October 22, 2019October 21, 2019 by Rowena KosherNo Comments

Guest Contributor: Anmol Mittal is a 5th Year Student at National Law University, Delhi. The question of what the true import of the term “Constitutional morality” is has become pertinent following India’s (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Presidential Order C.O. 272, and the subsequent State Reorganisation Bill introduced in the parliament. On the morning of August 5, through a combination of the Presidential order and the Reorganisation bill, the special status accorded to the State of Jammu & Kashmir, by way of Article 370, within the Indian Union, was revoked. To examine where the moral compass of India’s Constituent document lies, it’s necessary that the Constitution be considered as a ‘whole’, and not as being contained ‘essentially’ in Part-III on Fundamental Rights (Part-III rights). For the uninitiated, Part-III rights are, in a manner of speaking, India's version of the bundle of rights in America guaranteed through the 1st, 5th, 6th amendments and so on. Article 19 corresponds directly with the 1st Amendment, Article 20...

Decoding India’s Faltering Extradition Track Record: A Human Rights Approach

October 9, 2019October 7, 2019 by Rowena KosherNo Comments

Guest Contributor: Tanishk Goyal is a second year law student at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. On July 2 2019, The U.K refused to extradite a couple who were accused of murdering their adopted Indian boy and his brother-in-law in order to receive a life insurance payout. The UK’s reasoning for this refusal took place against the backdrop of the inhumane and degrading human rights conditions prevailing in India. This discharge added on to the intractably dismal extradition track record of India, despite it having ratified the 1949 Geneva Conventions and The U.N Convention Against Corruption which adopt the framework for extradition and mutual legal assistance between countries for an expedited and effective extradition process. One of the fundamental reasons for this situation is India’s international perception as a country which cannot ensure the safety of the offenders it extradites. Although India has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which lays down a human-rights based...