A cricket beyond politics
On September 11, the Supreme Court was asked to urgently hear a petition that sought to cancel the Asia Cup T20 match between India and Pakistan scheduled for September 14 in the UAE. The petition, fi…
Supreme Court of India
9 posts
The Berry phase of Kancha Gachibowli
There's a concept in quantum mechanics, and also in parts of classical mechanics, called the Berry phase. Say you're walking around a mountain. You start off along a path and follow it all the…
Do the poor want to be poor?
'Justice Gavai’s comments on freebies overlook people’s struggle for survival: Brinda Karat', The Hindu, February 14, 2025: CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat said the recent remarks on…
Correlation isn’t causation — the EVM edition
The space to disagree with the Election Commission’s position vis-à-vis the integrity of electronic voting machines without finding oneself backtracking into the Congress or the BJP camps is shrinking…
Justice delayed but a ton of bricks await
From 'SC declines Ramdev, Patanjali apology; expresses concern over FMCGs taking gullible consumers ‘up and down the garden path’', The Hindu, April 10, 2024: The Supreme Court has refused to…
Cheers for everyone but the bustard
Behold, the legerdemain of spinning bad news into good: Setting aside the meaningless headline, we have a lede (and the rest of the article, for that matter) that claims the Supreme Court of India &q…
Government by Supreme Court
On February 27, a bench of the Supreme Court upbraided Patanjali Ayurved and its chairman Acharya Balkrishna for continuing to disparage systems of medicine other than Ayurveda (technically, what it c…
Courts and COVID
India's courts have played a prominent in helping (or not) the country manage its COVID-19 epidemic, especially during the second wave this year – from asking the government to explain which proof…
On cancers, false balance and the judiciary
Climate change has for long been my go-to example to illustrate how absolute objectivity can sometimes be detrimental to the reliability of a news report. Stating that A said "Climate change is r…