Pairokar

Jainism has been one of the finest sects of Hinduism. However, in practice, it has adopted not only all the evil practices of Hinduism but, in many ways, has gone far beyond it. There are five Mahavratas or anuvratas in Jainism. They are Ahimsa (Non-violence): It demands absolute non-injury to all living beings—subtle or complex—in thought, speech, and physical action. That is why Jain munis observe chaturmas and do not move from one place to another, lest any insect die in their movement. Satya (Truthfulness) is the second Vrat, which ordains speaking the truth with kindness and restraint, avoiding deceit or speech that causes harm. Asteya (Non-stealing): Not taking anything that is not willingly given, including abstaining from exploitation or unfair acquisition. Brahmacharya (Celibacy): Complete sexual abstinence for monastics, and strict fidelity and sensory restraint for householders. Aparigraha (Non-possessiveness/Non-attachment): Detachment from material possessions, wealth, a...

  The scene created by Mrs Sonia Gandhi at the Congress Headquarters on 15 th August, while Vande Mataram was being sung, was deplorable. The conduct of Rahul Gandhi, the Congress leader, and Mallikarjun Kharge was equally condemnable. But what Mrs Sonia Gandhi did was particularly inexcusable. The historical record surrounding Vande Mataram makes the episode even more significant. Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore sang Vande Mataram at the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress in 1896. The song subsequently became deeply associated with India's national movement and was adopted for all-India occasions at the Banaras session of the Congress in 1905. In 1923, at the Kakinada Session of the Congress, when Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar sang Vande Mataram . Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, who was presiding over the session, objected to the singing and walked out in protest. The controversy took a further institutional turn in 1937. The Congress Working Committee decided t...

The Government of India must formally recognise the newly declared Government of Balochistan. For all practical purposes, Balochistan has severed its ties with Pakistan. The Baloch people never acceded to Pakistani rule in spirit, culminating in their long-awaited declaration of independence on August 11th. As Pakistan’s principal military quadrant and home to its strategic nuclear assets—now effectively under Baloch control—the changing dynamics in Quetta demand an immediate response. The Government of India’s silence on this unfolding reality is baffling. Pragmatic realpolitik dictates that India takes the lead in rallying international recognition for an independent Balochistan. Neither the military nor civil writ of Islamabad holds sway over Baloch territory any longer. For decades, the authoritarian, Punjab-dominated military apparatus maintained a heavy-handed grip on the region, suppressing its persistent demands for freedom. Accounting for nearly 350,000 square kilometres...

  Justice P. S. Kailasam, who served on the Supreme Court in the 1970s, once observed that on Mondays and Fridays the Court heard roughly 280 Special Leave Petitions (SLPs), and nearly half of them were admitted. Today, the picture is dramatically different. More than 96,000 cases are pending before the Supreme Court of India, with some litigants waiting for justice for over three decades. Incidentally, Justice Kailasam was the father-in-law of senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram and the father of designated senior advocate Nalini Chidambaram. P Chidambaram also finds mention in K. K. Venugopal's recent memoir, An Accidental Lawyer: My Adventures in Law and Life . Nonagenarian KK Venugopal is himself a legendary lawyer. In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal stated the other day that the Supreme Court has 96,024 pending cases, including 10,094 pending for more than ten years, 558 pending for over twenty years, and 26 cases that have remain...

  An Allahabad High Court judge has, in my humble opinion, taken the right decision to recuse himself from a case. He stated in open court that he had been approached by both parties to show them some favour. In my humble opinion, the matter concerns the grant of bail to a large number of persons lodged in jail. There was a time when even the faintest whisper casting doubt on a judge's impartiality was enough for the judge to recuse himself or herself, without the slightest hesitation. I vividly remember an incident involving the Presiding Officer of the Industrial Tribunal at Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi. He recused himself from hearing a case on the ground that the counsel appearing for the management was a distant relative of his. I personally told him that I had no objection to his deciding the matter, but he politely declined and recused himself, nonetheless. The Presiding Officer was a retired District Judge from Uttar Pradesh who had been appointed by the Delhi government to...

  Instead of merely demolishing the unauthorised structures of Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur, it would be more meaningful to rename the institution after a nationalist Muslim or Dalit leader who made a lasting contribution to education and social upliftment. Retaining the name of Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, in my view, is inconsistent with the secular and democratic ideals of independent India. The choice of such a name reflected the ideological preferences of its founder, Azam Khan. Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar and his brother, Maulana Shaukat Ali, were among the most influential Muslim political leaders of the pre-independence period. Although Mohammad Ali Jauhar briefly associated himself with the Indian National Congress, he later distanced himself from it and aligned himself with the politics of the Muslim League. During his presidency of the Congress, he attended a session of the Muslim League and sharply criticised Mahatma Gandhi, making the contro...

  A Misplaced Critique: Why Justice Ujjal Bhuyan’s Observations Miss the Mark Supreme Court Justice Ujjal Bhuyan’s recent remarks at the Justice G.P. Singh Memorial Lecture in Bhopal are, regrettably, neither legally sound nor logically acceptable. Expressing concern over the alleged criminalisation of "normal activities," he criticised what he termed a disproportionate police response to youths organising an Iftar and consuming chicken on a boat on the Ganga River. Questioning their arrest and subsequent three-month denial of bail, he argued that "there is no law prohibiting the consumption of chicken over the Ganga." With the utmost respect to the honourable judge, I must strongly beg to differ. I wish to draw attention to Section 196 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which addresses the offence of promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion, race, place of birth, or residence. Criminal liability hinges on two foundational elements...

From day one, it was a foregone conclusion that the Jantar Mantar movement was bound to fail, as it was taken over by lumpen elements, transgenders, and loose girls spitting indecent abuse. It was an open secret that the so-called movement was foreign-funded, as the meals distributed at the protest site were ordered from Germany, the US, and Dubai. Now, with the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, there is nothing left, and most of them have already dispersed. The number of students participating in the protest was negligible, as they had already seen through the politics of some Aandolanjivis. Many faces appear only during some or other agitation. What was most disturbing was that these protestors were crossing all the limits of obscenity during the demonstrations. There was one demonstrator who was seen flashing his private part, and many lumpen girls were seen indulging in vulgar dance. What was all the more condemnable was the misbehaviour towards media persons....

The deplorable drama witnessed yesterday, i.e. Friday, in the Supreme Court courtroom defies all logic in the functioning of the court. Nobody has a ready-made answer to how such sordid scenes can be averted. There is no doubt that both judges on the bench have a high reputation for commendable behaviour, and the way the petitioner-in-person presented his case in court appeared to be mentally deranged. In a short span of a few months, such incidents have occurred twice in the Supreme Court, and if steps are not taken to prevent them, they are bound to occur elsewhere as well. The petitioner-in-person is said to be an advocate by training. Earlier, the person who attempted to hurl shoes at the then CJI, Justice Gawai, was also an advocate. We have been watching such incidents in Parliament, Assemblies, hospitals and other areas of public life, but courts have been largely free from such unruly behaviour. Heated arguments have certainly taken place between lawyers and judges elsewhere, b...

  The appointment of Shri Krishna Mohan, a member of the Dalit community, as the Chief Executive Officer of the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust in Ayodhya deserves to be wholeheartedly welcomed. He succeeds Shri Champat Rai Bansal in overseeing the administration of the grand Shri Ram Temple, one of the most significant religious and cultural projects in independent India. This appointment also serves as a powerful response to the politics of caste symbolism. Those who repeatedly invoke the slogan of "PDA" while claiming to champion the cause of the marginalised now find their narrative seriously weakened. Shri Akhilesh Yadav and his party have long relied on caste-based political mobilisation in Uttar Pradesh. Yet the decision of the Nyas demonstrates that genuine social inclusion is achieved through meaningful responsibility and leadership, not merely through electoral rhetoric. Despite projecting himself as a modern, educated leader, Shri Yadav too often reduces public discourse t...

  One shudders to think about the situation in West Bengal if Mamata Banerjee had again returned to power. Lawlessness and goondaism would have gone beyond imagination. The way Bangladeshi intruders occupied the streets and roads, and nobody had the guts to speak against them because the administration of Mamata Banerjee was always there to stand by the lawbreakers. The fencing of the Indo-Bangladesh border could not be carried out because there was no local administrative support. The Bangladeshi intruders are now creating hurdles in fencing off the borders. As a result of the porous border, cattle smuggling and other problems have crept up in India. The total length of the Indo–Bangladesh border in West Bengal is 22,17 km, out of which 1648 km has already been covered by a fence. With the change of government in West Bengal, it is hoped that the rest of the border will soon be fenced. The way protest marches were taken out on the renaming of Suhrawardy Street after Gopal ...

 Disturbing reports from Ayodhya indicate that the district's legal fraternity has resolved not to represent individuals accused of misappropriating donations made to the Ram Mandir. If the allegations are true, the alleged theft of devotees' offerings is unquestionably reprehensible, and those responsible should be punished in accordance with the law. However, how can a body of lawyers effectively treat an accused person as guilty even before a court has conducted a trial? The lawyers' association has adopted this position as a mark of protest against the alleged misappropriation of temple donations. It has reportedly also warned that any advocate who appears on behalf of the accused will face a penalty of ₹5 lakh. In addition, the association has demanded that prominent temple trust functionaries, including Champat Rai and Anil Mishra, leave Ayodhya, failing which it has threatened to blockade the entire city. This collective boycott has reignited an important constitutio...

It is often said that “law without morality is a body without a soul.” The maxim suggests that what is legally permissible may not always be morally acceptable, and what is morally objectionable may not necessarily amount to a legal wrong. In a recent judgment, the Punjab and Haryana High Court held that a married woman meeting her former partner on a single occasion, even in a compromising situation, cannot automatically be treated as proof of adultery. The case arose from a matrimonial dispute involving an Indian Navy officer who alleged that his wife refused to share a bed with him and continued to maintain a relationship with her former boyfriend after marriage. The Family Court granted a decree of divorce on the ground of mental cruelty. However, while considering the allegations of adultery, the High Court observed that a solitary incident was insufficient to establish that the wife was living in an adulterous relationship. The Court reiterated that adultery is a serious allega...

The limitations of the Council are not merely jurisdictional. It is often criticised for lacking effective enforcement powers. Its authority is confined largely to issuing warnings, admonitions, or censures. It cannot impose meaningful penalties, levy fines, suspend operations, or enforce compliance with its decisions. Consequently, many of its rulings are ignored, reducing its effectiveness and diminishing its relevance. Moreover, the rise of corporate ownership, concentration of media power, paid news, advertorial masquerading as journalism, and growing ideological polarisation have transformed the media environment in ways that the existing statutory framework is ill-equipped to address. Political considerations and institutional constraints have frequently undermined the Council's credibility and capacity to act as an independent regulator. In the digital era, the regulatory focus has increasingly shifted toward the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and various rules fra...

  The Press Council of India (PCI) owes its origin to the recommendations of the First Press Commission, constituted in 1952 under the chairmanship of Justice G. S. Rajadhyaksha. The Commission was entrusted with examining the condition of the Indian press in the post-Independence era and recommending measures to safeguard press freedom, uphold editorial standards, and improve the service conditions of journalists. Acting on its recommendations, Parliament enacted the Press Council Act, leading to the establishment of the Press Council of India in 1966 as an autonomous statutory body. The Constitution of India, the supreme law of the land, lays down the framework of governance, guarantees fundamental rights, and embodies the democratic values that sustain a free and independent press. Although freedom of the press is not expressly mentioned in the Constitution, it has been consistently recognised by the judiciary as an integral part of the fundamental right to freedom of speech and...

 All religious and social organisations, as well as NGOs, can render a valuable service to society by working to eliminate social evils and encouraging those whose ancestors left Hinduism to reconnect with their ancestral traditions, if they so choose. Recently, Pakistan's Defence Minister, Khwaja Asif, candidly acknowledged that his ancestors were Hindu Rajputs. In an interview, he said that Pakistani students should be taught factual history and that many people in the country have become disconnected from their historical roots.  Those whose ancestors had left Hinduism must be encouraged to reconnect According to Asif, many Pakistanis have been led to believe that their ancestors came from Saudi Arabia or Iran. He argued that this mindset was deliberately cultivated through school textbooks and criticised those who prepared such material. Elaborating further, he pointed out that both he and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had openly acknowledged their Hindu ancestry. H...

  Recently, a video circulated on social media in which a YouTuber asked a Muslim labourer which train he intended to board. Instead of saying "Vande Bharat," the labourer repeatedly referred to it as "Gande Bharat." When the YouTuber asked him why he was deliberately mispronouncing the name, the labourer smiled and replied that he would always call it "Gande Bharat." Such conduct may perhaps be attributed to a person with little formal education. However, prejudice and sectarian attitudes are not confined to the uneducated. I recall a highly educated teacher at Banaras Hindu University who habitually referred to Ramnagar, situated across the Ganges from the university, as "Nam Nagar." He would also offer Namaz in his office chamber on campus. Whenever some students objected to what they considered inappropriate conduct in an academic setting, several others, claiming to uphold secular values, would immediately come to his defence. This illus...

 The demonstration by the newly formed and much-publicised Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) yesterday at Jantar Mantar was a total flop.  Hardly a few hundred people participated, which included supporters and opponents, police personnel, and onlookers who were there only to watch and enjoy. There was practically no presence of Gen Z in the demonstration. Many professional agitators and protesters certainly reached Jantar Mantar, but they received a very lukewarm, if not a cold, reception.  Undoubtedly, it will cause further frustration among the youth of the country. Such demonstrations are political and sponsored by some vested interests. Since it was aimed at denouncing the Modi government, it was clear that forces against the Modi government were active in organising this protest. The arrival of the US-based Mr Abhijeet Deepke at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi was drummed up as if he were a revolutionary of any kind.   The word " cockroach " was...

A disturbing trend appears to be emerging among some politicians who, after being voted out of office, show reluctance to abide by the rules and conventions governing the relinquishment of power and official privileges. In a democracy, respect for the people's mandate requires not only accepting electoral defeat but also gracefully surrendering the offices, residences, and privileges attached to power. Two examples that attracted public attention are those of Mamata Banerjee and Rabri Devi, both former Chief Ministers of their respective states. The country witnessed an unprecedented constitutional situation when Mamata Banerjee, despite losing the Assembly election, did not immediately relinquish office. Ultimately, the Governor had to intervene and administer the oath to the new Chief Minister. Such incidents undermine democratic norms and set an unhealthy precedent. The conduct of Rabri Devi and her husband, Lalu Prasad Yadav, who together dominated Bihar's politics for near...

The Modi government has ushered in several transformational changes over the past twelve years from the perspective of ordinary citizens. The first major change is that young men and women from modest backgrounds no longer have to run from pillar to post to get their documents attested by gazetted officers. Earlier, they often had to visit government offices or even the homes of officials, and many were compelled to pay small bribes to peons or staff members merely to have their documents signed and verified. This not only wasted the time of the youth but also that of the officers and their staff. Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended this cumbersome practice through an announcement made from the ramparts of the Red Fort (Lal Quila). The second significant step was the opening of zero-balance bank accounts for the poorest sections of society without burdensome paperwork. Instead of forcing poor citizens to repeatedly visit bank branches, bank officials themselves reached out to them...