Shreya Singhal and 66A

Most software code has dependencies. Simple and reproducible methods exist for mapping and understanding the impact of these dependencies. Legal code also has dependencies –across court orders and within a single court order. And since court orders are not produced using a structured mark-up language, experts are required to understand the precedential value of a…

A dangerous silence in India’s north-east

Unlike the 2012 Delhi gang rape, the violence meted out against women in India’s north-east has not elicited widespread calls on the government to act. The silence is proving costly. In early October 2014, the body of a young tribal girl was found facedown in Meghalaya’s East Garo Hills. Her body had been decapitated, charred,…

The 21 Century bystander effect

For a very long time, we have been guilty of something in our online lives. It isn’t trolling as a blatant exercise to establish power over another’s presence in the same space, but trolling because everyone else is doing it. Sociologist Erving Goffman called it ‘backstage behaviour’ — a presentation of one’s self to a…