Bangladesh’s New Cyber Law and the Shrinking Space for Freedom of Expression
Article 39 of the Constitution of Bangladesh guarantees freedom of thought and conscience and the right of every citizen to freedom of speech and expression. Yet successive governments, regardless of...
Platform Blocking and the Absent Rights-Holder: Telegram v Union of India
India recently blocked public access to Telegram for all Indian users under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000 ahead of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate), one...
Policing Protest in India: What the Supreme Court’s Response to the NEET Demonstrations Means for the Right to Peaceful Assembly
The nationwide protests that followed allegations of irregularities and paper leaks in India’s National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG), India’s national entrance examination for admission to undergraduate medical and allied...
“Government is not banning books”: book ban legislation makes its first appearance in Canada
The book-banning legislation crusade in the United States has officially spilled over into Canada with the passing of Bill 28 by Alberta’s United Conservative Party government under Premier Danielle Smith...
Chiles v. Salazar: Free Speech, Religious Liberty, and the Invisibility of LGBTQ Harm
On March 31, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Chiles v. Salazar, holding that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors violates the Free Speech Clause as...
Judging the Judge: India’s Curriculum Ban and Democratic Accountability
On February 26, 2026, India’s Supreme Court took suo motu cognizance of a grade 8 NCERT textbook chapter titled “Corruption in the Judiciary,” directing seizure of all circulating copies and...
Punitive Use of Preventive Powers in India
On 24th September 2025, four people were killed in police firing after protests for statehood in Ladakh turned violent. On the heels of this unfortunate incident, climate activist Sonam Wangchuk...
Weaponized Legalism and the Promise-Performance Gap: Press Suppression in Transitional Democracies: Part 2 – Comparative Global South Perspectives
In Part 1, I examined how Bangladesh’s interim government weaponized legal frameworks to suppress the press; Part 2 broadens the lens to parallel patterns across the wider Global South and...
Weaponized Legalism and the Promise-Performance Gap: Press Suppression in Transitional Democracies: Part 1 – Bangladesh
This two-part blog examines how transitional governments in the Global South systematically suppress press freedom through “weaponized legalism”—the use of formally legal procedures to violate fundamental rights while maintaining constitutional...
India’s Deepfake Dilemma: Why Publicity Rights and the Proposed Intermediary Rules Both Miss the Mark
On October 22, 2025, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) proposed a set of amendments to the existing Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules,...
Reassessing Corporate Due Diligence Standards in Dual-Use Technology Supply Chains
Amnesty International’s recent report “Shadows of Control” documents how companies from Germany, the UAE, Canada, China, the US, and France have supplied surveillance and censorship technologies to Pakistan: technologies now...
Connectivity Without Access: How Nepal’s Social Media Ban Strips Substance from the Right to Internet Access
In September 2025, Nepal faced massive public protests triggered by a ban on social media apps and websites, where a total of 26 applications were taken down. The protests turned...
