Street vendors constitute the most significant and deprived segment of the country’s unorganised sector. Among vendors, the condition of Dalit, women, and child vendors is the most horrific, depressed, and necessitous. Other than being a source of self-employment for the poor, vending is vital to provide convenient, affordable services to the urban populace. It is ironic that the current laws, schemes, and policies are awfully unsympathetic, hostile, and unreceptive towards the ordeals of this section of the urban population. This paper attempts to explore and expose the vulnerability, fragility, and marginalisation of this section under faulty urban governance and development practices by tracking their lives, pains, and plight as vendors.
The Supreme Court in March 2020 passed a judgment that diluted the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The judgment was passed under the pretext of protecting innocent persons from being booked under false cases, thereby preventing the misuse of the law.
The marital rape exception must be removed as it is no longer legally tenable in light of the Supreme Court decisions in various cases. Contrary to arguments that the central government has advanced repeatedly, these decisions hold that marriage does not mean there is irrevocable consent for sexual intercourse, and that a regressive practice cannot be used to ensure the stability of marriage.
Silicosis, one of the world’s oldest and commonest occupational diseases, has not received adequate policy attention in India. Sustained campaigns by national and state human rights bodies along with non-governmental organisations over the past decade have resulted in greater awareness and some relief in the form of detection and monetary compensation to affected workers. However, preventive measures at the workplace and punitive action against defaulting employers are still a far cry. In this regard, the Rajasthan Policy on Pneumoconiosis is a pioneering move by any state government.
The Supreme Court collegium in India, which is the determinative authority for appointment of judges to the higher judiciary, began publishing its resolutions on the Supreme Court website in October 2017, purportedly to foster transparency. A study of all the published resolutions over a period of two years—from 2017 to 2019—reveals that the collegium systematically failed to disclose critical information essential to an enhanced understanding of its functioning and thus failed in its declared objective of promoting transparency.
