My Columns: Without Fear and Favour

Let there be a fresh look at contempt law (The article was published in A review of Indian journalism critique) By Deepak Parvatiyar Mae West was an American actress, playwright and screenwriter known for her bawdy double entrendres.  The author and star of “Sex”, a big hit up on Broadway, she was booked for obscenity and hustled away into an interim cell before being packed off in the morning to 10 days at the Women’s Workhouse on Welfare Island. “Miss West,”   the presiding judge at Jefferson Market Courthouse had inquired at a late hour on February 7, 1927, “are you trying to show contempt for this court?” “On the contrary, Your Honor,” Mae sweetly responded. “I was doin’ my best to conceal it.” [i]   It is no exaggeration to say that contempt of court is feared largely because of its varied interpretations by the courts. No wonder that Mae’s statement nine decades ago still sounds very contemporary. In India too, it’s no different. The a...

A Shakespeare for the disabled Trans World Features (TWF) The first ever Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) World Congress, which was held in Agra in November end, witnessed 192 persons with different forms of disability among the 1300 delegates from 86 different countries to strengthen CBR as a key for realising UNCRPD (UN Enable - Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) for ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities and for their inclusion in mainstream society. Deepak Parvatiyar reports   Fortysix- year- old Tom shares his surname with the greatest English poet and playwright William Shakespeare. Understandably he takes pride in flaunting his last name. Like William, he too is a British and, to top it all, this sociologist has published works under his belt. Yet, unlike the great ‘Bard of Avon’, Tom ( Sir Thomas William Shakespeare) is not a literary figure but what he possesses is something that might have made even William Shakespeare proud of ...