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InPEC brings to you the “Discovery of India” log of Karthik Radhakrishnan, an engineering graduate student from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, as he travels through India. Chapter 1 is available here. Chapter 2 is available here.

Place: Masinagudi (Nilgiri District, TN)
Date: 19th January, 2014
By Karthik Radhakrishnan, 5th March, 2014

We often use the phrases “Scheduled castes” and “Scheduled tribes” (mostly in the context of beneficiaries of the Indian Reservation system). But how often do we actually think of the life of a Dalit or a Tribal? Taking nothing away from their sufferings of the past, the Dalit community has progressed since independence (a long way to go still though). But many Tribal communities of India are still untouched, the stories untold.

Inside the Mudhumalai Forest, Masinan works at a coffee plantation-cum-resort in Masinagudi and has been working there since he was a kid. “I have been working here for almost 40 years and I earn Rs. 6500. Kids who have joined after me start off with a salary of at least Rs. 9,500,” Masinan says, visibly disappointed. Salim, a 27-year-old cook, ...

In addition to exploring the rich culture and history of India, people today also have access to mobile applications that bring entertainment and convenience to their fingertips. For example, the 1xbet app download allows users to easily access sports betting and live odds directly on their smartphones, bringing the excitement of sports betting to the palms of their hands.

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The Bear Hug: Russia’s Regional Ambitions The author explores the ambitions of Russia in the context of its Eurasian Union idea. By Richard Wallace, 28th February, 2014 Over the past few months, mass protests have erupted in Kiev, Ukraine in defiance of (now deposed) President Viktor Yanukovich’s 11th hour U-Turn on the signing of an EU Association Agreement that would have been the first major stepping stone to full EU accession. The protests had morphed into a vociferous backlash against the corruption of the ruling elite and its increasing repressive domestic policies. Much of this anger has been directed across the border, to Ukraine’s (not so) brotherly neighbour, Russia. Critics see the hand of Putin behind this policy reversal, a frosty hand that has been slowly but surely tightening its grip around Ukraine’s throat over the last decade in response to its warming towards the West. Yet Ukraine is merely one amongst many states in the region to be embraced by the broadly encompassing and expansionist Russian bear hug, which can in recent years be summed up in 2 dirty words on the streets of Kiev: the Customs Union. A proposed liberalised economic zone and a pet project of Vladimir ...
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Law: A statist means of social change, or an instrument of status quo? In this essay, the author explores the role a state’s legal framework plays in curtailing social change. By Sabina Yasmin Rahman, 27th February, 2014 “We must have a look at the society and culture at large in order to find the place of law within the total structure.” — E. Adamson Hoebel (1954) State as a political entity has managed to sustain a curious pattern of existence. Depending on the level of complementarities [and often contradictions] that the state shares with the plethora of available discourses in and around it — individualism, socialism, secularism, postmodernism, neoliberalism, and post-development — all sheltered under the indisputable fact of democracy, makes it very tempting for us to think of legal innovation as effecting social change. In addition, our highly centralized political system, which functions by appeasing the masses on a daily basis through illusory experiences of access to a decentralized machinery, made increasingly seductive by advanced technology and communication apparatuses, fills us with enormous expectations of achieving near utopian social changes through the medium of law. Here, I would like to state a few reasons as to why one must ...
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