On 26th January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics, we will have equality and in social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of democracy, which this Constituent Assembly has so laboriously built up.
I feel that the constitution is workable, it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peacetime and in wartime. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is that man was vile?
The third thing we must do is not be content with mere political democracy. We must note that our political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life, which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life.
… however, good a constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However, bad a constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot. The working of a Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution.
[Excerpts from Dr. Ambedkar’s address to the Constituent Assembly, 25 November 1949]

Words remain an enigma, their presence within human sphere is a unique mystery. They form the intricate tapestry that convinces us of our existence, blurring lines between fact and fiction. An engagement with words is the most captivating, enchanting, and sometimes daunting encounter with the world. A word, a symbolic entity formed from the ethereal, exists neither as animate nor inanimate, yet pulsates with life. It can emanate warmth or coldness, absorb emotions, or stand as dry as a rock. Words can provoke smiles and elicit joy. They are like glow-worms, momentarily dispelling the surrounding darkness and act as life-saving rafts amid the tumultuous ocean waves. Words grant us the ability to explore the universe, and “to see a world in a grain of sand.” as William Blake noted. They impart a semantic existence to the lifeless, and bestow aesthetic form upon the formless. Scriptures say the word is the world. I say the world within the word is the abode of faith.

The Indian legal system places a significant emphasis on protecting the rights and welfare of children. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, is a vital piece of legislation in this regard. It is designed to ensure that children in conflict with the law receive special care, protection, and treatment, with the ultimate goal of their rehabilitation and reintegration into society.
One of the key provisions of the Act is the establishment of Juvenile Justice Boards (JJBs) at the district level. These boards consist of a Metropolitan Magistrate or Judicial Magistrate of the first class and two social workers, at least one of whom should be a woman. The primary function of the JJB is to determine the age of the juvenile, the circumstances in which the offense was committed, and whether the juvenile should be sent to a special home or released on probation.
The Act makes a clear distinction between a “child in conflict with the law” and a “child in need of care and protection.” A child in conflict with the law is one who has committed an offense, while a child in need of care and protection is a child who is vulnerable or at risk and requires special care and support.
The Act introduces a unique approach to dealing with children who are in conflict with the law. For children between the ages of 16 and 18, who have committed heinous offenses, they can be tried as adults, subject to a preliminary assessment by the Juvenile Justice Board. This assessment considers the child’s mental and physical capacity to commit such an offense. If the board determines that the child should be tried as an adult, the case is transferred to the regular criminal courts.
The Act also places restrictions on the publication of information that could lead to the identification of a juvenile offender. This is done to protect the privacy and future prospects of the child.

There are some advantages of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), 2023. For instance, for the first time, personal data belonging to or identifying children will have to be classified separately, with such data carrying a greater degree of security and privacy. The law also seeks to reduce the rate and impact of data breaches targeting Indian businesses. The Digital Personal Data Protection law, however, goes a step beyond by imposing penalties for cases where data is breached as a result of a lack of implementation of adequate security controls. However, it could be said that the law isn’t balanced, because it provides wide exemptions to the processing of personal data to the government. For instance, data can be processed “in the interest of prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of any offence … in India.” These kinds of exemptions are dangerous as they stand to legitimise widespread and unwarranted collection of data under the guise that such collection and processing may ultimately be useful for preventing or deterring a crime.
Security agencies will have significant authority to collect and retain any data whatsoever, as is typically the case with exemptions relating to the maintenance of sovereignty, integrity, security of the state, preservation of public order, prevention of offences, and incitement to commit offences. The law also exempts processing of personal data held outside of India. The government is also exempt from being required to delete any data that it possesses, regardless of the purpose it may have been collected for, on the request of an individual, or by way of a prescribed data retention period.
The government is not bound by purpose limitations, allowing data collected for one specified purpose be used for a new, incompatible purpose, which stands in contrast to the regulations imposed on businesses.
[Extracted, with edits and revisions from “Digital Personal Data Protection Law Raises Questions About Consistency with Right to Privacy Ruling” published in The Wire dated 22-08-2023]

A survey was conducted about the population of a particular region having working population of three lacs and information was collected about self-employed persons, casual wage workers, regular salaries employees of both urban and rural areas of the region. Self-employment is a key source of income in both rural and urban areas but it is more prevalent in rural areas (56% of the rural population) than in urban areas (40% of the urban population). Rural population was 48% of the total population. Regular salaried workers in urban areas were 48% of the urban population whereas in rural areas, regular salaried workers constituted 12% of the rural population. During the survey, the casual wage workers were found to be more common in rural areas than in urban areas. Casual wage workers in rural areas were 32% of the rural population whereas it was 12% of the urban population in urban areas.
Based on the above information, answer the following questions

The Supreme Court on September 1 held that a child born of a void or voidable marriage can inherit the parent’s share in a joint Hindu family property. A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud however clarified that such a child would not be entitled to rights in or to the property of any other person in the family. A voidable marriage is one that is made invalid by the husband or wife through a decree. A void marriage is invalid at its very inception.
Chief Justice Chandrachud said the first step to the inheritance of a child from a void or voidable marriage would be to ascertain the exact share of his parent in the ancestral property. This could be done by means of conducting a “notional partition” of the ancestral property and calculating how much of the property the parent would have got immediately before his death. Once the share of the deceased parent in the property is ascertained through such a notional partition, his heirs, including his children by means of void or voidable marriage, would be entitled to their portions in the share.
The Chief Justice said that Section 16 of the Hindu Marriage Act has statutorily conferred legitimacy to children born out of void or voidable marriages. In fact, Chief Justice Chandrachud pointed out that Section 16(3) stipulates that children from void and voidable marriages would have a right to their parents’ property. The court said the intent of granting legitimacy to such children in the Hindu Marriage Act should also be reflected in the Hindu Succession Act, which governs inheritance. Children from void or voidable marriages come within the ambit of “legitimate kinship” and cannot be regarded as illegitimate by the Hindu Succession Act when it comes to inheritance.
The case before the three-judge Bench was focused on an amended provision in the Hindu Marriage Act, Section 16(3). The case was referred to a larger Bench in 2011 after a Division Bench of the apex court refused to follow past precedents and championed the cause of children born out of illegitimate marriages.
“With changing social norms of legitimacy in every society, including ours, what was illegitimate in the past may be legitimate today. The concept of legitimacy stems from social consensus, in the shaping of which various social groups play a vital role,” Justice Ganguly, who authored the 2011 judgment, had observed.
During the hearings on the reference, Chief Justice Chandrachud had agreed with the Division Bench’s findings that children from void and voidable marriages had rights over the property, whether self-acquired or ancestral, of their parents
[Extracted with edits and revisions from “Children from void, voidable marriages entitled to parents’ share in ancestral property: Supreme Court”, by Krishnadas Rajagopal, The Hindu, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/children-from-void-voidable-marriages-arelegitimate-can-claim-rights-in-parents-properties-sc/article67259229.ece ]