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Leaflet Specials

Comprehensive coverage, analysis, and breaking news on leaflet specials.

The Constitution in ideology and utopia: A Survey of ‘75 year’ commentaries on Constitution and the Supreme Court | Foreword

The Constitution in ideology and utopia: A Survey of ‘75 year’ commentaries on Constitution and the Supreme Court | Foreword

Editor's Pick•26 Jan 2026

The Constitution in ideology and utopia: A Survey of ‘75 year’ commentaries on Constitution and the Supreme Court | Foreword

In his foreword to The Leaflet’s Republic Day Special Issue 2026, Senior Advocate Mohan Katarki situates constitutional discourse around 75 years of the Constitution in an era of ideological contestation.

Mohan V Katarki

Staff Writer

Latest in Leaflet Specials

The Constitution in ideology and utopia: A Survey of ‘75 year’ commentaries on Constitution and the Supreme Court | Part I - Articles

Republic Day Special Issue 2026•26 Jan 2026

The Constitution in ideology and utopia: A Survey of ‘75 year’ commentaries on Constitution and the Supreme Court | Part I - Articles

We, at The Leaflet, synthesised nearly thirty pieces of public-facing short-form commentary, over forty hours of panels and speeches, and five books – all commemorating the Constitution and Supreme Court at 75 – to read between the lines of how India’s commentators debated its constitutional legacy.

Editor’s Note: The betrayals and futures of the Collegium system

Constitution Day Special Issue•26 Nov 2025

Editor’s Note: The betrayals and futures of the Collegium system

Our Constitution Day Special Issue poses one simple question: Without morally conceding to executive primacy in appointments, is there a way to imagine a more democratic future to how our judges are appointed?

"I, too, became a judge": What my own appointment revealed about the Collegium system’s undemocratic faultlines

Constitution Day Special Issue•26 Nov 2025

"I, too, became a judge": What my own appointment revealed about the Collegium system’s undemocratic faultlines

12 years after his retirement, Justice Chandru recalls the many twists and turns that preceded his appointment as a judge of the Madras HC, and what they revealed about the Collegium system’s deepest problems.

Judicial discretion in the era of Illiberalism

Constitution Day Special Issue•26 Nov 2025

Judicial discretion in the era of Illiberalism

Despite the wide ambit of discretion our judges are required to exercise, our legal system tries to ensure at the time of appointments that judges’ decisions conform to the legal method. But what happens when these mechanisms start failing?

The missing links in the Supreme Court’s released documents on judicial appointments

Constitution Day Special Issue•26 Nov 2025

The missing links in the Supreme Court’s released documents on judicial appointments

In May 2025, CJI Sanjiv Khanna released two documents on the processes behind appointments to the Supreme Court and High Courts. But why have successive CJIs meandered on the question of making judicial appointments transparent?

Partisan shadows on the Bench: Political affiliations in Judicial appointments

Constitution Day Special Issue•26 Nov 2025

Partisan shadows on the Bench: Political affiliations in Judicial appointments

The issue isn’t judges’ political leanings, but whether the Collegium can create a clearer way to account for potential appointees who’ve shown prejudice against any group of citizens.

Between hope and anxiety: Indian electorate at the margins

Independence Day 2025•15 Aug 2025

Between hope and anxiety: Indian electorate at the margins

There are, today, multifrontal questions confronting the election architecture of India. In a time when its own integrity is under question, why is the EC unwilling to disclose information when millions of voters risk disenfranchisement? Has the judiciary been able to provide an accountability mechanism? And why, at 79 years, is the right to vote still not being considered a fundamental one?

“Maximum inclusion, minimum exclusion”: Adult suffrage and enfranchisement at a crossroads in India at 79

Independence Day 2025•15 Aug 2025

“Maximum inclusion, minimum exclusion”: Adult suffrage and enfranchisement at a crossroads in India at 79

Our Independence Day 2025 special issue urges us to look at how the battle for universal adult franchise is now being fought along new frontlines.

The constitutional demand at the heart of voter fraud allegations

Independence Day 2025•15 Aug 2025

The constitutional demand at the heart of voter fraud allegations

The voter fraud allegations have thrown open an undeniable crack in our constitutional framework - the failure to constitutionally protect the independence of the ECI from Parliament and the Government. And increasingly, the fault lines have become difficult to ignore.

Why Gandhi and Ambedkar’s reflections on voters’ list is critical in times of electoral purge

Independence Day 2025•15 Aug 2025

Why Gandhi and Ambedkar’s reflections on voters’ list is critical in times of electoral purge

The Election Commission’s intensive revision exercise in Bihar diverges from Ambedkar and Gandhi’s articulate imaginations of mass enfranchisement.

Demolish, delete, deport: Bulldozing workers’ suffrage

Independence Day 2025•15 Aug 2025

Demolish, delete, deport: Bulldozing workers’ suffrage

Who are the residents, and who are the encroachers? Across informal settlements in India’s urban centres, ceaseless demolitions, combined with judicial complicity, have emerged as means of engineering working class populations out of the electoral process. In response, the affected have invoked their suffrage.

Demolish, then disenfranchise: Urban planning as the new instrument of political engineering

Independence Day 2025•15 Aug 2025

Demolish, then disenfranchise: Urban planning as the new instrument of political engineering

Theoretically, adult suffrage under Article 326 of the Constitution is decoupled from housing status, ensuring that the right to vote cuts across social divisions. But the recent spate of demolitions without rehabilitation and the corresponding weaponisation of Form 7 has birthed a mechanism to purge the poor from democratic participation.

Labour law reform without domestic workers would be a structural omission

May Day Special Issue 2025•4 May 2025

Labour law reform without domestic workers would be a structural omission

The new Labour Codes effectuate a framework of forced labour when it comes to domestic workers. But to start a truthful conversation on domestic workers’ rights, we need a thorough introspection on the labour of care work and the politics of dignity in the caste-community complex of Indian society

Seven cardinal labour rights principles that the new Labour Codes seek to completely undermine

May Day Special Issue 2025•3 May 2025

Seven cardinal labour rights principles that the new Labour Codes seek to completely undermine

Pitting trade unions in an unequal footing against employers, too much discretion to executive, doing away with punitive measures against employers - the Labour Codes could give employers the license to practice forced labour. We must, learning from both our history and from the experience across the world, recognise that the rights we win will be meaningful and substantive only if they are truly universal in their reach

The new Labour Codes entrench the macro-patriarchal tenacity of the Indian State, one step at a time

May Day Special Issue 2025•1 May 2025

The new Labour Codes entrench the macro-patriarchal tenacity of the Indian State, one step at a time

Even as India reports among the worst performance on gender gaps in both employment and wage, the ‘ease of doing business’ geared labour codes only further reinforce the de-equalisation of gender in labour

Feminisation of the industrial workplace: Empowerment or exploitation?

May Day Special Issue 2025•1 May 2025

Feminisation of the industrial workplace: Empowerment or exploitation?

The Foxconn factory at Tamil Nadu has emerged as a site where women workers have faced unsafe, exploitative and discriminatory work conditions, representative indeed of the true position of women workers in the formal sector - forced to work in sweatshops, with heavy workload, and poorly informed of their rights under labour laws.

In the US, an assault on science, global health and human rights: Part 1 - The challenges confronting government-led science and health

World Health Day 2025•22 Apr 2025

In the US, an assault on science, global health and human rights: Part 1 - The challenges confronting government-led science and health

In the first of this three part series special on the critical challenges to science, health and human rights in the US under the Trump administration, we explore the cascading effects of the closing down of major government projects

Has the Indian Patents Act succeeded in ensuring access to affordable medicine?

World Health Day 2025•16 Apr 2025

Has the Indian Patents Act succeeded in ensuring access to affordable medicine?

The major flexibilities in the Indian Patent Act - Section 3(d) and the compulsory licensing system - to make medicines affordable, have been under-implemented. As prices of medicines have skyrocketed, secondary patenting has proliferated while compulsory licensing has been invoked only once

An opportunity for the Supreme Court to enable access to medicines for rare diseases

World Health Day 2025•15 Apr 2025

An opportunity for the Supreme Court to enable access to medicines for rare diseases

Two recent interim orders of the Supreme Court to stay High Court decisions which enabled access to treatment for rare diseases are not only morally and ethically concerning but also block the treatment of people living with rare diseases

India’s production of affordable generic medicines sustains a global lifeline, but it must fortify quality assurance

World Health Day 2025•11 Apr 2025

India’s production of affordable generic medicines sustains a global lifeline, but it must fortify quality assurance

Strengthening quality assurance at the time of approval of medicines at the State level and endorsing a pro-public health patent system will be crucial to sustain India’s ability to supply quality, affordable medicines worldwide

Waning visions of equity: Healthcare privatisation in India and its many discontents

World Health Day 2025•10 Apr 2025

Waning visions of equity: Healthcare privatisation in India and its many discontents

Contrary to the Bhore Committee’s vision of an egalitarian and humane healthcare framework, India has systematically stifled public healthcare, endorsing in its stead an essentially unregulated private sector, straying further from the goal of effectuating the constitutional right to health

Why can’t we defeat the oldest disease known to humankind?

World Health Day 2025•9 Apr 2025

Why can’t we defeat the oldest disease known to humankind?

Over a hundred and forty years since discovering the Mycobacterium tuberculosis, we have not yet eradicated the disease. As we continue to embrace a “wasteful, inefficient” treatment method and now face serious cuts to TB research expenditures by the United States, a renewed commitment to a community-driven, people-centred, response is crucial.

Global health without America: What is at stake for WHO and the world?

World Health Day 2025•8 Apr 2025

Global health without America: What is at stake for WHO and the world?

The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the WHO weakens the international system of global health cooperation and undermines global pandemic preparedness. But it is also an opportunity to innovate a new paradigm of global health governance - of increased regional collaborations and critical reforms in the WHO

An international crisis in health: Reflecting on responses to the HIV and COVID pandemics

World Health Day 2025•7 Apr 2025

An international crisis in health: Reflecting on responses to the HIV and COVID pandemics

The hard-fought spirit of community mobilisation which informed a successful global fight against the HIV pandemic has been vastly undone by the twisted COVID response engineered by developed nations and Big Pharma

“State has completely hijacked the issues of Muslim women and polarised it”: Interview with feminist activist Hasina Khan, of Bebaak Collective

The Leaflet Interview•15 Mar 2025

“State has completely hijacked the issues of Muslim women and polarised it”: Interview with feminist activist Hasina Khan, of Bebaak Collective

“This government is bringing in laws, and using language which has fostered an atmosphere of hatred. In such a situation, if you go to the State, the latter will use the issue of women to target the Muslim community.”

Defunding dissent: How India’s regulatory crackdown is silencing feminist organizing

International Women’s Day 2025•9 Mar 2025

Defunding dissent: How India’s regulatory crackdown is silencing feminist organizing

Our study involving over seventy women’s rights organisations in India revealed that between December 2022 and June 2023, the pervasive fear of shutdowns has stifled feminist uprising. Crackdown on foreign funded organisations through the FCRA has paralysed advocacy and policy work across the space generally and particularly by Dalit and Muslim women’s organisations, where domestic funding has been scarce. The long term consequences of this systemic backlash are yet to play out.

A misnomer: The myth that is the 'misuse' of 498-A

International Women’s Day 2025•8 Mar 2025

A misnomer: The myth that is the 'misuse' of 498-A

In the last three months, the popular discourse surrounding the notion that progressive laws enacted to protect women are being ‘grossly misused’ seems to have reached a fever pitch. The Supreme Court, itself, in the past has deployed phrases such as “legal terrorism” to perpetuate a distorted, if not completely fictional, account of the large-scale exploitations of these legal regimes to harass men and in-laws. But where are the statistics that remotely establish any such conclusion? And, where are these women accused widely of ‘misuse’?

Resisting the backlash: How conservative arguments on marital rape threaten feminist progress

International Women’s Day 2025•8 Mar 2025

Resisting the backlash: How conservative arguments on marital rape threaten feminist progress

A systematic, critical reading of the Union’s submissions in the Supreme Court’s pending case on the constitutionality of the marital rape exemption is also an exercise of resistance. By re-orienting the conversation of rape trials around gender-based violence, we could respond most effectively to the backlash against feminist struggles in our courts, and outside them.

Reproductive justice in retrogression

International Women’s Day 2025•8 Mar 2025

Reproductive justice in retrogression

If the last five years of legal developments are any indication, reproductive rights in India have occupied an increasingly shrinking space. A range of recent statutory instruments, delegated legislations and policies, as well as judicial decisions, have chipped away at these reproductive rights through cumbersome procedural requirements, extensive state surveillance and reporting norms.

Adivasi Women and the Equality Quest/ion

International Women’s Day 2025•8 Mar 2025

Adivasi Women and the Equality Quest/ion

Adivasi women exemplify a confounding intersectional position within India’s societal structure. As part of a broader community-level assertion for land and resources, Adivasi women have played crucial roles. Yet, Adivasi women’s struggle for inheritance has resisted both customary laws and the State’s historic, oppressive imposition of land acquisition policies.

‘Imposed’ not ‘Implemented’: A journey of the Sexual Harassment Law

International Women’s Day 2025•8 Mar 2025

‘Imposed’ not ‘Implemented’: A journey of the Sexual Harassment Law

Twelve years ago, the Indian legislature enacted the Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act. Despite the Supreme Court’s repeated acknowledgement of problems with the law’s implementation, critical procedural hurdles, inconsistent court rulings, and lack of awareness within the informal economy sustain the challenge of its enforcement.

Curator's Note - Backlash: The law’s betrayal of feminist gains

International Women’s Day 2025•8 Mar 2025

Curator's Note - Backlash: The law’s betrayal of feminist gains

On International Women’s Day 2025, we are introducing a special issue curating writings that articulate the multi-faceted backlash against India’s feminist movements, effectuated through our courts, the legislature and the executive. As hard-fought feminist gains are resisted and diluted by dominant interests, this special issue makes a simple, but profound argument - if the law can betray, it can also be reclaimed.

Examining Assam government’s response to SC amidst illegal detention of foreigners in ‘transit camps’: Part 1

Republic Day Special 2025•26 Jan 2025

Examining Assam government’s response to SC amidst illegal detention of foreigners in ‘transit camps’: Part 1

This Republic Day, this article, the first in the series related to the illegal detention of foreigners in Assam, examines domestic and global laws allowing such unfettered powers to governments.

Republic Day reflections: Can we finally remove the blindfold of justice?

Republic Day Special 2025•26 Jan 2025

Republic Day reflections: Can we finally remove the blindfold of justice?

On this Republic Day, as we reflect on the progress and challenges of our democracy, the judiciary must confront its shortcomings and recommit to its foundational principles of justice and equality, writes Naina Bhargava.

How Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar envisioned our republic, endangered by the current regime

Republic Day Special 2025•26 Jan 2025

How Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar envisioned our republic, endangered by the current regime

We need to salvage this great republic. Only jana gana can do it, writes S.N. Sahu.

Indian Republic at 75: Major hits and misses

Republic Day Special 2025•26 Jan 2025

Indian Republic at 75: Major hits and misses

India is here to stand, but if it wants to stand tall, it needs to address issues that weigh it down, writes Mohammad Wasim.

The year that was–14 | Lone dissenting voices in Constitution Bench judgments of 2024

Year-end Special 2024•10 Jan 2025

The year that was–14 | Lone dissenting voices in Constitution Bench judgments of 2024

Who can say that there will not be any larger Bench constituted in the near future involving the same point of law potentially relying upon any of the dissenting opinions marked above, writes Gyanvi Khanna.

The year that was–13 | Great non-fiction books of 2024

Year-end Special 2024•10 Jan 2025

The year that was–13 | Great non-fiction books of 2024

A selection of books for the lawman and the layman, read in 2024, for the year 2025.

The year that was–12 | 2024 in books: Love, hope and resistance—Part 2

Year-end Special 2024•4 Jan 2025

The year that was–12 | 2024 in books: Love, hope and resistance—Part 2

Arvind Narrain presents a list of books read in 2024 so that ‘truth may dazzle gradually’.