India: You Need To Implement Pay Rise, ILO Tells India Government

The International Labour Organisation has called on the Central government to implement a stronger wage law in India amid persistent low pay and inequality, especially in case of women.
ILO’s India Wage Report said that the country’s economy in the past two decades has seen an annual average GDP rate of 7 percent but low pay and inequality persisted. The report added that more than 51 percent of the people employed in India, as per 2011-12 data, were self-employed and as many as 62 percent of wage earners are employed as casual workers.

India: Enact Special Laws To Enable The Launching Of Public Credit Registry, RBI VP Urges

The deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Viral V Acharya, on Monday called on the Central government to as a matter of urgency enact a special law to enable the proposed public credit registry (PCR) to take off, and said this will go a long way to resolve the deep data asymmetry in the financial system which in turn can help prevent bad loan pile-up. The VP added that with a low credit-to-GDP ratio of a modest 55.7 per cent, the country is still under-penetrated financially and the proposed PCR can help the system move towards more equitable and timely access to credit, especially to the underserved segments, and thus democratize and formalize the credit flow.

India: Law Education: Problems, Challenges, And The Way Forward

The Indian Law Education is currently being fraught by a lot of inherent challenges. Regulations to impart legal education were framed way back in 1961 with the enactment of Advocates Act. These regulations are however no longer sufficient in contemporary times with social structure undergoing a drastic change and population being on a rise. With changing times, the legal issues have undergone sea changes. Issues such as cross-border adoptions, divorces, human rights issues, multi-national business transactions have emerged as the most common legal conflicts, for which lawyers need to have a vast knowledge of domestic as well as international laws. Erudite lawyers have called on the government to strengthen law education laws as the only way forward.

India: Uniform Civil Code: We May Not Propose UCC, Law Commission Declears.

The 21st Law Commission of India has declared that it may not propose the much anticipated Uniform Civil Code due to lack of time as its Chairman is set to retire on August 31. The Commission will now move only amendments to several personal laws. The Law Panel chief, BS Chauhan, had in December 2017, told newsmen that the exemptions under the Constitution must be honored as an imbalance could disturb the essence of the Constitution. The law ministry, in July 2016, had asked the Law Commission to determine if UCC was possible in India or not.

India: Laws To End Discrimination Against Leprosy Underway, Centre Tells Supreme Court

The Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that it was in the process of drafting a law that will end discrimination against leprosy-affected persons. This was made known during a hearing on a PIL seeking to do away with discrimination against leprosy-affected persons. Solicitor General, Pinky Anand, told a Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, that the process for drafting the law was under way and the government needed four months to complete it. The Supreme Court said it would like to pass certain guidelines in the interregnum. The Bench had in July recommended to the Centre and states to take steps to repeal all existing laws that consider leprosy as a non-curable and contagious disease and issued directions for sensitization of society and treatment and rehabilitation of patients.

India: High Court Criticises The Government For Wasting Public Funds

A High Court sitting in Bombay has criticised the Union government for failing to ensure the smooth functioning of the airports in Maharashtra despite wasting several crores of public funds. The court also warned officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation, of strict action. A division bench of Justices Satyaranjan Dharmadhikari and Bharati Dangre accordingly directed demolition of a 90-meter chimney of a sugar factory, which obstructed take-offs and landings at the Solapur airport.

India: Supreme Court To Determine Whether Sports Can be Declared a Fundamental Right Like Education

The Supreme Court of India is set to examine whether the sport can receive recognition as part of fundamental rights like education currently enjoys. The court on Monday agreed to hear a PIL seeking its direction to Centre and states to make sports compulsory in educational curriculum from elementary to higher education and to declare the right to sports as a part of fundamental rights on line of right to education. Consequently, the court has issued a notice to Centre, University Grants Commission (UGC), National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and Sports Authority of India (SAI).

India: Kerala Flood: CJI Advises Supreme Court Judges To Contribute Towards Relief Funds

The Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, on Monday advised all the Supreme Court judges to consider contributing towards the relief funds for the victims of flood in Kerala which has seen the large-scale devastation of lives and properties. The CJI made this remark during the hearing of a PIL in which the court was contemplating imposing a cost of Rs 25 lakh on a litigant for filing an “improper application” in a PIL on which the verdict has already been reserved.

Canada: Montreal Adopts a Motion Calling For a Ban On Private Ownership Of Handguns, Assault Weapons

Montreal city council in a unanimous vote adopted a motion on Monday calling on the Canadian government to as a matter of National Importance impose a nationwide ban on the possession of handguns and assault weapons. Councillor Alex Norris, who is chair of the city’s public security committee and who presented the motion asserted that “too often we see assault weapons that were made to kill people in the hands of people who have no business owning such a weapon. To put an end to this, we need bans that are clear and precise to reduce the number of these lethal weapons that are circulating in our society.”

Canada: Ontario Needs Crowdfunding Law, Prof Says

A professor of law at the Queen’s University, David Freedman as called for a law which would streamline the activities of Crowdfunding in Ontario. In Canada, Crowdfunding has become the go-to method of raising money for everything from product development to disaster relief, but Freedman believes that Ontario is lagging when it comes to legislation governing how all those dollars are doled out. He, therefore, called on the government to consider enacting a law in this regard.

US: Honeypot Pornography Lawyer Pleads Guilty

A honeypot porn lawyer, Paul Hansmeier, could be jailed for up to 10 years for helping to upload porn films to file-sharing sites and then sue people who downloaded them. Hansmeier has pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and money laundering for his part in the Prenda Law piracy scheme. The scheme is believed to have raked in about $3m. Hansmeier’s guilty plea is part of an agreement that will ensure he does not receive a sentence longer than 150 months.

US: Trump Administration Moves To Penalize Immigrants For Using Government Benefits

The administration of President Donald Trump is considering penalizing legal immigrants for using government benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps and recently signaled in a public notice that it plans to propose new regulations. Many of the details haven’t been finalized. But the idea has already sparked warnings about the consequences for immigrant families and the nation’s health care system.

France: Text Message Isn’t A Legally Valid Will, French Court Declares

A French Court has declared that text messages from dead relatives is not a legally valid will. The court made this known while it was considering a suit to determine who is legally entitled to a dead man’s estate. A French man going through a divorce reportedly sent a text to his sister saying that he wanted their mom to inherit part of his estate instead of his wife. According to the BBC, the mother brought the case to court, arguing that her son’s text should be considered binding. However, the court ruled that according to the country’s law “a will can only be valid if it has been written by hand, dated and signed” because it “minimizes the risk of forgery and mistakes,” the BBC reports.