72: Building a humane prisons in India: A case for reform: Prof Murali Karnam and Mr Somesh Goyal,

72: Building a humane prisons in India: A case for reform: Prof Murali Karnam and Mr Somesh Goyal: The core purpose of the partnership between The Purpose Room and The India Justice Report is about helping raise awareness and understanding of the Indian justice system and also getting ordinary citizens to understand, be aware and curious about the justice system. The aim of course is to discuss how the delivery of quality justice must be seen as a priority and become real in the lives of everyone.

In the first episode Maja Daruwala, Chief Editor of the India Justice Report, and a barrister from Lincolns Inn and Valay Singh, Project Lead of the @India Justice Report spoke about the purpose behind India's first ever ranking of states on their capacity to deliver justice and what that means

Episode two with Surya Prakash B S DAKSH a civil society organisation working on judicial reforms and Radhika Jha, a lead researcher for the Status of Policing in India Report series from Common Cause focused on on budgeting in the justice system, the availability of funds, underutilisation, prioritisation or lack of it, access to justice, the quality of justice and more…

The third episode focuses on the status of women in policing in India. My guests Meeran Chadha Borwankar and Devika Prasad spoke about the systemic issues that hold women back, and what actions can be taken to reach the target numbers.

In episode four Jacob Punnose ex-DGP and State Police Chief of Kerala and Jayanto Choudhury ex-DG NSG and ex-DGP Assam Police talk about the systemic issues that ail India policing - conditions of work; budgets; internal culture; accountability; public perception etc.

This week my guests Prof Murali karnam, a research scholar on Prison Reforms and Penology and Mr Somesh Goyal, Former dg Himachal Police and former Director General of (Prisons) speak about what can be done a) to make the administration of prisons stronger so that prisons are not places of violence and violation of rights b) what needs to be done to - to turn prison administration away from the warder-lockup-control-punishment mode to that of genuine reform and rehabilitation of prisoners.

Whether it is the UK or India it is important that all of us understand the contours of the system that governs us and not just for the sake of accountability!

Listen to this episode and catch up with previous episodes here