What is right and what is wrong is a dilemma that scientists, regulators and laypersons have faced frequently during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lines between the right and the wrong choice are more blurred than ever in governance and decision-making relating to health.

In ‘Right or Wrong: Vaccination and Ethics’, the second episode of the podcast ‘Healthy Dose’, we speak to Dr Anant Bhan, an eminent bioethicist and Adjunct Professor at Yenepoya University, to explore these dilemmas through the lens of Bioethics.

The episode attempts to make sense of what bioethical principles bind scientists, regulators and decision-makers in a public health emergency or otherwise. How can laypersons understand these principles and its application in their daily life?

Please send an email to us at [email protected] for queries and feedback on this episode.

Readings:

Joshua Teperowski Monrad, ‘Ethical considerations for epidemic vaccine trials’, Journal of Medical Ethics available at https://jme.bmj.com/content/46/7/465#xref-ref-9-1

Report of an advisory panel to WHO, World Health Organization, ‘Ethical considerations for use of unregistered interventions for Ebola viral disease’ (2014) available at https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/130997/WHO_HIS_KER_GHE_14.1_eng.pdf;jsessionid=A2799B8F84B5DDB90745AA1A8B0C1F6C?sequence=1

World Health Organization, ‘Ethics in epidemics, emergencies and disasters: Research, surveillance and patient care’ available at https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/ethics-in-epidemics-emergencies-and-disasters-research-surveillance-and-patient-care-training-manual

WHO Working Group for Guidance on Human Challenge Studies in COVID-19, World Health Organization, ‘Key criteria for the ethical acceptability of COVID-19 human challenge studies’ available at https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331976/WHO-2019-nCoV-Ethics_criteria-2020.1-eng.pdf?ua=1

John Authers, ‘Developing and distributing a vaccine confronts humanity with next moral test’ available at https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/developing-distributing-a-vaccine-confronts-humanity-with-next-moral-test/articleshow/77312920.cms

Producer and Host: Sneha Visakha

Intro Music: Wehrmut by Godmode

Outro Music: Opheliea's Blues by Audionautix

In the ninth episode of the Feminist City, Sneha Visakha is in conversation with Dr. Mohsin Alam Bhat, Associate Professor, Jindal Global Law School. He is the principal investigator of the Housing Discrimination Project (HDP), a three-year empirical research project on urban rental housing discrimination in India. In this episode, they discuss the housing discrimination project and the nature of rental housing discrimination against Muslims in Indian cities such as Delhi and Mumbai. Dr. Bhat explains the modalities and narratives that underpin discriminatory practices against Muslims in the city and how ‘access’ to housing networks differs for different groups in the city. He also highlights the need to understand the cost and impact of discrimination, not merely in terms of outcomes, but as an ongoing, affective process, that results in the construction of exclusionary cities. They also discuss the role of law in addressing discrimination and the importance of multidisciplinary engagements with the law.

You can read more about Dr. Mohsin Alam Bhatt, here: https://jgu.edu.in/jgls/faculty/mohsin-alam-bhat/ and find more information on the Housing Discrimination Project, here: https://jgu.edu.in/jgls/faculty-research/research-centers/public-interest-law/housing-discrimination-project/.

Readings

Cities Divided: How Exclusion Of Muslims Sharpens Inequality, Mohsin Alam Bhat & Asaf Ali Lone, Article14

https://www.article-14.com/post/cities-divided-how-exclusion-of-muslims-sharpens-inequality

Bigotry At Home: How Delhi, Mumbai Keep Muslim Tenants Out, Mohsin Alam Bhat, Article14

https://www.article-14.com/post/bigotry-at-home-how-delhi-mumbai-keep-muslim-tenants-out

Urban Rental Housing Market: Caste and Religion Matters in Access, Sukhdeo Thorat, Anuradha Banerjee, Vinod K. Mishra, Firdaus Rizvi, EPW (2015)

https://www.epw.in/journal/2015/26-27/housing-discrimination/urban-rental-housing-market.html

For whom does the phone (not) ring? Discrimination in the rental housing market in Delhi, India, Saugato Datta, Vikram Pathania, WIDER Working Paper (2016)

https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/whom-does-phone-not-ring

Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation, eds. Laurent Gayer, Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst Publishers (2012)

https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Muslims_in_Indian_Cities.html?id=qSnmSjPO6JsC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y

In Search of Fraternity: Constitutional Law and the Context of Housing Discrimination in India, Rowena Robinson, EPW

https://www.epw.in/journal/2015/26-27/housing-discrimination/search-fraternity.html

The Capitalist Logic of Spatial Segregation: A Study of Muslims in Delhi, Ghazala Jamil, EPW

http://epw.in/journal/2014/3/special-articles/capitalist-logic-spatial-segregation.html

The Right Time to Speak of Housing Rights in India is Right Now, Sushmita Pati, TheWire

https://thewire.in/urban/housing-rights-covid-19-city-space-delhi-mumbai

Have you ever participated in a lemon and spoon race?

If you run fast, you drop the lemon. If you’re slow, you lose the race! It is all about maintaining that perfect balance between speed, and safety while maintaining your own footing. Indian regulatory authorities and scientific institutions have confronted a similar challenge: how to create a safe and effective vaccine against the Novel Coronavirus and at the same time, produce speedy results?

In the first episode of the the podcast series ‘Healthy Dose’, Shreya Shrivastava, Research Fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy is in a conversation with Dr Nilima Kshirsagar National Chair Clinical Pharmacology, ICMR, New Delhi, and with Dr Dhvani Mehta, Lead, Health, and Co-founder of Vidhi to discuss how scientists and regulators deal with this conundrum.

To know more tune in to ‘Vaccines - A Lemon and Spoon Race’ the first episode of the podcast series ‘Healthy Dose’.

Please send an email to us at [email protected] for queries and feedback on this episode.

Readings:

1. T. J. John and V. M. Vashishtha, ‘Eradicating poliomyelitis: India's journey from hyperendemic to polio-free status’ available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734678/

2. Janani M. and N. Venkatesh D., Clinical Evaluation of Vaccines, Vol. 11(5), 1775-1780 Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research (2019)

3. ‘What is the difference between efficacy and effectiveness?’ available at https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/what-difference-between-efficacy-and-effectiveness

4. The New Drugs and Clinical Trial (‘NDCT’) Rules, 2019 available at https://cdsco.gov.in/opencms/export/sites/CDSCO_WEB/Pdf-documents/NewDrugs_CTRules_2019.pdf,

5. New Drugs and Clinical Trials (Amendment) Rules, 2020 available at https://cdsco.gov.in/opencms/opencms/system/modules/CDSCO.WEB/elements/download_file_division.jsp?num_id=NTk3Mw

6. Government of India, ‘Office Memorandum regarding Rapid Response Regulatory Framework for COVID-19 Vaccine Development’ available at http://dbtindia.gov.in/sites/default/files/uploadfiles/Checklist_Recombinant%20Vaccine%20_COVID%2019_compressed.pdf

7. 'Draft Regulatory Guidelines for Development of Vaccines with Special Consideration for COVID-19 vaccine’ available at https://cdsco.gov.in/opencms/resources/UploadCDSCOWeb/2018/UploadPublic_NoticesFiles/Regulatory_guidelines_for__development_of_Vaccine_20.9.20.pdf

8. ‘How India’s regulatory pitfalls helped Covishield and Covaxin get rapid approval’ available at https://theprint.in/opinion/how-indias-regulatory-pitfalls-helped-covishield-and-covaxin-get-rapid-approval/581676/

9. ‘UK medicines regulator gives approval for first UK COVID-19 vaccine’ available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-medicines-regulator-gives-approval-for-first-uk-covid-19-vaccine

10. 'New Pfizer Results: Coronavirus Vaccine Is Safe and 95% Effective’ available at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/health/pfizer-covid-vaccine.html

Credits:

Concept and Script: Yogini Oke and Shreya Shrivastava

Research: Rajashri Seal

Script Editing: Akshat Agarwal

Production: Nithin Shamsudhin

Design: Akhil Tom Prakash

With India’s vaccination programme against COVID-19 burgeoning everyday, vaccines have become a part of the public imagination, in almost an unprecedented manner. Naturally, we have many questions about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, and how they will reach us. What are the laws and regulations governing this process?

If the question 'How does a vaccine reach from the labs to the people?' piques your interest, listen to the first season of the podcast ‘Healthy Dose’ where Shreya Shrivastava and Yogini Oke, Research Fellows at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, speak to vaccinologists, public health ethicists, economists and bureaucrats to help us navigate the complex web of information around vaccination.

Please send an email to us at [email protected] for queries and feedback.

Producer and Host: Sneha Visakha;

Intro Music: Wehrmut by Godmode;

Outro Music: Opheliea's Blues by Audionautix;

Trigger Warning: references to gender-based violence and structural violence

Kindly note – This episode is English and Hindi; a translated transcript will be put up on our website shortly.

In the eighth epsiode of the Feminist City, Sneha Visakha is in conversation with Deepa Pawar, Founder-Director, Anubhuti Trust. In this episode, they talk about the diversity of urban youth, the challenges young women & girls face in the city, particularly those belonging to vulnerable communities such as nomadic and denotified tribes (NT-DNTs) in the city. They talk about the right to pee campaign, the way urban infrastructure and deprivation contributes to gender-based violence, exclusion and injustice. They discuss the politics of urban development, about who helps build the city and who benefits from the current paradigms of development, about ‘mental justice’ as a critical dimension of social justice to be situated in the constitutional framework, and about the invisible structural violence that city-dwellers experience, particularly those belonging to NT-DNT communities.

Deepa Pawar is the Founder and Director of Anubhuti Trust, with 20 years of experience in the social development sector. With a Masters’ in Social Work, she is a trained counsellor who has worked extensively with vulnerable communities and a core member of the Right to Pee campaign. She is an internationally recognised NT-DNT woman activist and wrote the first ever book documenting Gadiya Lohar nomadic tribe’s iron weapons / tools making.

Anubhuti Trust, formed and self-led by women from different backgrounds, work on wide-ranging issues such as youth leadership, community development, mental justice, disaster risk management and constitutional literacy among others, from a gender justice, anti-discrimination and constitutional lens.

You can read more about Deepa Pawar and her organization, Anubhuti Trust here: https://www.anubhutitrust.org/about/. If you would like to support their work, you can find information here: https://www.anubhutitrust.org/get-involved/

Readings:

Mental Justice of the NT-DNTs in Context of the Pandemic, Deepa Pawar, EPW

https://www.epw.in/engage/article/mental-justice-nt-dnts-context-pandemic

Mental Justice: An Action-Research Report with College Youth in Maharashtra, India, Anubhuti Trust

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OZc3wrnWQIsO4uJfDZ0QQtK9qSiSLa5t/view

Reporting on the Payal Tadvi case - Livemint, TheWire

https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/payal-tadvi-suicide-case-the-death-of-a-doctor-1559891147950.html

https://thewire.in/law/payal-tadvi-suicide-case-supreme-court-allows-accused-doctors-to-pursue-higher-education

Journey to Social Awareness, with Deepa Pawar, The New Indian Woman Podcast

https://www.thenewindianwoman.com/post/journey-to-social-awareness-with-deepa-pawar

The Right to Pee Campaign (article), Refinery29, Video Explainer, Mumtaz Shaikh, BBC

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2015/12/99116/right-to-pee-india-safe-bathrooms-campaign

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-34861876

Infographic: Study on the socio-economic and educational status of denotified tribes (DNTs), Vijay Korra, EPW Engage

https://www.epw.in/engage/article/denotified-tribes-evidence-undivided-andhra-pradesh

Arbitrary & Disproportionate Criminalisation of Marginalised Communities, Srujana Bej, Nikita Sonavane, Ameya Bokil, Oxford Human Rights Hub

https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/arbitrary-disproportionate-criminalisation-of-marginalised-communities-a-countermap-of-pandemic-policing-in-india/

Countermapping Pandemic Policing - Sanctioned Violence in Madhya Pradesh, Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.indiaspend.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Countermapping-Pandemic-Policing-CPAProject.pdf&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1614954882938000&usg=AOvVaw3dVHY_-EEamYrD1AOyLOk8

In the season finale of Justify, Dr Arghya Sengupta and Raag Yadava, Assistant Professor at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, talk about the state of legal education at institutions in India, and how legal training can keep pace with the expanding role of legal professionals.

The India Justice Report 2020, released recently, provides a picture of the state of justice in the country. It is a quantitative measurement of budgets, human resources, infrastructure, workload, diversity across police, judiciary, prisons and legal aid in the country.

In the 10th episode of Justify Season 2, Vidhi's podcast on law and politics in India, Dr Arghya Sengupta discusses the findings of the report and its importance with Maja Daruwala, Chief Editor of the report and Vijay Raghavan, Professor at TISS. Through the rankings in the report, they explore the failings of the Indian justice system and the reforms it needs, particularly in prisons and policing.

Read the India Justice Report 2020: https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/research/the-indian-justice-report-2020/

Watch out for Vidhi's quiz, CLATTR, at the end of the episode, and stand a chance to win an Amazon voucher. Write in your answer and feedback on the episode to [email protected].

Producer and Host: Sneha Visakha;

Intro Music: Wehrmut by Godmode;

Outro Music: Opheliea's Blues by Audionautix

Trigger Warning: references to gender-based violence and domestic violence

It has been a decade since the publication of Why Loiter? a book that changed the way we think about women’s safety, autonomy and how women and girls occupy the Indian city. In the seventh episode of the Feminist City, Sneha Visakha is in conversation with Dr. Shilpa Phadke, one of the authors. They talk about the ways thinking around women’s safety has changed or remained the same, about women claiming political citizenship, the way ‘love jihad’ is constructed to target the Muslim community while exercising control over women and girls, about how one can understand and embody the lessons of Why Loiter? a decade later in the background of the paternalistic, anti-democratic and neoliberal contexts we increasingly find ourselves in. They also discuss Dr. Phadke’s work on desexualising safety, the right to claim risk, what it means to be a feminist parent to children, and how does one nurture feminist imagination?

Dr. Shilpa Phadke is an Associate Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. You can read about her work here: https://www.tiss.edu/view/9/employee/shilpa-phadke/

Readings

Why Loiter? Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets, Shilpa Phadke, Shilpa Ranade, Sameera Khan, Penguin India

https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Why_Loiter.html?id=HWi-S1ZAdOgC&redir_esc=y

Unfriendly Bodies, Hostile Cities: Reflections on Loitering and Gendered Public Space, Shilpa Phadke, Economic and Political Weekly

https://www.academia.edu/4550964/Unfriendly_Bodies_Hostile_Cities_Reflections_on_Loitering_and_Gendered_Public_Space

Dangerous Liaisons; Women and Men: Risk and Reputation in Mumbai, Shilpa Phadke, Economic and Political Weekly

https://www.epw.in/journal/2007/17/review-womens-studies-review-issues-specials/dangerous-liaisons.html

If Women Could Risk Pleasure: Reinterpreting Violence in Public Space, Shilpa Phadke, in Bishakha Datta (ed.) Nine Degrees of Justice: New perspectives on violence against women in India, Zubaan

https://zubaanbooks.com/shop/nine-degrees-of-justice/

Feminist Mothering: Some Notes on Sexuality and Risk from Urban India, Shilpa Phadke, Journal of South Asian Studies

https://www.academia.edu/3624227/Feminist_Mothering_Some_Reflections_on_Sexuality_and_Risk_from_Urban_India

Sexual Violence and Sexuality Education - The Missing Link, Ketaki Chowkhani, Kafila

https://kafila.online/2012/12/25/sexual-violence-and-sexuality-education-the-missing-link-guest-post-by-ketaki-chowkhani/

Habits of Leaking: Of Sluts and Network Cards, Wendy Chun & Sarah Friedland

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282302834_Habits_of_Leaking_Of_Sluts_and_Network_Cards

Making a Feminist City - Planning Safety and Autonomy in the City, Sneha Visakha

https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/research/making-a-feminist-city-planning-safety-and-autonomy-for-women/

Reclaiming Our Public Spaces, Shiny Varghese, The Indian Express

https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/room-for-dignity-public-places-shivaji-park-india-gate-nariman-point-shaheen-bagh-central-vista-redevelopment-6232703/

Rest As A Form of Social Justice, NPR Interview with Tricia Hersey, founder, The Nap Ministry: Rest as Resistance

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/04/869952476/atlanta-based-organization-advocates-for-rest-as-a-form-of-social-justice

The History of Doing, An Illustrated Account of Movements of Women’s Rights and Feminism in India (1800 – 1990), Radha Kumar, Zubaan

https://zubaanbooks.com/shop/history-of-doing-an-illustrated-account-of-movements-for-womens-rights-and-feminism-in-india-1800-1990/

How to Raise a Feminist Son, Sonora Jha, Penguin India

https://penguin.co.in/book/how-to-raise-a-feminist-son/

In the ninth episode of Justify Season 2, Vidhi's podcast on law and politics in India, Dr Arghya Sengupta speaks to Amit Kapur, Joint Managing Partner of J. Sagar Associates and expert on infrastructure and regulatory laws, on the Union Budget 2021, its focus on infrastructure development, and the changes needed in law to back the proposed reforms.

Watch out for Vidhi's quiz, CLATTR, at the end of the episode, and stand a chance to win an Amazon voucher. Write in your answer and feedback on the episode to [email protected].

Producer and Host: Sneha Visakha;

Intro Music: Wehrmut by Godmode;

Outro Music: Opheliea's Blues by Audionautix

Trigger Warning: references to violence against women, sexual harassment, carcerality, and extra-judicial violence

Legal approaches to women’s safety have tended to be highly dominated by discussions around criminal justice and carcerality. In this episode, Sneha Visakha is in conversation with Alok Prasanna Kumar about why tackling violence against women must shift away from criminal approaches to bringing about structural changes towards correcting gendered power imbalance in society - making questions of municipal law, education and social and economic justice mechanisms sites for feminist legal intervention. They discuss the contrast in the State’s paternalistic protectionism towards women’s safety versus the targeting of young women by the State’s criminal apparatus, changing goals of feminist movements, varied state responses to violence against women belonging to marginalised communities, about carcerality, trauma and why the criminal justice system doesn’t seem to work for women.

Readings:

Making a Feminist City - Planning Safety and Autonomy in the City, Sneha Visakha

https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/research/making-a-feminist-city-planning-safety-and-autonomy-for-women/

Power, An open letter to the Supreme Court changed the way many Indians thought about women’s rights, Sarita Santhoshini, FiftyTwo.in

https://fiftytwo.in/story/power/

The Unconstitutionality of the Marital Rape Exemption in India, Agnidipto Tarafder and Adrija Ghosh, Oxford Human Rights Hub

https://bit.ly/3qzaFmo

Submission to UNSR on Violence Against Women on Thematic Report on Rape, Sandra Fredman, Anjali Rawat, Aradhana Cherupara Vadekkethil and Meghan Campbell, Oxford Human Rights Hub

https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/publications/submission-to-unsr-on-violence-against-women-on-thematic-report-on-rape/

Feminism in Legal Education, Catherine Mackinnon; Feminist Legal Theories, Summary

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/LegEdRev/1989/7.html

https://cyber.harvard.edu/bridge/CriticalTheory/critical3.txt.htm

The “Public Secret” of Torture, Its Dimensions and Context, In conversation with Jinee Lokaneeta, Indian Journal of Law and Public Policy

https://ijlpp.com/in-conversation-with-prof-jinee-lokaneeta-the-public-secret-of-torture-its-dimensions-and-context/

On sexual harassment, why complain, strategic inefficiency, nodding as a non-performative, in the thick of it, complaint and survival, Sara Ahmed, Feminist Killjoys

https://feministkilljoys.com/2015/12/03/sexual-harassment/

Book Review: Sheela Reddy’s Mr And Mrs Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India, LiveMint

https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/5ZctNxvhWGgJWAIfWjr5MM/Book-review-Mr-And-Mrs-Jinnah.html

Most Harassment of Transgender People is by Police, Times of India

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Police-harass-transgenders-most-says-study/articleshow/51869919.cms

One in Every Three Under-Trial Prisoners in India Is Either SC or ST: Study, The Wire

https://thewire.in/rights/one-in-every-three-under-trial-prisoners-in-india-is-either-sc-or-st-study

People of denotified tribes continue to bear the burden of an unjust colonial past, Nikita Sonavane , Srujana Bej , Ameya Bokil, The Indian Express

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/people-of-denotified-tribes-continue-to-bear-the-burden-of-an-unjust-colonial-past-7095613/

What to Say to Your Daughter About Campus Sexual Assault, Nicole Bedera, Slate

https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/03/daughter-advice-sexual-assault-college.html

A detailed list of readings is here: https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/podcasts/the-feminist-city-trailer/shifting-away-from-criminal-approaches-and-carcerality-for-gender-justice/