PUBLICATIONS

Opinions & Research based writings by Pacta.
18 December 2024
How to India's legal guardianship laws - and the confusion therein - dictate autonomy for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities?
By Krithika Sambasivan and Dishari Chakrabarti
21 October 2024
Comprehensive compliance Calendar for NGOs for various statutory filings
By Pacta
5 August 2024
The labour department of Karnataka recently released the draft Karnataka Gig Workers Bill provisioning for various social security and fair working conditions for gig workers.
By Nivedita Krishna
5 August 2024
A few months ago, I was quite excited by the announcement of the Rajasthan’s Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration And Welfare) Bill, and even went so bold as to claim that India’s legislative approach to ensuring fair working terms to gig workers may be ahead of the United States.
By Nivedita Krishna
5 August 2024
The Committee on Digital Competition Law in India recently released its report recommending that India too, like the European Union must have ex-ante regulations, in the context of digital competition.
By Nivedita Krishna
5 August 2024
By Nivedita Krishna
5 August 2024
Last week, a sitting judge of the Karnataka High Court, Hon’ble Justice Narendar noted that an age limit for social media platform is desirable in view of how addicted children have become to social media.
By Nivedita Krishna
5 August 2024
Have you, like me, found yourself testing your luck at the Delhi Airport?
By Nivedita Krishna
4 April 2024
By Nivedita Krishna, Disha Chakrabarti, Sudeshna Bose
4 March 2024
On the face of it, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act ticks all the right boxes. But from a citizen’s point of view, it has many missing links. For one, the Data Protection Board doesn’t have the power to initiate a suo motu enquiry in cases where individuals might be unaware of their rights or unable to file complaints
By Nivedita Krishna
9 January 2024
By Nivedita Krishna
8 December 2023
The only response to achieving the critical mass is to rework existing parks to become more accessible and inclusive.
By Krithika Sambasivan
6 November 2023
In the last week, two significant developments in the Artificial Intelligence discourse from the United States brought back the focus on concerns of transparency in AI systems.
By Nivedita Krishna
11 September 2023
Regulatory Sandboxes refer to a controlled experiment under which certain emerging business models or technologies or initiatives can be tested, without attracting the full gamut of regulatory compliances.
By Nivedita Krishna
6 September 2023
India's disability pension scheme, the IGNDPS, is marred by poor compensation, strict verification demands, and exclusionary eligibility criteria. How can we fix it?
By Riddhi Lakhiani
4 September 2023
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) is now an imminent reality, meaning that India has a shiny new data privacy legislation.
By Nivedita Krishna
23 August 2023
A Primer for NGOs
By Dishari Chakrabarti
13 July 2023
Rajasthan recently released the draft Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Bill, 2023 for public comments.
By Nivedita Krishna
3 July 2023
The National Family Health Survey provides details of issues from gender and sexuality to well-being. Dropping disability impedes intersectional insights.
By Nivedita Krishna & Upasana Nath
18 May 2023
A matter of concern is that the constraints of smaller non-profits, which are set up to attract more liberal funding, are being used to feed the coffers of the larger and technologically managed non-profits, leaving the smaller, grassroots non-profits to fight age-old battles.
By Nivedita Krishna
20 April 2023
The continually declining budget allocations for disability welfare reveal the need for improving the government's capacity to implement its schemes
By Upasana Nath
19 April 2023
Pacta Research Team Identifies Concerns Over Swiggy and Zomato’s Use of Consumer Data to Inform Business Strategy
By Nivedita Krishna
6 April 2023
82% of women felt comfortable voicing their opinions, and that their opinions were measured by their credibility, knowledge and approach in boardrooms
By Nivedita Krishna
20 March 2023
Sports can be used by companies to achieve specific outcomes through their CSR projects.
By Nandan Kamath & Nivedita Krishna
20 March 2023
India ranked 143rd out of 153 countries in the Gender Gap Report of 2022. Employment rates in India are 27 percent for women and 79.1 percent for men, showing that gender equality is still a pipeline dream for India’s corporate sector. In fact, women only account for 18 percent of India’s labour income.
By Nivedita Krishna
15 March 2023
Only people certified as more than 40 percent disabled can avail readers, lab assistants, and other technical aids during written examinations.
By Deepanshi Sharma & Krithika Sambasivan
6 March 2023
As India advances towards realising the vision of USD 1 trillion digital economy, the emphasis on technology adoption in private and public sector is ubiquitous. India has emerged as a global role model in its adoption of unified national identity (Aadhar), Goods and Services tax (GST) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
By Nivedita Krishna
30 January 2023
Open Digital Infrastructure is the new buzzword today, with government and civil society advocating for strengthening Open Digital Infrastructure.
By Nivedita Krishna
30 January 2023
The dominance of a few aggregator platforms offering food delivery and transport services harms workers and consumers alike. How can platform cooperatives help?
By Anagha Sasidharan, Nivedita Krishna
12 January 2023
By Nivedita Krishna
20 December 2022
Data is widely acknowledged as the new oil and new gold, for the immense value it holds.
By Nivedita Krishna
20 December 2022
As India’s economy continues to grow, CSR funds support a variety of activities for the social and economic upliftment of its citizens, and are often seen as a vital source of revenue for important social causes.
By Nivedita Krishna
1 December 2022
One day last week, I did what tech-lawyers in India have been scrambling to do in the last two weeks. I signed up for an industry body discussion on the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022.
By Nivedita Krishna
15 November 2022
In early September 2022, the Delhi government announced the Delhi Model Virtual School (DMVS), a virtual school for students of class 9-12.
By Nivedita Krishna
15 October 2022
Technology in education has pervaded both private and public education initiatives. A recent ed-tech initiative in the public domain is Delhi’s virtual school, launched via an online platform for students of grades 9-12.
By Nivedita Krishna
14 October 2022
While there is a pressing need to update the telecom regulatory regime to meet the challenges the industry faces today, the draft Bill must be revisited to ensure that oligopolistic patterns are not legislatively reinforced.
By K. K. Prahalad
19 August 2022
For ed-tech’s growth to be sustainable and equitable, India needs a robust ed-tech policy, followed by regulatory measures.
By Nivedita Krishna
5 August 2022
Transparency at the cost of anonymity seems to be a common underlying theme among India, the European Union, and the United States.
By Nivedita Krishna
3 August 2022
The Draft National Disability Policy proposes several changes, including more robust data collection and a Unique Disability Identity. While the new draft has several changes from the 2006 iteration of the policy, does it do enough to assist PwDs in the field of education and job procurement? What are the policy's strengths and weaknesses, and how can we ensure effective implementation?
By Nivedita Krishna
11 July 2022
The new National Policy for Persons with Disability (NPPD) aims to improve the lives of persons with disabilities (PwDs) from birth through life by enabling greater inclusion in 11 domains including education, health, early identification, disability certification, social security, accessibility, disaster management, strengthening institutional reach and capacity building, and protection of rights
By Nivedita Krishna
26 November 2021
Do corporates owe society progress? The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) answers this with a clear yes. Underlying CSR is the thought that a corporate body is a part of the society and not apart from it.
By Deepanshi Sharma
21 September 2021
This article seeks to understand the need for a social stock exchange in India and whether the recommendations made by the SEBI Working Group and the Technical Committee achieve the purpose of bridging the funding gap between the non-profits/for-profits and the private investors.
By Nivedita Krishna & Nandini Narayanaswamy
19 August 2021
As per the 2011 Census, India is estimated to have roughly 2.68 Crore persons with disabilities (PwD) – around half of whom were (at the time of recording) between 20 to 60 years of age
By Deepanshi Sharma
1 July 2021
The grant agreement reflects and amplifies the unequal power dynamic inherent to CSR, which manifests in the form of unfavourable, if not draconian conditions on the grantee. Where must the line be redrawn to create a more equitable social impact environment?
By Nivedita Krishna & Geetanjali Bisht
21 May 2021
Why inclusive education practices for children with disabilities may be under threat in a post-pandemic India.
By Dr. Kirthika Rajaraman, Nivedita Krishna
21 May 2021
While the necessity for the regulation of social media is justified, the manner in which the 2021 IT Rules set out to do so is rather discomforting—to say the least. We fear that these guidelines will lead to a kind of capitalist plutocracy directly in conflict with the constitutional values of free speech—which may also impact the free flow of marginalised voices that civil society organisations strive to promote. Let us show you how.
By Nivedita Krishna, Geetanjali Bisht
21 May 2021
Focused policy reforms are essential to resurrect the quality of instruction at Affordable Private Schools—and, to ensure that education is dispensed in them in some form during the pandemic.
By Nivedita Krishna, Deepanshi Sharma
20 March 2021
Will the enforcement of the newly enacted (controversial) IT Rules 2021 have implications for non-profit organisations who publish information online? The answer is a resounding “Yes”! The question now is: in what ways will they affect them?
By Nivedita Krishna & Geetanjali Bisht
20 March 2021
This exploratory study was conducted to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the inclusive learning opportunities of children with Neuro-Developmental Disabilities.
By Nivedita Krishna & Dr.Kirthika Rajaraman
16 February 2021
The 2021 Budget laid out a 2X increase towards digital e-learning. With projections of an exponential rise in ed-tech services by 2022, the sector needs the attention of policymakers as well. The government must take considered measures to protect the interests of children and young adults. The question is: how does one regulate the complex private ed-tech sector? A middle-of-the-road 'Goldilocks' approach, that balances welfare with profitability, could address these issues.
By Nivedita Krishna & Deepanshi Sharma
23 January 2021
With the Covid-19 pandemic, a significant constituent of the ‘new normal’ is online-schooling.
By Nivedita Krishna & Deepanshi Sharma
23 January 2021
Schools and other educational institutions have been given conditional permission to resume physical classes as per the recent order of the Ministry of Home Affairs. The order marks the end of a strict six-month-long ban on physical schooling. But, can schools simply pick up from where they left off?
By Nivedita Krishna & Deepanshi Sharma
23 January 2021
Domiciliary reservation in private universities would fail the twin-test of reasonable classification for the same reasons as the NLSIU amendment did. What does the classification based on one’s place of residence achieve? How many years of residence should be mandated to qualify? Does it actually benefit those who are underprivileged in a state? To what extent should domiciliary reservations be allowed to dilute otherwise merit-based entrance systems?
By Nivedita Krishna and Deepanshi Sharma
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Recent Amendments to the CSR Rules and Implications for the Not-for-Profit
By Dishari Chakrabarti
Disability Bulletin - Series 7
By Krithika Sambasivan and Lathangi Giridhar
Compliance Calendar for NGOs FY 2024-25
By Pacta
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