Union law minister Salman Khursheed said that the entry of foreign lawyers should be left for the bar to decide, welcomed the All India Bar Exam (AIBE), said the government was thinking about reforming the collegium system of judicial appointments, while admitting that pendency was a huge problem, in an interview with legal website Bar & Bench published today.
Legally India brings you the digested read and highlights.
Judicial vacancies: Collaborating with high courts that “fast track court system is either institutionalized permanently or 10% extra judges be provided which is what the Supreme Court has desired. So, we are working on that”.
On the All India Bar Exam (AIBE): A “brilliant initiative” but should be made “really tough” instead of the “very cursory examination” it was currently.
On the entry of foreign lawyers: “This is a very sensitive and controversial issue. I have only said to the Bar Associations and the Bar Council, ‘Ultimately, it is your call.’” Not worth resisting “something that is inevitable”:
“Ultimately one day all of us have to open up, but open up when we have the sense that further protection is not necessary… I think this is something which needs to be debated widely in the bar council and the bar associations and ultimately the lawyers must take a call. I think some movement is taking place, some windows are looking like lights coming in from those windows, but it is too early to give real sense of direction. But I think cooperation and collaboration between lawyers in different jurisdictions including India-Australia and India– US seems to be going well. There are some issues on Europe and India, which I hope will also move in the same direction.”
**Pendency of cases: “**A very major issue… such as chaos on the roads in different parts of India… not how it should be, but you also know that’s how it is.” Need better infrastructure, such as IT for case management, better training for judges and lawyers, and government litigation policy [a Moily legacy]. Khursheed said he would achieve computerised case-statistics and standardised e-filing for all the 18,000 Indian courts in the next two years.
Appointment of judges: Need a “Judicial Appointments Commission” to replace the present dilatory collegium system for appointment of high court judges. “To have an alternative institutionalized system in which more or less the top judiciary will remain equally important, but the inputs that come at different points will all be put in at the same time… I will not bet on it right now. Let the final shape come in front of the public and stakeholders and see their responses.”
On the All India Judicial Services Bill: “Will take its own time”.
On the Judicial Standard and Accountability Bill: Currently stuck between demands from parliament for a regime that is a “lot tougher” and judges’ argument for no additional checks.
On potential Supreme Court judicial overreach: “I think that this is a very complex subject… its best to let things evolve and new adjustments and new boundaries can be done as we move forward.”
On social media and recent Twitter blocking of journos: “I don’t know. They may have been or they may not have been.”
Teaching at Oxford: Some of the best (three) years of his life.
On Salman Khursheed: Other than Oxford, loves theatre, his many pets and other wildlife too, including visiting sanctuaries in India.
Photo by Muhammad Mahdi Karim
Comments
Is a book review or movie synopsis 'synthesizing the
hardwork' of an author?
With this article we are effectively promoting the content of a competitor and the hard work of another website, and have very clearly attributed the source of the interview and linked to it. At this point I might also like to add that a lot of publications, online and in print, have been very happy rip off LI's news and hard work without so much as a virtual hat-tip.
We are condensing and summarising what we think is most interesting from this interview, providing a service to those readers who don't have time to read every single newspaper, website or 5,000 words of a Khursheed interview, which contains some interesting nuggets.
For those readers who do have the time and interest, please do read the original interview and the original sources to some of our stories, which we always clearly reference.
Best wishes,
Kian
If i bring out a daily newspaper named "Better Times of India", and copy past the entire daily edition of the Times of India, with a message that the original source of the articles contained in my newspaper is attributable to Times of India, and then i sell my newspaper "Better Times of India" at 50 paise less than TOI, would that mean that it is lawful and legal to do this.
Of course, your site is free, but then by just being a type of a feed for legal news, you are draining away those readers who would have otherwise visited B&B to read the news article, without visiting their site.
Nothing personal, just my two bits.
I am not associated with B&B or any other website
For argument's sake, if your "Better Times of India" condensed and re-wrote the original Times of India stories in a better or more interesting manner, then yes, I might very well want to read it the Better Times of India and the TOI should pick up its game and provide a better newspaper.
(Of course, if 100% of all the articles in the Better TOI, including layout and everything else was the same as TOI, perhaps that wouldn't be entirely legal under copyright laws).
We copy-pasted around 5% of the originally published verbatim speech of Khursheed, clearly using quote marks and attributing this very clearly to B&B in the first paragraph on the front-page. If that constitutes ripping-off an an entire interview, then I wonder what the other 95% of the original interview were?
I think it's fair use, and incidentally, condensing a long piece of text into something concise also takes a lot of hard work.
If LI content was so "ripped off" on another website with attribution, I wouldn't mind and be happy about the exposure LI would get on another website. And if someone were to come up with a Better Legally India website, aggregating our content, by all means, go for it! We'll just have to adapt and improve our content so that readers will want to read our original content, rather than Better LI's.
My philosophy is that a lot of information and news these days has essentially become a commodity. Insisting on walling in your content and saying no one else can get at it, unless they come to you, is silly and ends up with no one reading your content.
Similarly silly is the practice that is sadly still followed by a lot of papers that "if our competitor reported this news, it didn't happen", or, in something that is almost as bad: "If our competitor broke this piece of news, we will re-package it and pretend that we broke it to start with."
Our job is to try and come up with a mix of news that our readers will hopefully find informative and interesting. In this case, I judged that a summary of the Salman Khursheed interview would add value and some information to our busy readers' lives.
I appreciate some may disagree, but if anything, that reflects the changing nature of news and information.
My 2 cents.
Best regards,
Kian
Now speaking in terms of legality, copying hard work and all that, as per existing laws in India, its perfectly legal to reproduce original work provided that the original authors contribution has been duly acknowledged. So "I" dont think LI has done anything wrong. This happens on print and media journalism on a daily basis and is an accepted position.
And if other news sources use your stories without acknowledging you, that is clearly a shameful act and not to be condoned in the least. But that doesn't mean you stoop to there level. We expect better from LI. And this just doesnt seem right.
Sometimes stand-alone articles, are also entirely based on things published elsewhere, and attributed properly.
This story, very clearly in the first paragraph and on the frontpage attributed B&B as the source. I don't know how much clearer we can be, short of putting B&B in the headline of the story?
I think B&B and the interviewer would be happy that their scoop exclusive interview is being more widely circulated, that the B&B brand is basically being promoted on another website and that they're getting lots of traffic from LI from people who want to read the full interview.
And again, we have re-published only 5% or so of the original article (in quotes!), and summarised some of the rest.
I'd argue that's exceedingly fair, legal, ethical, as well as a value add for our readers, and therefore a win-win all around.
Best wishes,
Kian
Piece of advice. Don't waste your time. These people who are objecting to this piece either just don't get it, or get it but are acting dumb and being difficult. I think people who regularly read websites, blogs, and online publications regularly (and who also profess to be lawyers or law students) will understand what "attribution" and "referencing" mean, will understand something is NOT plagiarism or a rip-off if it is clearly acknowledged who the original author is. There is no need for you to waste your time on responding to BS like this - you responded once, and the point clearly isn't getting thru....so, I think you should spend your time on more useful stuff :-) It's not just a waste of your time to keep repeating yourself to defend yourself to such folks, it's also tiresome for the rest of us readers :-)
It's a shame there weren't some more insightful comments on the actual interview itself...
It sounds like Trilegal / A&O were right, for example: unsurprisingly it seems there is absolutely no political will to liberalise...
Its an interesting story, is newsworthy, clearly identifies the source. What more can one want?
It appears I was incorrect in my assumption, which I regret.
Bar & Bench has therefore accepted our offer to publish their clarificatory statement in this thread: "We would like to let you know that we are happy with the present amount of promotion we receive from our readers and we do not need any promotion from another website."
I trust this settles the issue and we can leave this debate behind us.
Best wishes,
Kian
If questions on corruption are relevant, then even this is relevant.
Btw, the law minister might as well have to resign after this expose. So, B & B might have to do the interview all over again with a new Law Minister.
assume a reporter from B and B chases the law minister, his secretary, cronies, babus, etc for months and finally gets an interview with the minister. And then, another website capsules the interview and presents it on their website (albeit with the acknowledgement that "we have gone through the interview and now presenting our condensed view of the interview" (so that you don't have to waste your time reading about the not-so-important parts of the interview)
And LI has been doing this for sometime now (Raghul went through the tedious process of filing RTI to get Rainmaker/BCI MoU. LI just reproduced (5 percent, maybe, as Kian says).
That is "armchair journalism, kian, my friend"
Again, nothing personal. I enjoy reading both the sites. Cheers
Why weren't any questions put about 1 year LLM proposal ??
The BB interview of Khurshid was unpalatable and one of the most boring things I've ever had the misfortune of trying to read. LI did the source material a huge favour with its digest. Keep it up please!
Granted, Some of the articles on BB by practising lawyers are ok. And B&B has done a few good articles and interviews (that of Khurshid was not one - LI did it a favour by translating into English. Same with AIBE RTI.)
Most telling is that no one in my office reads BB regularly.
Which part of our coverage do you think is 'gossip'? You're not the first to say so, although so far it's mostly been disgruntled senior partners unhappy with us looking into their business.
But what troubles me is that in India I believe 'gossip' is often used to describe news that is untrue or plainly a rumour.
I try quite hard to make sure our reporting is solid and factual, although occasionally the topics are on the fun side of the spectrum.
So if we're perceived as a gossip rag, I'd be interested to know what exactly creates such an impression and if/how we should/could change that?
Best wishes,
Kian
Here's what it seems to me. Getting an interview with a union minister may not be easy. Bar and Bench did the dirty work, maybe at some expense and time; you conveniently hijacked it and grabbed many eyeballs without spending a paisa or applying a few seconds of brainpower.
And then you try to justify this crap by saying you'd be fine if it happened to LI.
everyone doesn't share your liberal views. B&B is perfectly justified in not being an enthu-cutlet like you when it comes to getting more coverage. And you ought to respect that.
Think about it before ripping another article or interview next.
We exist to serve our readers with what they want to read and with what they should know, not to protect the egos of others. If something is important or interesting, we will try to cover it rather than pretend it never happened.
And just for the record, condensing a 5,000 word interview to 500-odd words is not easy and is actually what an editor does for a living.
Honestly now, thread closed, please :)
when there are these many people telling you you've done something wrong, it is in good taste to consider very carefully if you have. and i do believe you have, like all of these people.
abovethelaw.com, also a blog, references news captured on other websites quite tastefully, with single line summaries and full attributory links. it is not so much 'what' you have done that is tasteless but how you have done it.
you may continue to behave as though you are right. you are not. show some humility and selfawareness. not everyone who disagrees with you is a troll.
(and many other examples, if you can be bothered to look)
Nuff said, seriously.