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In another blow to academic freedom at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, civil rights activist Teesta Setalvad was initially denied entry to the institute on Wednesday, where she was scheduled to give a talk. The faculty intervened after the institute’s security tried to block her entry, the Telegraph reported.

https://thewire.in/education/iisc-disallows-teesta-setalvads-talk-on-communal-harmony-faculty-intervenes 

17/08/2023

Monopolies and the Constitution: A History of Crony Capitalism by Steven G. Calabresi https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/facultyworkingpapers/214/

Despite the post New Deal rational basis mindset, this article has shown that state antimonopoly clauses in particular have
proven to be important for striking down a number of economic regulations that grant special
privileges to some at the expense of others—licensing requirements, taxes designed to benefit
preferred industries, monopolies to do business with the government, and price controls designed
to benefit insiders. Antimonopoly clauses can also be used to strike down laws such as licensing
requirements where the court finds that the laws grant special privilege absent any health and
safety concerns.

The right to compete, and more fundamentally, the right to earn an honest living, is a
basic right embodied in U.S. constitutional law. There is substantial evidence, from the English
and colonial history, from debates on the federal constitution and its ratification, from the history
of the Fourteenth Amendment, and from state constitutional law, to show that this is the case.
However, the longstanding use of rational basis review has meant that the courts have too often
surrendered to a legislative process that is dominated by well-entrenched interest groups seeking
monopoly rents from the state. It means that fundamental economic liberties too often go
unprotected by the courts. In short, the use of rational basis review has meant that “property is at
the mercy of the pillagers.”485 As this article has shown, however, “the constitutional guarantee
of liberty deserves more respect—a lot more.

“Crony Capitalism” As an Economic Strategy by Prabhat Patnaik  https://peoplesdemocracy.in/2023/0212_pd/%E2%80%9Ccrony-capitalism%E2%80%9D-economic-strategy

Adani’s invoking nationalism was debunked by Hindenburg on the grounds that fraud does not disappear if the fraudster shrouds himself in a nationalist cloak; this would be true if the nation’s interest was somehow independently and objectively defined, but if the nation’s interest is simply taken to be identical with the interest of the Modi-Adani duo, then this accusation loses validity. Adani’s defence was based precisely on assuming this identity.

“Crony capitalism” under the Modi dispensation by contrast is elevated to the status of an economic strategy and is pursued confidently as being in the “national interest”... Not instituting an inquiry into the affairs of the Adani empire would be impossible, for it would be an act lacking any credibility in global financial circles; likewise an inquiry that finds the Adanis to be pure and lily-white will carry no credibility in global financial circles. Hence the Adanis will have to face some punitive action no matter how light. 

..This entire episode has been a particular manifestation of the contradiction between the globalisation of capital and any notion of the nation-State, including what purports to be, though implicitly, a “Hindu” nation-State. The contradiction arises not because globalisation is a rectifying process that brooks no wrong-doing; it arises because under globalisation competition between capitals occurs at a level where no single nation-State can snuff it out.