A Law in Common: India and the United States

The Stimson Center's Seema Gahlaut joins us to discuss India’s historical and contemporary role in the international nuclear order, the impact of nuclear nonproliferation on the Indo-US relationship, and the future of nuclear weapons.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) most recent Special 301 report continued to identify India as “one of the world’s most challenging major economies with respect to protection and enforcement of IP.” The USTR has long argued that India fails to provide adequate patent protection and enforcement. What exactly are the USTR’s objections? How does this impact India’s trade relations with the United States?

Expert guest Professor Srividhya Ragavan, Professor of Law and Director of International Programs at Texas A&M University School of Law will shed light on these and other questions.

California sued Cisco alleging that two employees who migrated from India discriminated against another employee on the basis of caste. While some members of the South Asian-American community claim caste should be a protected category in the United States others claim that doing adding it as a protected category stigmatizes all Hindus. Another way in which caste has become part of the national conversation is as way to understand the oppression of Black Americans. In this episode, we will explore the roots of caste prejudice and discrimination in India and discuss the robust protections exist in the Indian constitution and other law for Dalits. Should the same laws that prohibit caste-based discrimination in India also be adopted in the United States? Is caste an appropriate metaphor for the discrimination faced by Black Americans? These are among the questions Sital Kalantry, a professor at Seattle University School of Law, Aziz Rana, Cornell Law School professor, Anurag Bhaskar a professor at Jindal Global Law School will tackle in this episode. If you are interested in exploring this topic further, click here for some recommended readings.

Seattle University School of Law’s Professor Sital Kalantry and attorney Nidhi Desai at the family law firm of Desai & Miller in Chicago, Illinois, join us for an episode on surrogacy laws in India and the United States. Surrogacy laws implicate both personal and public domains and have implications for marginalized communities both nationally and across international borders. Join us for an enlightening discussion of the laws and ethical issues surrounding surrogacy in India and the United States.

Cornell Law School's Sital Kalantry and Mary John at the Center for Women's Development Studies in New Delhi join us for an incredibly interesting episode on sex-selective abortion in India and the United States. We talk about the practice's prevalence in both countries, the laws against it, the need for changing attitudes, and the roadmap going forward.