US District Court Judge Dolly Gee ruled on Friday that the federal government cannot keep migrant children detained during the COVID-19 pandemic. In its minutes, the court stated that while it “appreciates both ICE’s and ORR’s efforts to reduce the number of Class Members in their custody during the pandemic,” the plaintiffs challenging the ongoing [...]

A federal court judge on Friday issued a preliminary injunction against attendance restrictions imposed on religious gatherings in New York state. Judge Gary Sharpe’s order affects the limits that both governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio placed upon religious gatherings in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Both officials had issued [...]

A federal judge found Wednesday that Kentucky’s COVID-19 restriction on mass gatherings is unconstitutional. On March 19 the Kentucky Secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services instituted an order to slow the spread of COVID-19 by restricting “mass gatherings.” The order provides some exceptions, including transportation stations, medical facilities and shopping centers. The [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest Tuesday in a lawsuit that challenges Hawaii’s 14-day quarantine for visitors entering the state. Under Hawaii Governor David Yutaka Ige’s latest COVID-19 executive order, the Ninth Supplementary Proclamation, residents who remained in Hawaii since the beginning of the pandemic are free to travel between [...]

The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut issued a travel advisory on Wednesday that requires people arriving from states with high COVID-19 rates to quarantine for 14 days. This advisory comes days after southern and western states reported their highest number of cases since the pandemic began. During the beginning of the COVID-19 [...]

“In the pandemic economy, face masks are like bars of gold. Hoarders are hoarding them. Governors are bartering for them. Hospital workers desperately need them.” – Michael Schulman The N95 mask is very important armor in battling the COVID-19 pandemic. Instances of hoarding and black marketing of masks are rising in India. Healthcare personnel risk [...]

The British Mathematician, Clive Humby once famously said, “Data is the new oil.” He used it as a metaphor to explain that data is a resource, just like oil, that is useless “unrefined,” but once it is “refined” (mined and analysed), it creates enormous value. A lot of information can be extracted from data just [...]

Technology has always been a necessary evil but the advent of Deepfake has tilted the balance more towards the evil side. Deepfakes are an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based technology used to morph a person’s face onto another and manipulate voice recordings. Deepfakes have been increasingly used to create doctored videos and sound recordings which on [...]

Systems of government procurement are instrumental in mitigating the effects of the public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. First of all, well-organized cooperation between the government and the private sector can help address the most urgent problems, such as shortages of personal protective equipment and ventilators. Second, contracting out research and development projects [...]

The Prime Minister (PM) is the Chairman ex-officio of both the Prime Minister National Relief Fund (PMNRF) and the PM-CARES Fund, constituted to deal with disaster situations, like COVID-19 (which is also a “notified disaster”). Notably, the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (‘2005 Act,’ for short), pregnant with the statutory Fund, having all the trappings of [...]