Freedom of Commercial Speech

This article examines the right to commercial speech that has been read into the right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India. Restrictions on this right are only permitted if they come within the ambit of the exhaustive list of reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2), under which public health is notably absent. Nevertheless, through the doctrine of harmonious construction, the Indian judiciary have adopted a purposive interpretation to circumvent the omission of public health by carving up freedom of commercial speech into two parts: protected speech which furthers public interest and unprotected speech which is purely commercial. Moreover, the Indian courts have construed these provisions in light of the right to life under Article 21 and the health-related Directive Principles of State Policy under Part IV of the Constitution. This article concludes that judicial creativity in India has consistently been used in favor of prote...

Raphael Cohen-Almagor, the author of Confronting the Internet's Dark Side, explains his motivation for exploring the dangerous side of the world wide web. This new book is the first comprehensive book on social responsibility on the Internet.

Welcome. It's been thirty years, give or take. It's been a long time, but it's nice to be back. Before we begin today's program, just a couple of things. First of all, I would like to thank a person who had a very big hand in putting this all together with me, and that is my friend and colleague, Jim Weinstein.

When I saw that Martin Redish 2 and Burt Neuborne 3 had written reviews of my book, Brandishing the First Amendment, 4 for the Texas Law Review I was both pleased and apprehensive. The apprehension is easy to understand. As Professor Larry Kramer has observed, "Having one's work closely criticized is never pleasant: hugely complimentary, and oh-so-much better than having it ignored, but still difficult and painful." 5 Thus, I approached both reviews with some trepidation. On the one hand, it was a compliment to be reviewed in such a prominent journal. On the other, I had little reason to

In July 2015, my book Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side was published after 9 years of extensive research (Cohen-Almagor 2015). In this forum I explain the reasons for writing this book, its main thesis and its basic structure. I also speak of some of the challenges that I have encountered during my research. It is argued that the present mechanisms to tackle abuse on the Internet are insufficient. We need to evoke awareness and push for greater responsibility of all stakeholders: of people who use the Internet to upload information, of readers who encounter problematic speech on the Net, of Internet Service Providers and Web-hosting companies, of governments and of the international
community at large. Only concerted effort of all will facilitate responsible use of the Internet and prevent abuse.

Journalism is one of the main pillars of a democratic set up. Commonly referred to as the "Fourth Estate", Journalism brings awareness in the society about the democratic and social obligations. Journalists are watchdogs of the society. However, the media is not absolutely free to do whatever seems right to it. Law which regulates the conduct of the State, its institutions and citizens also regulates the media. Like any other profession, journalism is also bound by legal framework. Indian Constitution is the fountain head of laws regulating media in the country.