It was a delight to attend a very informative talk on the legal aid and the criminal justice system at the Bangalore International Centre , last Thursday. The panellists were eminent leaders in the domain, both nationally and locally in Bangalore; Justice (Retd.) Madan B Lokur , Prof. Vijay Raghavan, Aarti Mundkur, Dr. Anup Surendranath and Monica Sakhrani. Scroll down to the Too Long; Didn't Read (TL;DR) section if you're short on time, to get a gist of the article. It includes my personal opinions too, so don't give it a skip even if you read the entire article! The talk began with Justice Lokur explaining his concerns with the access and quality of legal aid provided to under-trials. He said that often, prisoners do not even know the status of their case because of the weak communication between legal aid lawyers and the under-trial. A report highlighting such problems that was submitted to the SC by Dr. Anup and his team has not been addressed and the debate