Do it yourself

  The preamble to the Constitution of India declares India to be a sovereign socialist (emphasis added) secular democratic republic. The Supreme Court of India has held in Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala Case (1973) and S R Bommai vs Union of India (1994 ), that the Preamble is an integral part of the Constitution. The Court held that the Preamble is not the supreme power or source of any restriction or prohibition but it plays an important role in the interpretation of statutes and provisions of the Constitution. The question is “whether, in the normal course, every legislation, policy, programs and practices framed and pursued by the Parliament and Executive ought to be congruent with the Preamble, to be constitutionally legitimate? Is it unreasonable to expect that the legislature and policymakers put all legislation, policies, programs and practices framed by them through the test of this declaration, before these are implemented? To clarify, these questions need to ...

Once there was a tyrant feudal lord. He would oppress his subjects using all the means within his power. He would often torture them; force them serve to his cause; plunder their assets; abuse their women and children; violate their traditions and culture and exploit their lands to his benefit. Once he learnt that one of the traders in his village posses large amount of gold and precious stones. He immediately summoned the trader to his palace and ordered him to surrender all his wealth to his Lordship. The trader refused to obey the orders arguing that the wealth is the reward of the hard work done by him and his ancestors, and only his children have the right to own it. The Lord got furious and ordered his muscleman to beat the trader black & blue and lock him in the basement. The musclemen would beat the trader everyday but he would not tell them where his treasure is hidden. To make sure that the trader does not die before disclosing the location of his treasure, the Lord's...

Earlier this month, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) issued a discussion paper on Private Participation in Passenger Trains ( see here ). The discussion paper proposes engagement of private players for running passenger trains on 100 train routes. The routes proposed include some of the most popular routes from Delhi, Mumbai, Patna, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. The objectives of the proposal to engage private operators for running passenger train are stated as follows: Introduction of modern technology rolling stock with reduced maintenance Significantly Reduce Transit Time World Class Service – Improved User Experience Capacity Augmentation Reduce Supply Demand Deficit I would not like to delve into the mundane issue of whether this proposal is a tacit admission by the Indian Railway that it is not possible for it to provide global standard services in the present format. I want to raise a rather meaningful and certainly...