Pre

Banni Grasslands Reserve or Banni grasslands form a belt of arid grassland ecosystem on the outer southern edge of the desert of the marshy salt flats of Rann of Kutch in Kutch District, Gujarat State, India. They are known for rich wildlife and biodiversity and are spread across an area of 3,847 square kilometres. They are currently legally protected under the status as a protected or reserve forest in India. Though declared a protected forest more than half a century ago Gujarat state's forest department has recently proposed a special plan to restore and manage this ecosystem in the most efficient way.[1][2] Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has identified this grassland reserve as one of the last remaining habitats of the cheetah in India and a possible reintroduction site for the species.[3]

The word ‘Banni’ comes from Hindi and Sanskrit word ‘banai’, meaning made. The land here was formed from the sediments that were deposited by the Indus and other rivers over thousands of years. Old villagers from this region say that before the 1819 Rann of Kutch earthquake, the river Indus flowed right through banni and the local farmers reaped a rich harvest of crops like red rice and sindhi chookha etc., red rice was the staple diet of the people of the region and it was even recommended by medical practitioners as a 'light diet' for ailing people. However, since the earthquake of 1819 the river Indus changed its course and now flows through Sindh in neighbouring country of Pakistan effectively turning this entire region arid.[4][5]

Banni grassland is peculiar to the Rann of Kutch, it has some forty Sindhi speaking Maldhari (cattle breeders) hamlets, home to the Halaypotra, Hingora, Hingorja, Jat and Mutwa tribes .[6] It was first declared a "protected forest" in May 1955, using the nomenclature of the Indian Forest Act, 1927. Since then, the actual transfer of the land from the Revenue department to the Forest department has not been completed.[7]

Vegetation Edit

Vegetation in Banni is sparse and highly dependent on year-to-year variations in rainfall. Banni is dominated by low-growing forbs and graminoids, many of which are halophiles (salt tolerant), as well scatted tree cover and scrub. The tree cover is primarily composed of Salvadora spp. and the invasive Prosopis juliflora. Dominant species include Cressa cretica, Cyperus spp., grasses in the genera Sporobolus, Dichanthium, and Aristida.

Wildlife Edit

The grasslands are home to mammals such as the nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus), chinkara (Gazella bennettii),[8] blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra), wild boar (Sus scrofa), golden jackal (Canis aureus), Indian hare (Lepus nigricollis), Indian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes), caracal (Caracal caracal), Asiatic wildcat (Felis silvestris ornata) and desert fox (Vulpes vulpes pusilla) etc. among others. The last Indian wild ass (Equus hemionus khur) population, which had become confined to nearby Little Rann of Kutch, has been increasing in numbers since 1976 and has recently started spilling over into adjoining areas including Greater Rann of Kutch, Banni and the adjoining villages of the neighbouring Indian state of Rajasthan.[9][10][11]

Banni grasslands also have a rich diversity of avifauna, herpatofauna and invertebrates. During good rainfall years the seasonal water bodies of Banni form important staging grounds for thousands of flamingos, migratory cranes and also support large numbers of over 150 species of migratory and resident birds.[12]

Reintroduction of cheetah Edit
Main article: Cheetah reintroduction in India
Banni Grasslands Reserve and Narayan Sarovar Sanctuary, both in Kutch, have been classified by Wildlife Institute of India (WII) as the last remaining habitats of the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) in India and are proposed as some of the possible sites for the reintroduction of the species in India.[3][13][14] Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) that used to occur here are now locally extinct in India an

Mist anr music

How is Indian classical music different from Western classical music? What are their similarities?

Melody and rhythm are the common grounds for music, be it Western or Indian. Indian music is essentially monophonic (single melody format or homophonic) while Western music can be polyphonic (multiple notes played or sung in harmonised unison), monophonic or a combination of both.
Western classical music is based upon the equal tempered scale, and rests upon melody, harmony and counterpart while Swara and Tala are the two basic components of Indian classical music.

Swaras are the twelve notes and the intervening semitones , while a Tala is a cycle of beats, starting with a stress point called the Sam and ending with a release point called the Khali. It is this (sam & khali) that brings life to a Tala.

What is meant by 'Hindustani' and 'Carnatic' music?

Indian classical music has two distinct styles-Hindustani classical music and Carnatic music. Hindustani music is prevalent all over India except in the Southern States, where Carnatic music is practiced.

What is the origin of these two styles of music and which is older?

No definite answer can be given about the antiquity of either of these styles of music. The tradition of Indian music practiced and developed is nearly three thousand years old. Indigenous musical styles and schools evolved and developed in different regions of the country by blending purely ritualistic music and folk music. The basic elements remain the same. The semantic divide between the two styles started from the time of the 'Sangeetaratnakara' of Sharangadeva (1210-1247 AD). This was later enhanced by the Muslim influence and this musical bifurcation was described for the first time as Hindustani and Carnatic music by Haripaladeva in his text the 'Sangeetsudhakara' (1309-1312 AD).

What are the similarities and differences between 'Hindustani' and 'Carnatic' music?

Both the styles are monophonic, follow a melodic line and employ a drone (tanpura) with the help of one or two notes against the melody. Both the styles use definite scales to define a raga but the Carnatic Style employs Shrutis or semitones to create a Raga and thus have many more Ragas than the Hindustani style. Carnatic ragas differ from Hindustani ragas. The names of ragas are also different. However, there are some ragas which have the same scale as Hindustani ragas but have different names; such as Hindolam and Malkauns, Shankarabharanam and Bilawal. There is a third category of ragas like Hamsadhwani, Charukeshi, Kalavati etc. which are essentially Carnatic Ragas. They share the same name, the same scale (same set of notes) but can be rendered in the two distinctively different Carnatic and Hindustani styles. Unlike Hindustani music, Carnatic music does not adhere to Time or Samay concepts and instead of Thaats, Carnatic music follows the Melakarta concept.

What is a raga?

Each Raga has its own scale consisting of minimum five and maximum seven notes (swaras). A raga has specific ascending (Aaroh) and descending (Avaroh) movements, specific dominating notes (vadi) and specific notes complementing the Vadi (Samvadi) notes. The characteristic phrases of a raga (Pakad) establish its identity and mood.

How many ragas are there?
Originally, there were six Ragas and thirty-six Raginis (melodies with softer emotions). Hundreds of Ragas were created with the help of these Ragas and Raginis, many of which have become obsolete. In recent times, musicians have composed many more ragas. There are today, approximately, 120-150 ragas in use.

Are these ragas used in classical music only?

Ragas are used in semi-classical and light music as well.

What is a Thaat?

9. Thaat is a system by which different sets of complete scale of seven notes, in ascending order, are formulated to categorize the maximum number of ragas under it. Thaat or Mela is known as the Parental scale. There are ten Thaats under which most of the Hindustani ragas c

Diagram

carnatic vs hindustani

European union is a case in point for increasing bureacratisation and rule by technocrats...it undermined sovereignty and democracy which is why britain exited.

Also the referendum can be seen as a retrograde step as it harks the world back to parochial sentiments and identites such as conservative nationalism intolerance of others etc. Britain would have had to suffer a little but eventually both eu and britain would have won. The referendum showed that democrcay by masses is what plato calls is hysteria and  mob rule..

Norway along with iceland and liechestein follows the eea

Hindustani music and sufism

Not many might know that in 2014 the Islamabad High Court had issued a notice in a blasphemy case to Amjad Sabri, one of the finest qawwals of Pakistan, along with two TV channels for the playing of a qawwali during a morning show. Amjad Sabri was gunned down in Karachi on Wednesday afternoon and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's Hakimullah Mehsud group has accepted responsibility for the attack through its spokesperson Qari Saifullah Mehsud.

Around the 12th century, Hindustani classical music diverged from what eventually came to be identified as Carnatic classical music. The central notion in both these systems is that of a melodic mode or raga, sung to a rhythmic cycle or tala. These principles were refined in the musical treatises Natya Shastra, byBharata (2nd–3rd century CE), and Dattilam(probably 3rd–4th century CE).[1]

In medieval times, the melodic systems were fused with ideas from Persian music, particularly through the influence of Suficomposers like Amir Khusro, and later in theMughal courts. Noted composers such asTansen flourished, along with religious groups like the Vaishnavites. After the 16th century, the singing styles diversified into differentgharanas patronized in different princely courts. Around 1900, Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande consolidated the musical structures of Hindustani classical music, called ragas, into a number of thaats. Indian classical music has seven basic notes with five interspersed half-notes, resulting in a 12-note scale. Unlike the 12-note scale in Western music, the base frequency of the scale is not fixed, and intertonal gaps (temperament) may also vary; however, with the gradual replacement of the sarangi by theharmonium, an equal tempered scale is increasingly used. The performance is set to a melodic pattern called a raga characterized in part by specific ascent (aroha) and descent (avaroha) sequences, which may not be identical. Other characteristics include "king" (vadi) and "queen" (samavadi) notes and characteristic phrases (pakad). In addition each raga has its natural register (ambit) andportamento (meend) rules. Performances are usually marked by considerable improvisation within these norms.

Sabri's murder is part of, to borrow words from Pakistan's most prominent human rights activist Asma Jahangir, "an unnerving tale of how politics empowered bigotry, laws were used for persecuting religious minorities and liberal Pakistanis, and how an easy-going Muslim population was turned into an insufferable "puritanical” society.”

Qawwali is one of the musical forms - and perhaps the most important one - through which Sufism speaks. Most people associate Sufism with Shias but 'soft' Sunnis, who often share religious observances with Shias, also revere Sufi saints and visit their shrines. In Purifying the Land of the Pure: Pakistan's Religious Minorities, Farahnaz Ispahani tells us that between 2001 and President General Pervez Musharraf's resignation in 2008, at least 713 Shias were killed and 1,343 wounded in eighty-six terrorist attacks.

Then, between 2009 and 2015, 1,659 Shias were killed and 2,950 injured in 320 incidents of terrorism.

Sufi shrines have been regularly attacked in Pakistan. On 1 July 2010, two suicide bombers killed 42 people at Data Darbar, a 900-year-old shrine which houses Sufi saint Data Gunj Bakhsh Ali Hajveri's grave, in Lahore. People were astonished when Pakistani media, instead of blaming the jihadi terrorists whose hostility to Sufis was well known, tried to put the blame on the country's alliance with the United States and a section of it even tried to accuse the Ahmadis of the attack.

Why do the Islamic jihadis hate the Sufis so much? The simplest explanation is that while the Islamic zealots are inspired by sectarian hatred and glorify divine retribution, the Sufis glorify divine love and compassion. The jihadis accentuate religious differences and rely on violence but the Sufis spread the message ofwahdut al-wajood (unity of being) and bring comfort to people. They are as different from each other as chalk is from cheese. An important facet about Sufism is that it has been, to a very considerable extent, responsible for the spread of Islam in the Indian subcontinent. Little wonder that the Islam as it is practised in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is very different from the one practised in the Arab countries. However, as the Islamic jihadis are inspired and financed by the Saudi Wahabis, they maintain that the Wahabi version is the only authentic Islam and the Sufis are essentially apostates and heretics.

These days the word Sufi is being so widely used as a prefix that it has almost lost its original meaning. We now have sufi kathak, sufi pop, sufi hip-hop, sufi rap and so on. However, its shortest definition is that it is Islamic mysticism coupled with asceticism and the Sufis consider Prophet Muhammad as the first Islamic mystic. As the early Muslim mystics used to wear a loose robe made of suf (Arabic word for wool), people started calling them Sufi.

Read on Firstpost: With Amjad Sabri's death, legacy of qawwali music in Pakistan faces sudden void

They used music and dance to enhance their spiritual experience and getting into a state of mystical trance. After Muslim invaders had conquered large parts of India, Sufi saints also started arriving here.

As they did not differentiate between rich and poor, Muslim and Hindu, upper castes and lower castes, they soon became very popular and people started joining their faith. Musical soiree or sama became an important event at their khanqahs.

The process of assimilation of Indian and Persio-Arabic music had begun under the famous Suhrawardi Sufi saint Shaikh Bahauddin Zakaria (1191-1267) whosekhanqah would host sama where singers would attempt this assimilation. It is said that Multani, one of the most popularragas in the Hindustani classical music, was created by Bahauddin Zakaria.

During the 13th century, Delhi began to emerge as a great centre for the Chishtisilsila or branch of Sufism. Hazrat Nizamuddin Chishti, who was called the sultan of the soul, was by far the most influential Sufi saint. Until recently, residents of Old Delhi used to call not only his dargah but the entire locality of Nizamuddin Basti as Sultanji. Nizamuddin and his disciple Amir Khusrau played a most important role in the development of many musical forms of which qawwali became the most popular. Under the reign of the Delhi Sultans qaul, naqsh, tarana,nigar and ghazal became part of the repertoire of Indian singers and qawwali took shape. The qawwals became an integral part of the royal court as well as the Sufi centres and they began to base their singing on the raga-raginis as well as folk music, thus creating a wonderful musical amalgam that went very well with the syncreticism of the Sufi saints.

Qawwals also came to be known as Delhi singers. It is said that Nizamuddin Aulia was so fond of raga Poorvi that he would want to listen to it almost every day. Akhayal bandish composed by Amir Khusrau in his honour is still sung by Hindustani classical vocalists in raga Poorvi. Qawwali reminded people of Hindu kirtans and became very popular among the masses and the ruling elite alike.

The clans of qawwals became very well known and their descendants were called qawwal-bachcha. It is widely maintained that the qawwal-bachchas are the creators as well as popularisers of Khayal that eventually deprived dhrupad of its primacy and became the most important genre in the field of Hindustani classical music.

Many great qawwals emerged during the last century in the Indian subcontinent. They included Jafar Husain Badayuni, Warsi Brothers, Habib Painter, Shakila Banu Bhopali, Wali Muhammad, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Sabri Brothers (Ghulam Farid Sabri and his younger brother Maqbool Ahmed Sabri). Of them, while Habib Painter, Wali Muhammad and Shakila Banu Bhopali excelled in the popular form of qawwali, Jafar Husain Badayuni, Warsi Brothers, Wali Muhammad, Nusrat Fateh Ali and Sabri Brothers managed to sing both the traditional qawwalis as they used to be sung at the Sufi khanqahs and the popular qawwalis that would strike an instant rapport with the masses. Top qawwals had the proper training in voice culture and their expertise in alap as well as taans was of such high order that they could compete with any khayal singer. They also excelled in layakari.

Amjad Sabri was the son of Ghulam Farid Sabri and had become over the years one of the most sought after qawwals. He had adapted himself and his art to the changing times and was very popular among young listeners. His most memorable qawwalis were Tajdar-e- Haram, Bhar Do Jholi Meri and Mera Koi Nahin Hai Tere Siwa. His assassination is a reminder that when religious bigotry takes over, nations self-destruct.

The Hindustani music system uses different musica
forms like the Dhrupad, Khyal, Thumri, Dadra, Tarana and so on. Of these, the important ones are Dhrupad, Khyal and Thumri. While the Dhrupad is the most strict form in terms of grammar and presentation format, the Khyal permits more liberty. The Thumri is the most flexible compared to the other two. But what separates one form from the other? How can one identify and differentiate? Let's see in detail. 

Dhrupad: The Dhrupad is considered one of the oldest forms of Hindustani vocal music. The performance of Dhrupad consists of two parts, namely, the exposition section or Alap and the fixed composition or Bandish

Khayal: This word comes from the Persian word, meaning idea, thought, conception or imagination. This form is more free and flowery when compared to the somber Dhrupad. Khayal covers diverse topics such as divine love, separation of lovers, seasons, praise of kings, patrons and the pranks of Lord Krishna. The style and presentation of singing a Khayal greatly differs from that of Dhrupad. In fact, the subtle nuances and embellishments are also diffe

The advent of Islamic rule under the Delhi Sultanate and later the Mughal Empire over northern India caused considerable cultural interchange. Increasingly, musicians received patronage in the courts of the new rulers, who in their turn, started taking increasing interest in local music forms. While the initial generations may have been rooted in cultural traditions outside India, they gradually adopted many aspects from their kingdoms which retained the traditional Hindu culture. This helped spur the fusion of Hindu and Muslim ideas to bring forth new forms of musical synthesis like qawwali and khyal.

The most influential musician of the Delhi Sultanate period was Amir Khusrau (1253–1325)- A composer in Persian, Turkish, Arabic, as well as Braj Bhasha. He is credited with systematizing some aspects of Hindustani music, and also introducing several ragas such as Yaman Kalyan, Zeelaf and Sarpada. He created the qawwali genre, which fuses Persian melody and beat on a dhrupad like structure. A number of instruments (such as the sitar) were also introduced in his time.

Amir Khusrau is sometimes credited with the origins of the khyal form, but the record of his compositions do not appear to support this. The compositions by the court musicianSadarang in the court of Muhammad Shahbear a closer affinity to the modern khyal. They suggest that while khyal already existed in some form, Sadarang may have been the father of modern khyal.

Much of the musical forms innovated by these pioneers merged with the Hindu tradition, composed in the popular language of the people (as opposed to Sanskrit) in the work of composers like Kabir or Nanak. This can be seen as part of a larger Bhaktitradition, (strongly related to the Vaishnavitemovement) which remained influential across several centuries; notable figures includeJayadeva (11th century), Vidyapati (fl. 1375 CE), Chandidas (14th–15th century), andMeerabai (1555–1603 CE).

The main emphasis in Carnatic music is on vocal music; most compositions are written to be sung, and even when played on instruments, they are meant to be performed in a singing style (known as gāyaki).[20] LikeHindustani music, Carnatic music rests on two main elements: rāga, the modes or melodic formulæ, and tāḷa, the rhythmic cycles.[20]

Sufism and amjad sabri..farewell to the hero of unity

Yogasutra by patanjali

Overcoming the hesitations of history .modi

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A tale of two judgments

Updated: May 12, 2016 02:25 IST | Abhinav Chandrachud

    

Two recent rulings hark back to a key debate during the writing of the Indian Constitution about the incorporation of the American doctrine of substantive due process

In 1947, Justice Felix Frankfurter of the U.S. Supreme Court advised one of the chief architects of India’s Constitution, Sir Benegal Narsing Rau, to delete the words “due process of law” from the text of India’s draft Constitution. However, two recent cases, one decided by the Supreme Court and the other by the Bombay High Court, tell a very interesting, yet conflicted, story about the incorporation of the U.S. doctrine of substantive due process in Indian constitutional law.

The 5th and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution provide that a person cannot be deprived of “life, liberty or property, without due process of law”. Only a few decades before the meeting between Frankfurter and Rau took place, the U.S. Supreme Court had used the “due process clause” in the 14th amendment to invalidate social welfare legislation. This phase in American constitutional history is often described as the “Lochner era”, named after the dreaded case of Lochner v. New York (1905) in which the Supreme Court invalidated a New York law which prohibited confectionary establishments from employing workers for more than 60 hours per week. The Lochner era is said to have come to an end around 1937, starting with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937), when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt threatened to “pack” the Supreme Court with favourable justices in order to ensure the survival of his ambitious “New Deal” legislation.

Rau and Ambedkar

Even though the Lochner era had come to an end around a decade prior to the meeting between Frankfurter and Rau, Frankfurter believed that the words “due process of law” imposed an “undue burden” on the judiciary and that they should be deleted from the draft Indian Constitution.

Even prior to his meeting with Frankfurter, Rau (who was the Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly) was having serious misgivings about the due process clause. His meeting with Frankfurter was the final nail in the due process coffin for the Indian Constitution. In March 1947, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a product of Columbia Law School himself, had drafted a provision for the Indian Constitution which was very similar, if not identical, to the due process clause of the 14th amendment. It read: “… Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty and property without due process of law.” After Rau’s meeting with Frankfurter, Ambedkar’s clause was substantially altered. Property was altogether deleted from this clause, to make way for the extensive land reforms which were being contemplated in the Constituent Assembly. “Liberty” was qualified with the word “personal”, so as to limit its meaning. And the words “due process of law” were replaced with the words “procedure established by law”. Thus, Article 21 of the Indian Constitution now reads: “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.”

In the early decades, the Supreme Court of India interpreted Article 21 faithfully to the intent of the framers of India’s Constitution. However, beginning in the 1970s, an activist Supreme Court started incorporating the U.S. constitutional doctrines of “procedural due process” and “substantive due process” in India. Though Article 21 formally provides that a person’s life and personal liberty can be deprived so long as there is merely a “procedure established by law” (that is, a validly enacted law), the doctrine of procedural due process mandates that this procedural law must be “fair, just and reasonable”. The doctrine of substantive due process enables a court to question not merely procedural laws, but the substantive value choices of the legislative branch of government as well.

In a recent case, Rajbala v. Haryana (2015), a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India strongly rejected the doctrine of substantive due process in India. In this case, the constitutional validity of the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015 was in question. Under the Act, five categories of persons were considered ineligible to contest elections for certain offices in panchayats in Haryana (for example, those against whom criminal charges of a certain kind were framed, those who had not paid their electricity dues, those who did not have specified educational qualifications, those who did not have a functional toilet in their homes, etc). The Act was challenged on the ground that it was “wholly unreasonable and arbitrary and therefore violative of Article 14 of the Constitution”. Though the Supreme Court rightly held that a statute cannot be invalidated merely because it is “arbitrary”, it also went on to reject the U.S. doctrine of substantive due process by holding that Indian courts “do not examine the wisdom of legislative choices unless the legislation is otherwise violative of some specific provision of the Constitution”, as “to undertake such an examination would amount to virtually importing the doctrine of ‘substantive due process’ employed by the American Supreme Court”, and under the Indian Constitution “the test of due process of law cannot be applied to statutes enacted by Parliament or the State Legislatures”.

The Rajbala decision is particularly interesting because earlier Benches of the Supreme Court, in cases like Ramlila Maidan Incident (2012) and Selvi v. State of Karnataka(2010), have repeatedly held that substantive due process and due process generally are a part of Indian constitutional law under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Beef in Maharashtra

Thereafter, in Shaikh Zahid Mukhtar v. State of Maharashtra, decided on May 6, 2016, a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court was dealing with the constitutional validity of the Maharashtra Animal Preservation Act, 1976, as amended by the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act, 1995, which received the assent of the President of India on March 4, 2015 (hereinafter, the “Beef Act”). Among other provisions which were challenged, Section 5-D of the Beef Act made it a criminal offence to have in one’s possession, in the state of Maharashtra, the flesh of a cow, bull or bullock slaughtered outside the State of Maharashtra. The question was whether this provision violated the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution. Section 5-D was struck down by the court. It was held that the right to privacy is a part of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, and that the right to eat the food of one’s choice, if the food itself is not injurious to health, is a part of the right to privacy. By declaring that the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution includes the right to privacy, the Bombay High Court was, in essence, circumventing the intent of the framers of India’s Constitution (who had deliberately qualified the broad word “liberty” with the word “personal”). Recognising an unenumerated right like privacy is an example of substantive due process.

Section 9-B of the Beef Act cast the burden of proof on the accused in some cases. The court was examining its constitutional validity. This was a procedural due process inquiry, as the provision reversed a well-known procedural rule of evidence in criminal trials, that is, the burden of proof is on the prosecution. Section 9-B was also struck down by the court. It was held that the “right of life and liberty under Article 21… clearly covers the [substantive] due process aspect envisaged in the American jurisprudence.”

Thus, interestingly, while the Supreme Court of India in theRajbala case has strongly rejected the doctrine of substantive due process, the Bombay High Court has, following earlier Supreme Court pronouncements, applied and reiterated the doctrine in Indian constitutional law.

Abhinav Chandrachud is an advocate at the Bombay High Court.

    

Yogendra Yadav lashes out CM Arvind Kejriwal over office of profit

M.f. jones

Mr madhavans parliamentry secretary

With so many secretaries, will the Delhi Assembly still be able to exercise its oversight role?

The Delhi government has appointed 21 MLAs as parliamentary secretaries. Several other State governments have also taken this route in the past; earlier State governments in Delhi have also made such appointments, although fewer in number. This is part of a trend of weakening the power of legislative bodies by governments which has developed over the last three decades.

Most modern republics build in the concept of separation of powers in their Constitutions. The idea is that no particular organ of state should have a concentration of powers. Different institutions act as a check on the actions of others. In the simplest form, there are at least three parts: the executive arm that makes and executes policies, the legislative arm that makes laws and holds the executive to account, and the judicial arm that adjudicates disputes and ensures that the other two arms do not violate the provisions of the Constitution. In particular, Parliament and State legislatures have the important duty of monitoring the actions of the government and holding it to account. Our Supreme Court has recognised separation of powers as part of the basic structure of the Constitution, and can therefore strike down even amendments to the Constitution that infringe upon this principle.

Checks and balances

The concept of office of profit finds place in Articles 102 and 191 of the Constitution, which state that an MP or MLA will be disqualified if he or she occupies such an office. The idea is that every legislator should be able to carry out legislative duties without any obligation to the government of the day. As Ministers have to be members of the legislature, they are exempt from this disqualification. The Constitution also recognises that there may be other cases where exceptions may be required and allows Parliament and State legislatures to make exemptions by passing a law. In several cases, courts have examined this issue and concluded that the key question is whether occupation of such office will make a legislator beholden to the executive. In general, a person is considered to hold an office of profit if four conditions are met: (a) he holds an office, (b) the office is one of profit, that is, it carries some benefits, (c) the office is under the control of the Central or the State government (d) the office is not that of a Minister or exempted by an Act of Parliament or State legislature.

The 91st amendment to the Constitution recognised the problem of the government trying to win over legislators by giving them ministerial berths. It limited the number of ministers, including the Chief Minister, to 15 per cent of the strength of the Lok Sabha or State Legislative Assemblies. For Delhi, Article 239AA of the Constitution limits the number to 10 per cent of the strength of the Legislative Assembly (which is seven persons). The question is whether by appointing 21 more MLAs as parliamentary secretaries — which will make 40 per cent of the membership have some type of an executive role — the nature of the Legislative Assembly is being changed. That is, whether such an Assembly will still be able to exercise its oversight role over the government. An argument has been made that these parliamentary secretaries will be able to aid the government in being more responsive to citizens’ needs. That argument, however, misses the point of separation of powers. The role of legislators is not to help the government do its job better, but to ensure that it functions in a proper manner. That is, the legislator exercises the role of a watchdog over the government on behalf of citizens and not as an agent of the government.

Disempowering the legislature

Two other developments, the anti-defection law and MPLADS/MLALADS (local area development schemes), also weaken the separation of the legislative arm from the executive. The anti-defection law was enacted in 1985 through the 52nd amendment to the Constitution. This requires all legislators to abide by the party diktat on every vote in the legislature. Therefore, the legislator cannot exercise independent judgement on any issue if the party leadership has taken a position. Thirty years of experience shows us that this has led to concentration of power in party leaderships. For instance, one sees any government that is trying to build consensus — such as for the Goods and Services Tax legislation — negotiate with the leaderships of various parties, rather than convince individual MPs on the merits of the case. Also, the ruling party can require all its MPs to vote in support of a motion. These MPs have effectively lost their rights — and therefore cannot do their duty — of exercising their independent judgement on issues and performing the watchdog role.

In 1993, the Central government started MPLADS, through which legislators can earmark a certain amount of public funds for projects in their constituency. The concept has been adopted by many states as MLALADS. The argument was that elected MPs and MLAs know the needs of their electorate well and can be effective in allocation of resources. This again subverts the role of legislators. Their role is to allocate the entire Central and State budgets, and to monitor the spending. They are expected to use their knowledge of ground-level issues in this allocation, and see that the funds are spent properly. By providing each of them a specific amount to spend on projects, their oversight role is weakened.

The role of legislators is critical in a democracy. They are elected by citizens, and have the task of ensuring that the government is acting in the best interests of the public. In this, they are expected to exercise their independent judgements on what constitutes public and national interest. They act as a bulwark against autocratic actions of the executive. Therefore, it is imperative that their independence is protected. Actions that impinge on such independence, such as excessive appointments to executive positions, the anti-defection law and MPLADS, should be reversed. Otherwise, there is a risk of a slow erosion of the institution of legislatures, which could put at risk the very existence of our republic.

M.R. Madhavan is the President and

Dickie bird ismay and plan balkan

Dickie Bird Plan 1947 October 30, 2011No comments Mountbatten prepared a “Dickie Bird Plan” for India’s independence.  This plan was prepared by a committee of General Sir Hastings Ismay, Sir George Abell and Lord Mountbatten himself.  The Plan Balkan was completed and presented on 15-16 April 1947 by Hastings Ismay to assembly of provincial governors in Delhi.  Due to this, this plan was also called “Ismay Plan“. The main proposal of this plan was to that provinces should become first independent successor states rather than an Indian Union or the two dominions of India & Pakistan. As per this plan all the provinces viz. Madras, Bombay, United Provinces of Bengal, Punjab & North West Frontier etc. were proposed to be declared Independent. The states later would decide whether to join constituent assembly or not. This plan was not discussed in details with leaders of India and Mountbatten discussed just informally. He gave the plan a final touch and sent to London. Later when he moved to Shimla, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru joined him as a guest. Here the details of the plan were put by Mountbatten before Nehru. Nehru rejected the plan right away and told him that this plan would invite Balkanization of India and would provoke conflict and violence. Consequently, Mountbatten cabled to England that this plan was cancelled. So it was also called as plan balkan.

The difference between this and mt batten plan is that the latter gave independence to princely states only...while this one was giving sovereignty to british provinces ie the very constituent elements of india itself.

Later sardar would integrate the princely states by offer of privy purses and later madam indira gandhi under the wave of socialism that nationalised banks did garibi hatao would also mean removing privy purses of princes. What nehru giveth daughter taketh away

Delimitation across

In 1976 42nd amendmenr act halted the seats in lok sabha till 2000. The population at that time was 54 cr consequently according to 1:10 lac ratio we got 543 lok sabha representative fixed.

By 84th amendment act it was extended to 2026. By that year population will stablise an further issues can be taken. Peace.

The best defence is a good offence

The Six-Day War took place in June 1967. The Six-Day War was fought between June 5th and June 10th. The Israelis defended the war as a preventative military effort to counter what the Israelis saw as an impending attack by Arab nations that surrounded Israel. The Six-Day War was initiated by General Moshe Dayan, the Israeli’s Defence Minister.

The war was against Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Israel believed that it was only a matter of time before the three Arab states co-ordinated a massive attack on Israel. After the 1956 Suez Crisis, the United Nationshad established a presence in the Middle East, especially at sensitive border areas. The United Nations was only there with the agreement of the nations that acted as a host to it. By May 1967, the Egyptians had made it clear that the United Nations was no longer wanted in the Suez region. Gamal Nasser, leader of Egypt, ordered a concentration of Egyptian military forces in the sensitive Suez zone. This was a highly provocative act and the Israelis only viewed it one way – that Egypt was preparing to attack. The Egyptians had also enforced a naval blockade which closed off the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping.

The U.N. Security Council called for a withdrawal from all the occupied regions, but Israel declined, permanently annexing East Jerusalem and setting up military administrations in the occupied territories. Israel let it be known that Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai would be returned in exchange for Arab recognition of the right of Israel to exist and guarantees against future attack. Arab leaders, stinging from their defeat, met in August to discuss the future of the Middle East. They decided upon a policy of no peace, no negotiations, and no recognition of Israel, and made plans to zealously defend the rights of Palestinian Arabs in the occupied territories.

Egypt, however, would eventually negotiate and make peace with Israel, and in 1982 the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in exchange for full diplomatic recognition of Israel. Egypt and Jordan later gave up their respective claims to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to the Palestinians, who beginning in the 1990s opened “land for peace” talks with Israel. The East Bank territory has since been returned to Jordan. In 2005, Israel left the Gaza Strip. Still, a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement remains elusive, as does an agreement with Syria to return the Golan Heights
The Palestine Authority has welcomed the initiative as a “flicker of hope”. But the Israeli government has slammed it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position is that Israel will hold direct talks with “a demilitarised Palestinian state that recognises Israel as a Jewish state and a national homeland for the Jewish people”. This appears more like a delaying tactic than a genuine demand for resuming talks for various reasons.

First, the Jewishness of the state of Israel is a matter of contention at least till the fate of the Palestinian refugees is settled. Second, there’s no level playing field between Israel and Palestine. One is the mightiest military power in West A

The problem in the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict is that there’s a pro-Israel bias among the Western powers which stops them from putting real pressure on Tel Aviv to deliver. Israel knows that it can get away with anything. It’s the only nuclear armed nation in West Asia, though it hasn’t officially declared that. It faced allegations of war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. It continues occupation of the West Bank in violation of the UNSC resolutions. Despite criticisms even from its allies in the West, Israel’s settlement policy remains intact. Still, were there any meaningful international efforts to hold Israel accountable for its actions or to put pressure on its leaders to change their policies?

The international community could actually take a lesson out of the Iran example. World powers were on the same page in putting pressure on Iran, through a mix of international sanctions and threats of isolation, over its nuclear programme. Even Iran’s allies such as Russia and China joined hands with the U.S. and Britain to build a global pressure regime which eventually worked in forcing Tehran to compromise. What was one of the most contentious global issues till a few years ago was settled amicably in a rare case of the triumph of public diplomacy. Why can’t a similar method be adopted in dealing with Israel, which is also a violator of accepted global norms? This is unlikely to happen immediately. But unless the Israeli exceptionalism is broken, there won’t be peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict. To break that, there has to be both carrots and sticks. Right now, there are only carrots in the kitty, plenty of them.

Bhaktism not a total failure

Why was the nation partitioned

Nhru in discovery of india says that although  it was our fault to start with but the british had it in their interest to keep the nation divided post independence. Same has been reiterated by maulana azad.  MIND BLOWING ANALYSIS.

1. The ncert says that it was wrong on part of congress to indulge in too much negotiation with jinnah.. they should have nipped the problem in the bud by making an all out ideological war against communalism.

2. Cripps mission which it is said created the blue print for partition was then a creation of both British as well as congress. But more of congress as they wouldn't have had this problem if they hadnt made jinnah a negotiating partner.

3. The cabinet mission and even cripps never talked of partition. It is even said that britisg through a sense of justice wanted to see their former possession intact rather than brittled. Jinnah agreed to the solution but nehru left himm no choice but to seek partition.

4. Forces of communalism were without doubt were nt in the hands of british but they had given birth to it by their policy of divide and rule...

5. Congress did little to disassociate itself from hindu mahajan sabha

Therefore no one is at fault and everyone ia at fault.

Road safety and regulation board

Earlier proposed road safety and managemet authority nt setup bcoz of parliamrntary logjam

Blue st

What was Operation Blue Star? by Rahul Parihar https://www.quora.com/What-was-Operation-Blue-Star/answer/Rahul-Parihar-5?srid=zwwH&share=2e5789d7

Tribunalisation

Chandra kumar vs uoi 1997

Death of pm

elinor and

The challenge presented by the Muzaffarnagar riots, therefore, is to somehow democratise police administration that makes it accountable to the people. One way of adding a direct line of accountability to people, in order to generally control and monitor provision of goods and services, is to establish what political scientist Vincent Ostrom calls, “democratic administration.” In democratic administration, the power to oversee provision of goods and services is devolved on multiple “communities of interest.”community policing also needs to be put in here.IT SEEMED to Elinor Ostrom that the world contained a large body of common sense. People, left to themselves, would sort out rational ways of surviving and getting along. Although the world's arable land, forests, fresh water and fisheries were all finite, it was possible to share them without depleting them and to care for them without fighting. While others wrote gloomily of the tragedy of the commons, seeing only overfishing and overfarming in a free-for-all of greed, Mrs Ostrom, with her loud laugh and louder tops, cut a cheery and contrarian figure.
Years of fieldwork, by herself and others, had shown her that humans were not trapped and helpless amid diminishing supplies. She had looked at forests in Nepal, irrigation systems in Spain, mountain villages in Switzerland and Japan, fisheries in Maine and Indonesia. She had even, as part of her PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles, studied the water wars and pumping races going on in the 1950s in her own dry backyard.
All these cases had taught her that, over time, human beings tended to draw up sensible rules for the use of common-pool resources. Neighbours set boundaries and assigned shares, with each individual taking it in turn to use water, or to graze cows on a certain meadow. Common tasks, such as clearing canals or cutting timber, were done together at a certain time. Monitors watched out for rule-breakers, fining or eventually excluding them. The schemes were mutual and reciprocal, and many had worked well for centuries.
Best of all, they were not imposed from above. Mrs Ostrom put no faith in governments, nor in large conservation schemes paid for with aid money and crawling with concrete-bearing engineers. “Polycentrism” was her ideal. Caring for the commons had to be a multiple task, organised from the ground up and shaped to cultural norms. It had to be discussed face to face, and based on trust. Mrs Ostrom, besides poring over satellite data and quizzing lobstermen herself, enjoyed employing game theory to try to predict the behaviour of people faced with limited resources. In her Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University—set up with her husband Vincent, a political scientist, in 1973—her students were given shares in a notional commons. When they simply discussed what they should do before they did it, their rate of return from their “investments” more than doubled.
“Small is beautiful” sometimes seemed to be her creed. Her workshop looked somewhat like a large, cluttered cottage, reflecting her and Vincent's idea that science was a form of artisanship. When the vogue in America was all for consolidation of public services, she ran against it. For some years she compared police forces in the town of Speedway and the city of Indianapolis, finding that forces of 25-50 officers performed better by almost every measure than 100-strong metropolitan teams. But smaller institutions, she cautioned, might not work better in every case. As she travelled the world, giving out good and sharp advice, “No panaceas!” was her cry.
Scarves for the troopsRather than littleness, collaboration was her watchword. Neighbours thrived if they worked together. The best-laid communal schemes would fall apart once people began to act only as individuals, or formed elites. Born poor herself, to a jobless film-set-maker in Los Angeles who soon left her mother alone, she despaired of people who wanted only a grand house or a fancy car. Her childhood world was coloured by digging a wartime “victory” vegetable garden, knitting scarves for the troops, buying her clothes in a charity store: mutual efforts to a mutual end.
The same approach was valuable in academia, too. Her own field, institutional economics (or “the study of social dilemmas”, as she thought of it), straddled political science, ecology, psychology and anthropology. She liked to learn from all of them, marching boldly across the demarcation lines to hammer out good policy, and she welcomed workshop-partners from any discipline, singing folk songs with them, too, if anyone had a guitar. They were family. Pure economists looked askance at this perky, untidy figure, especially when she became the first woman to win a shared Nobel prize for economics in 2009. She was not put out; it was the workshop's prize, anyway, she said, and the money would go for scholarships.
Yet the incident shed a keen light on one particular sort of collaboration: that between men and women. Lin (as everyone called her) and Vincent, both much-honoured professors, were joint stars of their university in old age. But she had been dissuaded from studying economics at UCLA because, being a girl, she had been steered away from maths at high school; and she was dissuaded from doing political science because, being a girl, she could not hope for a good university post. As a graduate, she had been offered only secretarial jobs; and her first post at Indiana involved teaching a 7.30am class in government that no one else would take.
There was, she believed, a great common fund of sense and wisdom in the world. But it had been an uphill struggle to show that it reposed in both women and men; and that humanity would do best if it could exploit it to the full.

Hilsa sorso and national waterways

https://sandrp.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/lessons-from-farakka-as-we-plan-more-barrages-on-ganga/

Ethics abd persuasion 101