Constitution of India - Fundamental Duties

Article 51A of the constitution of India describes the fundamental duties of the citizens of India. The list is not long. There are only 11 fundamental duties listed and if each and every Indian abides by them, there would be enough development that can happen effortlessly.

PART IVA

FUNDAMENTAL DUTIES

51A. Fundamental duties.—It shall be the duty of every citizen of India—

(a) to abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the
     National Flag and the National Anthem;

(b) to cherish and follow the noble ideals which inspired our national struggle
     for freedom;

(c) to uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India;

(d) to defend the country and render national service when called upon to do so;

(e) to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the
     people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional
     diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women;

(f) to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture;

(g) to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes,
     rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures;

(h) to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and
      reform;

(i) to safeguard public property and to abjure violence;

(j) to strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity
     so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavour and
     achievement;

(k) who is a parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his
     child or, as the case may be, ward between the age of six and fourteen years.

Role of intelligence agencies in the democracy of India - 2

Today's news is replete with description of different last moment acts that UPA (Congress) is engaged in, like mass scale transfers especially within the finance ministry. One of the key events is appointing the former Intelligence Bureau chief as CIC (chief Information commissioner). The CIC is mandated to resolve appeals and complaints filed by information seekers, under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, against government departments or public authorities. It is important to question this decision. If we look at the backdrop of events, since independence of India in 1947, Indian politics and governance was heavily influenced by the british intelligence, certainly not in a constructive manner. Later on when the course of events changed, and Indian politics took a leftist turn under congress of course, the CIA and its allies took a hostile stand on India. We all remember the entering of the US 7th fleet and the british eagle fleet in the Bay of Bengal to pressurize India to stop its actions against Pakistan. However with Soviet submarines acting as deterrents, came to the rescue of Indian Govt. and the matter was neutralized. Those were different days, days of the cold war. The past few decades have shown that today most of the political platform, especially in developed countries is not dominated by nationalistic ideologies. Rather politics in developed countries is today governed by "money" or greed. Intelligence agencies are powerful apparatus and can be misused or are being misused. If we observe the different challenges we are facing today in India, we can easily infer that many of these problems are created by intelligence agencies of countries which are anti-India. But they are feeding on the basic weaknesses of Indian governmental administrative mechanisms and weaknesses in the Indian politics. The Indian RAW, IB and military intelligence today need to be better synchronized in terms of command and control as well as collaborative protocols. The power and the onus lies with the prime minister of India. The past prime ministers had failed in doing so, intentionally or unintentionally. This is one side of the story.

On the other side of the story, are the Indian citizens. Today we as citizens of India need to take charge of the politics in this country. Whichever party rules, it should be just a mechanism to deliver the needs and wishes of the citizens, rather than dictating their wishes on the citizens. The major success behind the 2014 Lok Sabha elections lies behind increased voter awareness. There had been an average increase of 10% in terms of voter turnout. Which translates roughly to 12 crore people. The impact of this is very much evident. The 2014 elections have eliminated cast based and religion based politics. Today the agenda of development and good governance has won. There were thousands of volunteers from different organizations, who worked very hard, to create voter awareness. People think that social media had an important role to play. But I disagree. Why ? Because tech savvy cities like Bangalore or Mumbai had the least voter turnout ratios, but increased by 10%. I was astonished to see people's enthusiasm on 16th May, when the results were about to be declared. Everyone was very excited. People even took leave on that day. The streets of Bangalore were empty. But when it was their turn to cast their votes and contribute to democracy, they happily ignored it. Perhaps because they don't know that they are the lucky 3% of the Indian population that earn more than Rs. 6500 per month. 97% of the Indian population earn less than Rs. 6500 per month (approx.). So while I am writing my notes here on facebook notes, I also want to send out a message to all my friends on facebook, that we need to convert part of our privilege to help the rest of the 97% of the Indian population to achieve equity in terms of livelihood and means to have a respectable, safe and secure way to live in this country. It is our duty to serve our fellow citizens of India and the world.

मन समर्पित, तन समर्पित और यह जीवन समर्पित।
चाहता हूँ देश की धरती तुझे कुछ और भी दूं ।। 

Role of intelligence agencies in the democracy of India - 1

If we look at the democratic history of India, we can easily understand that the last decade had been darkest patch in the history of Indian democracy. From basic common sense, it is very much evident that how external intelligence agencies were controlling the entire governance of India. This is easy to deduce since our recent Prime Minister has kept a vow of silence and the PMO is being controlled by a foreigner behind the curtains. The important aspect is, who is controlling the mother-son duo sitting being the curtain. We can analyse this as follows:-
Indian defence is at its weakest period at this moment, with both the Navy and the Airforce suffering multiple accidents and a very short span of time. India is rich in oil however India imports oil. The same is the case with coal and bauxite. India is the largest producer of vegetables in the world still vegetable prices are very high. In the last decade we have seen this upsurge in food prices in India despite the fact that India has surplus vegetables. About 40% of the food is lost even before it reaches the destination. Thanks to the nexus of politicians and the supply chain agents of food in India. The country's economy is being systematically weakened. All the scams that happened have only weakened the economy of this country. The education system in India has been systematically weakened. If you see the NCERT textbooks, it is very much evident that the main subject matter is missing from text books. And these books are supposed to be written by team of teachers in workshops. Instead single unknown authors are able to write better and useful books. The data given by planning commission is completely flawed and shows false image of development. We all know the changing of the line of poverty by the planning commission. The fact remains is that the planning commission is a puppet of the congress. They never provide transparent data. The history of Indian National Congress is a shameful one. The important thing to understand here is that the first leader of independent India was a puppet in the hands of British intelligence. The congress under the leadership of "the puppet" injected systematic bugs in the Indian democratic and administrative system which has now lasted for more than 65 years. These so called "bugs" are tearing down the system part-by-part. There was a systematic injection of communal sentiment during the independence and partition of India in 1947. That communal fire is being provided the required oxygen from time to time. Millions of innocent lives are being lost from time to time. 97% of the population is actually poor in India. It is only 3% of the India population that can be called middle class/rich/super rich. It is such a pity that this 97% population is suffering immense pain. The BT cotton which is a genetically modified variety of cotton has rendered lands infertile in Vidarbha. Hundreds of farmers committed suicide. The land has become so poisonous that even a Neem tree cannot grow in that area. And the congress government has given approval for experimenting with more GM crops in India. It is clear that these are anti-national forces working according to the plans of external intelligence agencies (whether it is CIA or MI-6 or ISI or Chinese intelligence agencies, it is for the reader to guess), but nobody wants India to prosper.
Who are the sufferers, the 97% non-facebook population of India. So much for security, so much for NSA, so much for humanity, so much for human greed !!

But there is one consciousness that rules the entire creation...and that is full of love...because love is the basic substratum of the entire creation...and that Infinity would protect the just, the poor and the innocent.

Administrative Divisions of Government of India

This article is about the administrative divisions of India. We will go from very high level details to divisions at the local governance level.

UNION OF INDIA
Union of India is composed of 28 states and 7 union territories (pending Telangana).

Governance of Union of India- The executive power of the Union is vested in the President of India. The term of the office of the President is for 5 years. The Legislative power of the Union is vested in the council of ministers and the Prime Minister of India. The council of ministers (including the Prime Ministers) is elected once every 5 years through Parliamentary/Lok-Sabha elections, by citizens of India. The President of India is further elected by the elected members of both the houses of the Parliament (i.e., Lok-Sabha and Rajya Sabha).

ZONES
Section 15 of the States Reorganization Act 1956 provided that there shall be a Zonal Council for each of the five zones of the country. Today India is divided into six zones for administration. The purpose of dividing the country into zones was to create healthy inter-State and Centre-State environment with a view to solving inter-State problems and fostering balanced socio economic development of the respective zones.

The zones are as follows:-

1. Northern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, National Capital Territory of Delhi and Union Territory of Chandigarh  
2. Central Zonal Council, comprising the States of Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh
3. Eastern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal
4. Western Zonal Council, comprising the States of Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra and the Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli
5. Southern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry
6. North Eastern Council set up under the North Eastern Council Act, 1972, consists of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Sikkim

(source : interstatecouncil.nic.in)

STATES AND UNION TERRITORIES
India is composed of 28 states and 7 union territories (pending Telangana).

Governance of States -  The legislative power of the states would lie with the council of ministers and the chief minister, who would be elected every 5 years through Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) elections.  The executive power of the state would be vested in the Governor.

UNION TERRIRORIES (UT)
India is composed of 7 union territories.

Governance of Union Territories - Union territories are directly ruled by union government/central government. Only in case of New Delhi and Puducherry, the constitution of India provides the provision of having a Legislature with elected members.

DIVISIONS
Some of the Indian states are further divided into divisions.The states which are divided into divisions are Assam, Bihar, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. Divisions are comprised of districts.

DISTRICTS
States and Union Territories (or Divisions) are further divided into districts. There are total 593 districts in India as of today.
(source : http://censusindia.gov.in )

SUB-DISTRICTS
Districts are further subdivided into sub-districts. Sub-districts are called by different names in different states.
So a Sub-district = revenue-division = sub-division = Tehsil = Taluka = Police Station = Circle = Development Block = Community Development Block (CD Block) = Mandal etc.
Notes : Sometimes tehsils might come under sub-divisions. Same is applicable for the other names.

BLOCKS
Sub-districts are further divided into block / sub-tehsil / hobli / Firka / Circle / Sajjas. Sub-tehsil is further divided into ILR circle / Patwar circle in some districts.

Governance of Districts, Sub-Districts and Blocks - At the district level the common man comes in direct contact with the administration. The administrative head of a district is called the Deputy Commissioner or District Collector. The Superintendent of Police and heads of other departments of the state are all located in the district headquarters. The Deputy Commissioner is many times assisted by the Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC).
The sub-divisions/revenue divisions are further headed by Sub-Divisional-Officer (SDO) or Sub-Divisional-Magistrate (SDM) / Revenue Divisional Officer / Sub-Collector / Deputy Collector / Assistant Collector / Assistant Commissioner. Under the SDO (and equivalents) there are Tahsildars/Revenue Officers. The Tahsildar belongs to the state civil service. The Tahsildar is further assisted by Naib / Deputy - Tahsildar / Patwaaris / Kanungos etc. There may be a few more hierarchies below this however it differs from state-to-state.

RURAL LOCAL BODIES
According to the 73rd amendment in the constitution of India, the system of three tier panchayati raj was introduced. The three tier system implies that there are Panchayats at village level (gram panchayat), intermediate level (panchayat samiti), district level (zilla parishad). Any state which has a population of not more than 20 lakhs, may choose not to constitute intermediate panchayats.
The 73rd amendment also introduces the concept of "Gram Sabha" as the most fundamental unit of governance at the rural local level. Gram sabha means a body consisting of persons registered in the electoral rolls relating to a village comprised within the area of Panchayat at the village level. A gram sabha may exercise such powers and perform such functions at the village level as the Legislature of a State may by Law, provide. This essentially implies that if the gram sabha functions properly, then the development of a village is inevitable.

Governance of Rural Local Bodies - The governance of the Panchayats is in the hands of elected candidates. All seats in a panchayat shall be filled by persons chosen by direct election from territorial constituencies in the Panchayat area. Panchayat elections happen every five years. Note that at the village level gram sabha still has an upper hand (only if people are aware of it) and gram sabha consists of citizens of India.

URBAN LOCAL BODIES
The 74th amendment of the constitution of India made the provision of local governance in urban areas. According to the 74th amendment (part IXA) of the constitution of India, a three tier system of local governance in urban areas has been enumerated. In every state, there would be a Nagar Panchayat (Notified area council/city council)(for an rural to urban transitional area), a Municipal Council (Nagar Palika/ Nagar Nigam) for a smaller urban area, Municipal Corporation (Mahanagar Palika/Nigam) for larger urban area.

Governance of Urban Local Bodies -  All governance of the Municipalities will be in the hands of elected representatives. All seats in a Municipality shall be filled by persons chosen by direct election from territorial constituencies in the Municipal area and for this purpose each Municipal area is be divided into territorial constituencies know as wards. Ward Committees would be constituted consisting of one or more wards, within the territorial area of a Municipality having a population of 3 lakhs or more. Municipal elections are held every five years. The elected candidates of each ward is called a counciller/corporator.

The schematic representation might look something like this.

How does India look like !!

Here is the Political Map of India with 28 states and 7 union territories.

(Image source : http://ecimaps.gisserver1.nic.in)
Does it ring a bell... How does it feel to be belonging to the whole country not just to our respective regions...Did we know all the states and their locations...