Constitutional provisions, institutions and processes the news keeps testing. 579 concepts, each with its definition, key details and a timeline of every news story that touched it.
The Ramsar Convention (formally the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat) is an international treaty providing...
The Supreme Court in Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) — the Mandal judgment — definitively ruled that religion cannot be the basis for reservation....
Article 324(5) provides that the CEC shall not be removed from office except 'in like manner and on like grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court.' This is a...
The doctrine of res extra commercium (Latin: 'things outside commerce') refers to activities that the law places outside the protections ordinarily afforded...
Constitutional provisions for reservations flow primarily from Article 15(4) — which allows the state to make special provisions for socially and...
Reservation in India is based on the historical injustice of the caste system — a social stratification rooted in birth within the Hindu (and related)...
Article 16 of the Constitution guarantees equality of opportunity in matters of public employment, while Article 14 guarantees equality before law. Paper...
While the right to health is not an explicitly enumerated Fundamental Right, the Supreme Court has read it as an integral part of the right to life and...
The Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 was a separate exercise (distinct from the decennial Population Census) conducted to identify households for...
The Santhals are the largest tribal group in India by population, spread across multiple eastern and northeastern states. Their constitutional and legal...
The definition of 'Scheduled Castes' in India is governed by Article 341 of the Constitution and the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950...
Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (inserted in 1870 under colonial rule) defined sedition as any act by words, signs, or representations that...
Section 6A was inserted into the Citizenship Act, 1955 to give legal effect to the Assam Accord of 1985, creating a special citizenship framework applicable...
Section 9A of the Income Tax Act, 1961, inserted by the Finance Act, 2015 (effective April 1, 2015), provides that an 'eligible investment fund' is not...
A share buyback (repurchase) is when a company purchases its own shares from the market, reducing the number of shares in circulation. This can return...
Students often conflate the Sixth Schedule (Articles 244(2) and 275(1)) with Article 371-type provisions, but they are structurally different tools for...
Article 368 of the Constitution governs the procedure for constitutional amendments. Amendments affecting the basic structure of governance require a...
Article 368 of the Constitution prescribes the procedure for constitutional amendments. A Bill of this category must be passed in each House of Parliament...
Ladakh, as a Union Territory sharing land borders with both Pakistan and China, has disproportionate strategic weight relative to its population. The...
Following the June 2013 Kedarnath disaster, which killed over 5,000 people and was attributed in part to infrastructure disruption from hydropower...
Theaterisation refers to the reorganisation of India's defence forces from service-specific commands (Army, Navy, Air Force each having separate commands)...
The government introduced three bills as an integrated package for the special session: (1) Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill — the constitutional...
The three-language formula was first recommended by the Kothari Commission (1964-66) and adopted by Parliament in 1968 as part of the National Policy on...
Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is the average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime if current age-specific birth rates prevailed. A TFR of...
The UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme, launched in 2016 under the National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP) 2016, aims to improve regional air connectivity...
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), established in 2006 as successor to the UN Commission on Human Rights, can create Independent International Commissions...
The Secretary-General is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations, responsible for running the UN Secretariat and providing overall...
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a UN agency mandated to protect refugees and stateless persons worldwide and to find durable...
The Finance Bill 2026 gives effect to the Budget proposals for FY 2026–27. The budget reflects FM Sitharaman's eighth consecutive budget — a record for any...
Urban Cooperative Banks are financial institutions registered under the Cooperative Societies Act (state or central) that primarily serve urban and...
Vande Bharat Express (Train 18) is India's first semi-high-speed intercity train, designed and manufactured indigenously by the Integral Coach Factory...
Tax devolution under the Finance Commission operates on two axes. Vertical devolution determines the aggregate share of central tax revenues transferred to...
A waqf is a permanent endowment of property by a Muslim individual for religious, pious, or charitable purposes. Once dedicated, the property cannot be...
The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 significantly restructured the composition of both the Central Waqf Council and State Waqf Boards. Under the amended...
The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023, also known as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, reserves one-third of all seats in the Lok...
The WMCC on India-China Border Affairs is a bilateral institutional mechanism established through an India-China agreement in January 2012 for improved...
The e-Shram portal was launched on 26 August 2021 by the Ministry of Labour and Employment as the National Database of Unorganised Workers (NDUW), seeded...
Parliament replaced India's three foundational criminal statutes — the Indian Penal Code (1860), the Code of Criminal Procedure (1973), and the Indian...
Premature deindustrialisation means a country's factory sector starts shrinking, as a share of jobs and output, before the country has become rich. In the...