Constitutional provisions, institutions and processes the news keeps testing. 558 concepts, each with its definition, key details and a timeline of every news story that touched it.
The McMahon Line is the 890-kilometre boundary between India's Arunachal Pradesh and the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China, established during the Simla...
The MEA's Consular, Passport and Visa (CPV) Division is responsible for the welfare of Indian nationals abroad. During foreign crises, MEA activates...
The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (MVA) governs vehicle registration, driving licensing, traffic offences, and third-party liability. The Motor Vehicles...
The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937 (Act 26 of 1937) is the primary statute that applies Islamic personal law — the Shariat — to Muslims...
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) is a quasi-judicial body established under the Companies Act, 2013, which also serves as the adjudicating authority...
The NDPS Act, 1985 is India's principal legislation governing offences related to narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. It classifies drug offences by...
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is a statutory body established under the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act...
NEP 2020, approved by the Union Cabinet on 29 July 2020, is India's first education policy in 34 years (replacing the 1986 policy). It explicitly calls for...
NEP 2020, approved by the Union Cabinet on July 29, 2020, replaced the National Policy on Education 1986 and set out a comprehensive framework for...
NHIDCL was incorporated in 2014 as a specialised government entity under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Its mandate is to develop, maintain...
The National Medical Commission (NMC) was established on September 25, 2020, replacing the Medical Council of India (MCI) following long-standing concerns...
Natural farming is a chemical-free agriculture practice rooted in local biodiversity and traditional knowledge. India has launched a centralised mission to...
The NRC update in Assam and the CAA together form an interconnected policy architecture for citizenship determination in India's northeast.
The NDB is the most significant institutional output of BRICS cooperation. Established by an agreement signed at the 6th BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, Brazil...
A no-fault compensation (NFC) scheme is a mechanism under which affected individuals receive compensation without needing to establish negligence or fault...
India's population growth has been highly uneven across regions. Southern states (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana) achieved...
The most sensitive political dimension of delimitation is the potential shift in parliamentary representation from southern to northern states. Southern...
A major substantive concern about delimitation based on the 2011 Census (and more so on any post-2027 census) is the disproportionate impact on southern...
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is the cornerstone of the global non-proliferation regime. Opened for signature in 1968, it entered into force in...
The Official Secrets Act (OSA), 1923, is the primary legislation governing the protection of classified information in India. Section 3 criminalises the...
The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is an initiative by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce...
Article 123 empowers the President to promulgate ordinances when Parliament is not in session and immediate action is necessary. An ordinance has the same...
The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 (PCPNDT Act) was enacted to prohibit sex selection before or...
The Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 is India's primary law against money laundering. Like UAPA, it has bail provisions that effectively...
PRAHAAR is an acronym encoding its seven strategic pillars: P — Prevention of terror attacks to protect Indian citizens and interests R — Responses (swift...
Parliamentary Standing Committees are permanent bodies that scrutinise government functioning, examine bills, and produce policy recommendations that inform...
By parliamentary convention in Westminster-type democracies, the Speaker is expected to act impartially. In the United Kingdom, the Speaker traditionally...
Article 105 of the Constitution of India defines the powers, privileges, and immunities of the Houses of Parliament and their members. Under Article 105(1)...
India designates 75 communities as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) — the most marginalised among Scheduled Tribes, characterised by...
Passive euthanasia involves withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment (such as ventilators, feeding tubes) thereby allowing natural death. Active...
Euthanasia refers to the act of deliberately ending a person's life to relieve suffering. Indian law draws a decisive boundary between two forms. Active...
A Persistent Vegetative State is a condition of profound unconsciousness in which a patient lacks any awareness of self or environment, retains basic...
The PPAC is the energy data hub of India, functioning under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. It collects, analyses, and publishes data on...
Quantum computers capable of large-scale operation would break current public-key cryptography (RSA, ECC) using Shor's algorithm, rendering encrypted...
PMAY was launched in 2015 with the objective of providing pucca housing to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), Lower Income Groups (LIG), and Middle Income...
Article 356 of the Constitution empowers the President to assume the functions of a State Government if the President is satisfied that the governance of...
The RBI Act was amended through the Finance Act, 2016 to insert a new Chapter IIIF (Sections 45ZA to 45ZI) that laid out the complete legal architecture for...
The Reserve Bank of India is the regulator and supervisor of the payment and settlement systems in India under the Payment and Settlement Systems (PSS) Act...
Representatives to the Rajya Sabha from states are elected indirectly by the elected members of each State Legislative Assembly through proportional...
Article 15(1) prohibits discrimination by the State on grounds of religion. While Articles 15(4) and 16(4) allow special provisions for socially and...
The removal of the CEC follows the same procedure as the removal of a Supreme Court judge under Article 124(4) of the Constitution, read with the Judges...
Article 324 of the Constitution establishes the Election Commission and gives the CEC security of tenure comparable to that of a Supreme Court judge. The...
The doctrine of res extra commercium (Latin: 'things outside commerce') refers to activities that the law places outside the protections ordinarily afforded...
The constitutional reservation system for SCs and STs in Parliament is a form of affirmative representation designed to correct the historical exclusion of...
Reservation for Scheduled Castes in India has constitutional sanction under Articles 15(4) and 16(4), which enable the state to make special provisions for...
Article 16 of the Constitution guarantees equality of opportunity in matters of public employment, while Article 14 guarantees equality before law. Paper...
The Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 was launched on 29 June 2011 and was the first caste-based enumeration attempt since 1931. However, the...
The Santhals are among the largest Scheduled Tribe groups in India, belonging to the Austroasiatic language family. They are concentrated in Jharkhand, West...
Article 341 of the Indian Constitution empowers the President, in consultation with the Governor of a state, to specify by public notification which castes...
Section 124A, introduced by the British in 1870, penalised 'words, signs or visible representation' that bring or attempt to bring 'hatred or contempt' or...
Assam has a unique citizenship framework under Section 6A, distinct from the general citizenship provisions and the CAA.
The Sendai Framework was adopted at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan, in March 2015. It is a non-binding agreement...
The Shompen are a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) — the most vulnerable sub-category of Scheduled Tribes, identified by the Ministry of Tribal...
The Skill India Mission was launched in 2015, subsuming multiple earlier skilling programmes under an integrated framework. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas...
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) notified the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026 on January 27, 2026, in the Official...
Article 368 of the Constitution requires that a constitutional amendment bill be passed by a special majority: a majority of the total membership of the...
Ladakh, as a Union Territory sharing land borders with both Pakistan and China, has disproportionate strategic weight relative to its population. The...
The Supreme Court of India has been a primary driver of environmental protection, often acting where the executive and legislature have been slow. The...
The Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement is a ceasefire framework between the Central Government, the Manipur state government, and armed underground...
Tax buoyancy measures how responsive tax revenue is to changes in GDP — a buoyancy of greater than 1.0 means taxes grow faster than GDP. India's GST has...