GS Paper II 2019

The Constitution assigns legislative, executive and judicial functions to separate organs but does not seal them off from one another; in Ram Jawaya Kapur (1955) the Supreme Court held that it does not adopt a rigid separation of powers. I agree with the proposition.

No strict separation

• Executive drawn from the legislature: ministers sit in Parliament and are collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha (Articles 74–75).
• Executive legislates: ordinances (Articles 123, 213) and delegated rule-making.
• Legislature adjudicates: impeachment of the President (Article 61), removal of judges (Article 124(4)), punishment for breach of privilege.
• Judiciary fills legislative gaps: the Vishaka guidelines (1997) operated as law until Parliament acted.

Checks and balances

• Parliament checks the executive through questions, no-confidence motions and control of the purse; the President's assent checks Parliament.
• Courts check both through judicial review (Articles 13, 32, 226); Kesavananda (1973) made separation of powers a basic feature, and Raj Narain (1975) struck down an amendment by which Parliament decided a specific election dispute.
• The other organs appoint and remove judges, yet Articles 121, 124(4) and 125 protect judicial independence.
• Where separation matters, the text provides it: Article 50 separates the judiciary from the executive, and Article 122 keeps courts out of parliamentary procedure.

India follows a functional separation in which no organ may usurp another's essential function, and the basic-structure doctrine guards this balance against overreach.

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The Central Administrative Tribunal was established under the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, enacted under Article 323A (42nd Amendment, 1976), to give Union employees quick, inexpensive and expert relief in service matters.

Origin: a grievance forum

• Jurisdiction over recruitment and conditions of service: seniority, promotion, pay, transfer and discipline of Union employees, excluding armed forces personnel.
• Aim: to relieve the High Courts of service litigation and bring administrative expertise to the bench.

Now an independent judicial authority

• Court-like powers: it follows natural justice, has civil-court powers to summon witnesses and take evidence, grants interim relief and punishes contempt.
• Tests executive action: it quashes arbitrary orders on promotion, seniority, transfer and discipline that violate the Constitution or service rules.
• Judicial backing: L. Chandra Kumar (1997) made tribunals courts of first instance, able to examine the validity of laws (except their parent Act), subject to High Court review under Articles 226–227.
• Composition: benches combine judicial and administrative members, and the Madras Bar Association cases insisted that tribunals stay independent of the executive.

Limits

• Appointments, service conditions and administrative support rest with the Government, itself the main litigant before the tribunal.
• Vacancies, pendency and thin infrastructure dilute the promise of speedy justice.

The CAT has grown from a departmental grievance forum into a real court of service justice; secure tenure, transparent appointments and adequate staffing would complete its independence.

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Farmers are India's largest occupational group, and their organisations, from the Bharatiya Kisan Union's Boat Club rally in Delhi (1988) to the Samyukt Kisan Morcha in 2020–21, have repeatedly turned numbers into policy leverage.

Methods

• Mass mobilisation: rallies, dharnas, road and rail blockades and tractor marches that raise the political cost of inaction.
• Lobbying: memoranda, delegations to ministers and depositions before committees, through bodies such as the All India Kisan Sabha and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh.
• Electoral pressure: as a large voting bloc they extract loan waivers, subsidised power and higher support prices before elections; some groups, like the Shetkari Sanghatana, back or float parties.
• Legal and media routes: litigation on land acquisition and pricing, social media campaigns and alliances with trade unions and civil society.

Effectiveness

• Gains: higher support prices and procurement, loan waivers (2008 onwards), cheap power and fertiliser, and the repeal of the three farm laws in 2021 after a year-long agitation.
• Limits: influence is concentrated in the wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton belts among better-off farmers; small, tenant and landless farmers and women are under-represented.
• Weaknesses: demands centre on prices, subsidies and waivers rather than irrigation, marketing or research reform; fragmentation and party links dilute bargaining power.

Farmers' organisations are effective at defending prices and blocking unwelcome reform, but they need broader membership and constructive proposals to shape a durable agricultural policy.

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The three lists of the Seventh Schedule cannot avoid overlap, so courts have evolved rules to decide which legislature may act: harmonious construction reconciles entries, and federal supremacy settles conflicts that cannot be reconciled.

Harmonious construction

• Entries of different lists are read together, each given the widest meaning consistent with the others, so that no entry becomes redundant.
• Pith and substance supports it: a law is placed in the list its true character belongs to, and incidental encroachment on another list is tolerated (State of Bombay v. Balsara, 1951).
• Because federalism is a basic feature (S.R. Bommai, 1994), courts try to preserve the State field before reaching for Union supremacy.

Federal supremacy

• Root: Article 246(1) gives Parliament exclusive power over List I ‘notwithstanding’ the powers in clauses (2) and (3), so the Union entry prevails where reconciliation fails.
• Concurrent List: a State law repugnant to a Union law is void to that extent under Article 254 unless it has the President's assent, and even then Parliament may override it.
• Colourable legislation, an indirect encroachment on another list, is struck down.

Balance in practice

• The Inter-State Council, Zonal Councils and the GST Council resolve overlapping claims before they reach the courts.

Courts read the lists harmoniously first and apply Union supremacy only as a last resort, a sequence that keeps India's federal balance workable while preserving national coherence.

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France separated Church and State by law in 1905 and treats public space as religion-free; India's Constitution keeps the State equidistant from all faiths yet engages with religion to protect freedom and secure equality.

Two models

• France, neutrality as absence: religious symbols are banned in public schools (2004) and face coverings in public (2010); citizens are seen as individuals, not communities.
• India, neutrality as equal respect: Articles 25–28 guarantee freedom of religion to all, and the State may reform religious practice for equality.

Lessons for France

• Accommodation of diversity: Article 25 expressly treats the kirpan as part of the Sikh religion (Explanation I); religious dress can be accommodated rather than banned.
• Group rights: Articles 29–30 let minorities conserve their culture and run educational institutions, giving communities a stake in the republic.
• Principled distance: the State intervenes to end injustice within religions, as with untouchability (Article 17) and instant triple talaq (2017).
• Shared public culture: festivals of many faiths are public holidays in India; the French calendar still follows Christian holy days.

Caveats

• India's model has gaps of its own (communal violence, unequal personal laws, uneven application), and France's strictness grew from its history of Church power; lessons must be adapted, not copied.

France can learn that secularism can mean equal respect for every faith in public life rather than its exclusion, while India must live up to its own ideal more evenly.

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India ranked 130th of 189 countries on UNDP's Human Development Index in 2018 (129th in the 2019 report), far below what its growth rate would suggest: output has risen without matching gains in health and learning.

Why development stays uneven

• Low investment in people: health spending lags the 2.5 per cent of GDP target of the National Health Policy 2017 and education the 6 per cent target reaffirmed in NEP 2020, so families pay for private services.
• Jobless pattern of growth: capital-intensive industry and skill-intensive services create few jobs, leaving most workers in low-productivity farming and informal work.
• Regional divides: southern and western States outperform Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha, so national averages hide lagging regions.
• Social exclusion: Scheduled Castes and Tribes, women and the rural poor have weaker access to land, credit, markets and schooling.
• Health and nutrition deficits: stunting, anaemia and preventable maternal and child deaths persist where primary care and sanitation are weak.
• Learning crisis: ASER surveys show poor foundational learning, dropouts and skill mismatch, wasting the demographic dividend.
• Delivery failures: leakages, weak local institutions and poor monitoring dilute schemes meant for the excluded.

Way forward

• Raise and target social spending, strengthen primary health and school learning, promote labour-intensive manufacturing, empower panchayats and focus on aspirational districts.

Growth is necessary but not sufficient; inclusive development needs sustained investment in people, especially in lagging States and excluded groups.

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Official poverty ratios have fallen steadily since the early 1990s, yet stunting, anaemia and poor diets persist: households have crossed the poverty line without escaping hunger.

Poverty and hunger diverge

• Calorie puzzle: NSS data show rural calorie intake per person fell by about a tenth between 1983 and 2004-05 even as incomes rose (Deaton and Drèze), so higher spending did not mean better nutrition.
• Measurement: expenditure-based poverty lines capture minimum consumption, not diet quality; hidden hunger from a lack of proteins and micronutrients escapes the count.
• Poor sanitation and repeated infections reduce nutrient absorption, and undernourished mothers pass hunger to the next generation.

The squeeze on food

• Weak public provision: low public spending on health and education pushes families to private clinics, schools and tuition, whose costs rise faster than food prices.
• Out-of-pocket health costs push many households into poverty; transport, fuel and rent take a further share of the budget.
• Food schemes supply cereals more than pulses, milk, eggs and vegetables, so the diet that survives the squeeze is calorie-heavy but nutrient-poor.

Counterview

• NFSA 2013, the PDS, mid-day meals and POSHAN Abhiyaan cushion households; the problem is the scale and quality of social spending, not its absence.

Ending hunger requires the State to provide health, education and nutrition reliably, so that the poor's own money can go to food rather than to services the State should supply.

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Many e-governance projects computerise old procedures without reforming them and stumble on connectivity, skills, integration and user needs: technology is bolted onto governance rather than changing it.

Where projects suffer

• Access: patchy power and connectivity, English-only interfaces and low digital literacy leave rural and poor users unable to use services.
• Design: processes are automated as they are, not re-engineered; systems are built around departments, not citizens, and missing data standards create silos.
• Capacity and change management: too few trained staff, weak leadership, resistance to transparency and frequent transfers of project heads.
• Funding and procurement: poor planning, cost overruns, vendor lock-in and no maintenance budget leave systems abandoned after launch.
• Security and inclusion: data leaks and cyber threats erode trust; authentication failures exclude genuine beneficiaries.

Measures

• Reform before automation: e-Kranti makes process re-engineering mandatory in every mission-mode project; deliver integrated services through single windows on open standards.
• Reach: BharatNet for connectivity, Common Service Centres for assisted access, PMGDISHA (2017) for digital literacy, local-language interfaces and offline options.
• Sustain: outcome-based contracts with maintenance budgets, stable project teams and staff training.
• Trust: data-protection and cyber safeguards, third-party audits and grievance redress for failed authentication.

ICT delivers governance change only when process reform, skills, secure infrastructure and citizen-centred design come first; otherwise it merely automates the old bottlenecks.

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India and Japan upgraded their Global Partnership (2000) to a Special Strategic and Global Partnership (2014), a sign that both see the relationship as central to a free, open and rules-based Indo-Pacific.

Why the partnership matters

• Strategic convergence: shared concern over maritime security and China's rise, expressed through the Quad (revived 2017), Japan's place in the Malabar exercise and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision.
• Economic weight: CEPA (in force since August 2011) and Japanese loans and investment in the Delhi Metro, the Dedicated Freight Corridor and the Mumbai–Ahmedabad high-speed rail.
• Connectivity: Japanese projects in the North-East and the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (2017) tie India's Act East policy to Japan's quality-infrastructure agenda.
• Defence and technology: the civil nuclear agreement (2016), a 2+2 ministerial dialogue agreed in 2018 and first held in November 2019, and cooperation in defence equipment, space and digital technology.
• Global role: joint pursuit of Security Council reform through the G4, and cooperation on disaster relief, climate action and resilient supply chains.

Gaps

• Bilateral trade remains modest beside Japan's trade with China; projects face land and delay problems; differences persist on non-proliferation and India's strategic autonomy.

The statement is broadly right: the ties are strategic and global in scope, but their significance for Asia will be measured by faster project delivery, deeper defence-industrial links and joint work in third countries.

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The United States, once UNESCO's largest contributor, stopped paying dues in 2011 after Palestine's admission, notified its withdrawal on 12 October 2017 citing arrears, the need for reform and ‘anti-Israel bias’, and left on 31 December 2018.

Too little cash

• The US had supplied about a fifth of the budget; its default forced cuts, hiring restraint and reliance on earmarked voluntary funds.
• Earmarked money lets donors steer priorities in education, science, culture and heritage, weakening the organisation's own agenda.

Too much politics

• Middle East disputes, Palestine's membership and resolutions on Jerusalem and Hebron's heritage, turned technical decisions into bloc votes.
• Washington read these as bias against Israel; Israel announced its own withdrawal alongside the US.
• Politicisation is not new: the US left in 1984 over politicisation and mismanagement and returned only in 2003.

Fighting for life?

• Losing a major member dented UNESCO's universality and finances, yet its standard-setting on heritage, education and science continued.
• The US rejoined in July 2023, then in July 2025 announced a fresh withdrawal, showing how exposed the body remains to one member's politics.
• India, which gains from UNESCO's heritage, education and science work while balancing ties with Palestine, Israel and the US, needs a depoliticised, well-funded UNESCO.

UNESCO's crisis is as much political as financial; predictable contributions from many members and consensus-driven technical decisions would protect its mandate better than dependence on one power.

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Chapter III of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (sections 7 to 11A) lays down when a person is disqualified for being chosen as, or for continuing as, a member of Parliament or a State legislature, supplementing the constitutional grounds in Articles 102 and 191.

Grounds of disqualification

• Conviction (section 8): conviction for the offences listed in the section, or for any other offence with a sentence of two years or more, disqualifies from the date of conviction and for six years after release.
• Lily Thomas v. Union of India (2013) struck down section 8(4), which had let sitting members keep their seats while an appeal was pending; disqualification now takes effect on conviction itself.
• Corrupt practices (section 8A): where a High Court finds a candidate guilty of a corrupt practice under section 123, such as bribery or undue influence, the President fixes the period of disqualification on the Election Commission's opinion.
• Dismissal for corruption or disloyalty to the State (section 9).
• Government contracts (section 9A), managerial office in a government company (section 10) and failure to lodge election-expense accounts (section 10A).

Remedies

• Appeal and stay: the person may appeal against the conviction; if the appellate court stays the conviction itself, not merely the sentence, the disqualification does not operate, though such a stay is granted only in exceptional cases (Ravikant S. Patil v. Sarvabhouma S. Bagali, 2006).
• Election Commission: under section 11 the Commission may, for reasons recorded, remove a disqualification or reduce its period, except one under section 8A.
• Constitutional route: under Article 103 any question of a sitting MP's disqualification goes to the President, who must obtain and act on the Election Commission's opinion; the decision remains open to judicial review.
• Election petitions: a High Court's order in an election petition is appealable to the Supreme Court under section 116A.

Disqualification protects the integrity of legislatures, and after Lily Thomas it bites promptly; appeal, stay, Commission relief and judicial review ensure that it is applied lawfully rather than arbitrarily.

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The statement is the core of Minerva Mills v. Union of India (1980), in which the Supreme Court struck down clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368, inserted by the 42nd Amendment (1976), which had declared Parliament's amending power unlimited and beyond judicial review.

A limited constituent power

• Article 368(1) lets Parliament, in its constituent power, amend ‘by way of addition, variation or repeal’ any provision; the 24th Amendment (1971) made this explicit after Golaknath (1967) had placed fundamental rights beyond amendment.
• Kesavananda Bharati (1973), by 7:6, overruled Golaknath but held that Parliament cannot alter the Constitution's basic structure: the power to amend is not the power to abrogate.
• Raj Narain (1975) applied the doctrine to strike down Article 329A(4), which had placed the Prime Minister's election beyond the courts.

Can Parliament enlarge its own power?

• The 42nd Amendment attempted exactly that; Minerva Mills answered that an amendment removing all limits on the amending power is itself an attack on the basic structure, since a limited power cannot be used to make itself absolute.
• Judicial review and the balance between Parts III and IV were held to be basic features, so Parliament cannot immunise its amendments from the courts.
• Waman Rao (1981) fixed 24 April 1973 as the cut-off for testing Ninth Schedule laws; I.R. Coelho (2007) held that laws added to the Ninth Schedule after that date remain open to review; the NJAC judgment (2015) struck down the 99th Amendment for undermining judicial independence.

The debate

• Critics call the doctrine judicial supremacy without a textual basis and note that basic features are identified case by case.
• Supporters see it as the guardian of democracy, secularism, federalism and judicial review against transient majorities.

Parliament may amend any provision, even fundamental rights, but it cannot use Article 368 to destroy the Constitution's identity or to free itself from that limit: the amending power is wide, but it is not sovereign.

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The 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992) reserved not less than one-third of seats in Panchayats and municipalities for women (Article 243D(3) for Panchayats), bringing lakhs of women into elected office; the question is whether presence has become power.

What reservation has changed

• Presence: women now hold office in every tier of local government, and some States have raised the quota to fifty per cent.
• Priorities: Chattopadhyay and Duflo found that women-led councils in West Bengal and Rajasthan invested more in drinking water, a need women rank highly.
• Capacity: training, self-help groups and Kerala's Kudumbashree have built women's confidence and public leadership.

Why patriarchy persists

• Proxy rule: the ‘sarpanch-pati’ practice, in which husbands or male relatives take decisions, reinforced by women's lower literacy, restricted mobility and household burdens.
• Rotation: Article 243D(3) allows reserved seats to rotate among constituencies, so women rarely build a durable base or contest an unreserved seat.
• Little to control: weak devolution of funds, functions and functionaries leaves Panchayats with few real decisions to take.
• No spill-over: women won 78 of the 542 seats filled in the 2019 Lok Sabha (about 14 per cent), and party organisations remain male-dominated.
• Social hierarchy: Dalit and tribal women leaders face caste-based harassment, and household duties limit participation.

Way forward

• Train elected women, penalise proxy rule, give reserved seats a longer tenure, devolve real powers, and implement legislative reservation (since then enacted as the 106th Amendment, 2023).

Reservation has widened women's presence and shifted local agendas, but the patriarchal character of politics changes only when quotas are joined to devolution, education, party reform and a shift in social norms.

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Article 76 creates the office of the Attorney-General for India, the highest law officer of the Union; the phrase ‘chief legal adviser and lawyer’ captures his two roles of advice and representation, though the Article itself does not use those words.

Chief legal adviser

• Appointment: the President appoints a person qualified to be a Supreme Court judge; he holds office during the President's pleasure.
• Duties (Article 76(2)): to advise the Government of India on legal matters referred to him and to perform other duties of a legal character assigned by the President; his opinion is advisory, not binding.
• He is not a Minister or a member of the Cabinet, so his advice is expected to be professional rather than political.

Government's lawyer

• Right of audience in every court in India (Article 76(3)); he appears for the Union in the Supreme Court, including in Presidential references under Article 143.
• In Parliament: he may speak and take part in either House, joint sittings and committees of which he is named a member, with the privileges of a member, but cannot vote (Articles 88, 105).
• Restrictions by convention and terms of appointment: he must not advise or appear against the Government of India, nor defend accused persons in criminal cases without its consent.

Limits and concerns

• No fixed tenure and appointment on the Government's choice make the office look political; its independence rests on personal integrity and convention rather than on the text.
• The State counterpart, the Advocate-General (Article 165), appointed by the Governor, plays a similar role.

The statement is broadly right: the Attorney-General is the Union's principal adviser and advocate; the worth of the office lies in candid, independent counsel, which stronger conventions on appointment and tenure would protect.

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In a parliamentary system the executive drafts laws and the House passes them on party lines, but the individual MP is meant to scrutinise, amend and debate; in India that space has narrowed.

Why the MP's role has declined

• Anti-defection law: paragraph 2(1)(b) of the Tenth Schedule disqualifies a member who votes or abstains against the party's direction, so persuasion in debate cannot change a vote.
• Executive dominance: bills come from ministries with little consultation and are pushed through in hours; ordinances and the Money Bill route bypass scrutiny in the Rajya Sabha.
• Weak committee stage: PRS data show only about 16 per cent of bills were referred to committees in the 17th Lok Sabha (2019–24), lower than in the previous three Lok Sabhas, so MPs lose the one forum where they work across party lines.
• Private initiative: only 14 private members' bills have ever been enacted, none since 1970; most lapse without discussion.
• Capacity: limited research support, uneven attendance and the pull of constituency work leave MPs unprepared for technical legislation.

Impact on debate and outcomes

• Fewer sitting days and frequent disruptions shrink debate time, and bills are sometimes passed amid din.
• Debates become party messaging rather than clause-by-clause scrutiny, so drafting errors and unintended effects surface only after enactment.
• Laws passed without committee review invite amendment and litigation later, weakening the quality and legitimacy of outcomes.

Reforms

• Refer bills to committees by default, guarantee a minimum number of sittings, give MPs professional research staff, protect time for private members' business, and limit the whip to confidence and money votes.

The MP's decline as law-maker is structural, not personal; stronger committees, guaranteed debate time and a narrower whip would restore the individual member's voice and, with it, the quality of law.

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After 1991 India moved from command planning to indicative planning, and in 2015 NITI Aayog replaced the Planning Commission; in this market-oriented paradigm the State facilitates rather than directs, and planning is spread across Union, State, district and local tiers.

Multi-level planning

• National and State plans set the frame while district and local plans are built bottom-up: Articles 243G and 243W give Panchayats and municipalities a planning role, and Article 243ZD requires a District Planning Committee to consolidate their plans into a district plan.

Cost-effectiveness and fewer blockages

• Local knowledge matches schemes to real needs, avoids duplication among departments and directs money where impact is highest.
• Local ownership and gram sabha approval reduce resistance; convergence of MGNREGA, PMAY and other schemes through the Gram Panchayat Development Plan speeds delivery.
• District committees can coordinate line departments, so that clearances and works do not wait on distant approvals.
• Neo-liberal fit: as the State shifts from provision to facilitation, PPPs and regulation, local plans can draw in private, community and NGO partners.

Limits and risks

• Audits have found District Planning Committees slow to form or to produce plans in several States, so district plans are often wish-lists.
• Funds are tied to centrally sponsored schemes, leaving little untied money for local priorities, and technical capacity at district and village level is thin.
• Market-led planning can neglect social sectors and backward regions, and more tiers can add coordination costs and delay.

Way forward

• Devolve funds, functions and functionaries; set up professional planning cells at district level; integrate spatial and financial plans; monitor outcomes rather than outlays.

Multi-level planning delivers the efficiency the statement expects only when the lower tiers are genuinely empowered and equipped; otherwise it adds layers without removing blockages.

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India's development has moved from a State-led model to one in which government, business, civil society, communities and international agencies share the work; the record shows both the promise and the limits of partnership.

Partnerships in India's development

• State and community: self-help groups under DAY-NRLM, Panchayats, ASHA and Anganwadi workers carry services to the last mile, and joint forest management gives villagers a stake in forests.
• State and market: PPPs build infrastructure, and section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013 requires companies above set thresholds (net worth Rs 500 crore, turnover Rs 1,000 crore or net profit Rs 5 crore) to spend 2 per cent of their three-year average net profit on CSR.
• State and civil society: NGOs run health, education and rights programmes, civil-society campaigns shaped the RTI Act and MGNREGA, and a WHO–UNICEF–Rotary partnership with government made India polio-free (2014).
• Between governments: the GST Council and NITI Aayog's Aspirational Districts Programme, built on convergence, collaboration and competition, model cooperative federalism.
• Global partners: UN agencies, donors and technology partners support health, nutrition and skilling missions.

Collaboration and team spirit

• Partnership pools complementary strengths, public reach, private efficiency, NGO trust and community knowledge, and creates shared ownership of outcomes, as the polio campaign showed.

Where it falls short

• Mistrust between government and NGOs (FCRA curbs), CSR concentrated in a few developed States, PPP contract disputes, weak monitoring and duplication of effort.
• Donor priorities do not always align with national plans, and weak local bodies cannot hold partners to account.

Way forward

• Clear roles and transparent rules, joint monitoring, capacity building for local bodies and NGOs, outcome-based contracts, and CSR steered to backward districts.

India's experience shows that partnership works when roles, trust and accountability are clear; the task now is to extend it to lagging regions and to make the partners more equal.

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Schemes for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, women, children, the elderly and persons with disabilities often fall short not for want of funds but because the intended beneficiaries do not know their entitlements or have no voice in how a scheme is designed, delivered and reviewed.

Absence of awareness

• Low literacy, language barriers and weak outreach mean many eligible people never learn of, or claim, pensions, scholarships and insurance.
• Rigid documentation (identity, income and caste certificates) shuts out the poorest, who are least aware of how to obtain it.
• Dependence on middlemen for information breeds delay, leakage and corruption, and grievance channels are unknown or unusable.

Absence of involvement

• Design: uniform, top-down schemes ignore the specific needs of tribal, migrant, disabled and elderly people.
• Delivery: gram sabhas meet irregularly or are dominated by elites, so beneficiaries have no say in selection or implementation.
• Monitoring: social audits and beneficiary committees are uneven, and users seldom take part in evaluation, so failures go unreported.
• Other causes: understaffed departments, poor coordination among agencies, delayed funds and weak beneficiary data compound the problem.

What works

• MGNREGA's gram sabha social audits, Kerala's Kudumbashree and PESA (1996) tribal self-rule show that people-driven delivery improves outcomes.

Reforms

• Information campaigns in local languages through SHG networks, community volunteers and helplines; citizen charters and jan sunwai; mandatory social audit; DBT with offline back-up; and beneficiary representation in scheme design.

Awareness and participation are preconditions, not add-ons, for effective welfare; involving vulnerable groups from design to audit converts entitlements on paper into benefits in hand.

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Nehru's India spoke for the colonised: it raised South Africa's treatment of Indians at the UN in 1946, helped shape the Bandung conference (1955), the Non-Aligned Movement (1961) and the G-77 (1964); today's India is also a large economy, a nuclear power and a partner of the major powers.

The older image

• India led opposition to colonialism and apartheid and pressed for a fairer economic order through the G-77 and the NAM, giving it moral standing far beyond its material power.

How the new role has changed it

• Post-1991 liberalisation and new strategic partnerships shifted priorities from solidarity to interests; the Quad and the bid for a permanent Security Council seat mark a great-power orientation.
• On trade, nuclear and security questions India now weighs national interest as much as Global South solidarity, and it is courted by major powers rather than leading the marginalised against them.
• In a multipolar contest India balances the US, Russia and China through the Quad, BRICS and the SCO, acting as a swing power rather than a bloc leader.
• Asymmetry with smaller neighbours breeds suspicion, weakening its claim to speak for them.

What remains

• India still defends developing-country interests at the WTO (the G-20 bloc of 2003, food security) and on climate justice, and founded the International Solar Alliance (2015).
• Development partnership through lines of credit, capacity building and disaster relief in Africa, Asia and the neighbourhood sustains goodwill.

Assessment

• The image has changed rather than vanished: India now speaks for the Global South from a position of influence, but its credibility depends on consistent stands, development finance and pressing for reform of multilateral bodies.

India's voice for the marginalised survives, but it is now one of interest and capacity rather than solidarity alone; the older image endures only where action matches rhetoric.

Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

India–US ties have grown into a global strategic partnership, yet Washington tends to see India as a balancer against China or a market to be opened, while Delhi seeks recognition as an autonomous power in its own right; that gap is the friction the statement describes.

The friction, with examples

• Status: designation as a Major Defence Partner (2016) and Strategic Trade Authorisation-1 status (2018) fall short of the equal treatment India expects and are read in Delhi as instruments of US strategy rather than recognition of India's standing.
• Strategic autonomy: the threat of CAATSA (2017) sanctions over the Russian S-400 purchase, and the end of waivers on Iranian oil in May 2019, clashed with India's independent choices on defence and energy.
• Trade: the US withdrew India's GSP benefits in June 2019 and imposed steel and aluminium tariffs in 2018, while pressing India on tariffs, data localisation and e-commerce rules.
• Regional: US talks with the Taliban and its dealings with Pakistan sidelined India in Afghanistan, and President Trump's offer to mediate on Kashmir (July 2019) irritated Delhi.
• Multilateral: differences at the WTO on subsidies and public stockholding, and on climate after the US announced its exit from the Paris Agreement in 2017 (it rejoined in 2021).

The convergence

• The civil nuclear deal (2008), LEMOA (2016), COMCASA (2018), the first 2+2 dialogue (2018) and the Quad show deep alignment on the Indo-Pacific.

Way forward

• Treat India as a co-equal shaper of Indo-Pacific strategy, respect its autonomy on Russia and Iran, settle trade disputes through a negotiated package, and deepen defence-technology co-production.

The statement captures a real strain: convergence on China is strong, but friction persists because India wants recognition as an equal and room for autonomy that US policy does not always allow.

Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.