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Subject: Polity

  • Government trusts Aadhaar on welfare. It needs to rely on it to make voter lists

    Why in the News

    The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls has stopped being a one off event. Rolling out in phases since June 2025, it now extends to almost the entire country and has already deleted over 13 crore names. The Supreme Court has upheld the exercise while holding that the final determination of citizenship belongs to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) under the Citizenship Act, 1955, and not to the Election Commission (EC). The goal of clean, accurate and inclusive rolls is not in dispute; the method is. That method revives a document intensive, house to house verification mothballed for over two decades and applies it on a near national scale, while the one question it is most often defended by, citizenship, is the question the Court has just said cannot be answered by an electoral officer at the doorstep.

    What is the Special Intensive Revision?

    1. What it does: It is a time bound, house to house enumeration in which Booth Level Officers (BLOs) physically visit households and verify every single voter entry.
    2. How it differs from the routine revision: The annual Summary Revision updates additions, deletions and corrections against a qualifying date, while an intensive revision re verifies every entry through fresh enumeration forms and document checks.
    3. Statutory basis: Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 authorises a special revision of the roll at any time, for reasons recorded in writing.
    4. Procedure: The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 lay down the framework for house to house enumeration and verification.

    Why does the method impose its heaviest cost on the poorest voters?

    1. The burden of proof shifts to the voter: Lakhs of officials go door to door, and crores of citizens must prove their eligibility on paper within compressed deadlines.
    2. Who carries that burden: It falls hardest on the poor, the elderly, migrants and women, who are the least likely to hold a continuous documentary record of themselves.
    3. Welfare linkage raises the price of an error: Orders in some states link roll deletions to welfare records, so a wrongful removal can cost a family its rations and its pension.
    4. Redress is slow where deletions are largest: The Supreme Court is pressing the EC over the slow disposal of appeals against deletions in West Bengal, where voters struck off are still waiting to be heard.
    5. The cost recurs by design: The exercise mobilises around 10 lakh public servants, mostly schoolteachers, and costs the exchequer thousands of crores every cycle.

    Why can citizenship not be settled in the field?

    1. The documents are not universal: A passport is held by under 8 per cent of Indians, and was clarified in June by the Ministry of External Affairs to be a travel document rather than proof of citizenship.
    2. What the common records actually prove: Aadhaar proves identity and residence by statute and not citizenship, while the voter identity card and the Permanent Account Number (PAN) prove none of it.
    3. Birth registration was patchy: For decades the registration of births was incomplete for the poor, for women and for rural India.
    4. The abandoned pilot: The Multipurpose National Identity Card pilot was abandoned as unworkable.
    5. The Assam precedent: The National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam excluded 19 lakh people, caused enormous distress and resolved nothing.
    6. The register that followed counted residents: The National Population Register enumerated “usual residents”, citizens and non citizens alike, because a field test of citizenship was found impractical.

    What would an Aadhaar based revision actually do?

    1. The application: A voluntary application on mobile or web would let a voter link Aadhaar to the Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) and complete face authentication in one step, with no document and no visit to any office.
    2. What a single authentication settles: The act proves the voter is alive, removes duplicates because each Aadhaar is unique, and removes ghosts because a non existent person cannot authenticate.
    3. Age without a date of birth: Biometrics are not captured below the age of five, so a person whose fingerprints and iris were recorded in an enrolment around 2013 or earlier was at least five then and is at least 18 now.
    4. Why the record has no motive to lie: Aadhaar was created as a bare identity carrying no benefit or entitlement, so nothing was gained by misstating age, and the address had to be genuine because the Aadhaar letter was posted to it.
    5. Voluntariness and the residue: Linkage stays voluntary, and those who decline use the ordinary manual route, a small residue given near universal coverage.
    6. Citizenship handled as the Court requires: Everyone is identified first, analytics flag the few genuine outliers, and only those are referred to the MHA.

    Does the existing record of face authentication support the claim?

    1. Coverage: Aadhaar covers 1.36 billion residents, making it the largest and most carefully audited enrolment in existence.
    2. Proven at scale in welfare: De duplicating PAN, closing benami accounts and removing crores of ghost beneficiaries from welfare have together saved over Rs 2.7 lakh crore.
    3. Face authentication at the airport gate: More than 10 crore Aadhaar face authentication transactions have been completed in Digi Yatra through more than 100 airports, with as many as 500 crore face authentications completed in all to date.
    4. Face authentication for pensions: Jeevan Pramaan lets 1.47 crore pensioners prove from a phone, by their face alone, that they are alive.
    5. Privacy design: Aadhaar authentication returns only a yes or no answer, and never the underlying data.

    Challenges to an Aadhaar based electoral roll revision

    1. It cannot answer the question the revision is defended by: Aadhaar proves residence, so it leaves citizenship exactly where the Court left it, with the MHA. Eg. The same statutory limit that disqualifies Aadhaar as proof of citizenship applies to the proposed application.
      The Fix: Separate the two tasks in law, using the application only for de duplication and proof of life, and routing citizenship doubts to a statutory MHA process carrying notice and hearing.
    2. Authentication failure excludes the people it is meant to protect: Biometric and face authentication fails for manual labourers, for the elderly and where connectivity is poor, and a failure at the roll stage removes a vote rather than a ration. Eg. Ration denials following biometric authentication failure were reported in Jharkhand.
      The Fix: Make manual verification a guaranteed fallback with a statutory timeline, so no name is ever deleted on an authentication failure alone.
    3. Seeding Aadhaar into rolls has been halted once already: An earlier programme was stopped on legal rather than technical grounds, and the same objection can be raised against a fresh attempt. Eg. The National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme of 2015 was halted after the Supreme Court’s interim orders restricting the use of Aadhaar.
      The Fix: Ground the application in an express statutory provision carrying defined purpose limitation, so linkage rests on law rather than on an administrative circular.
    4. Deletion by analytics carries no hearing: Flagging an outlier produces an administrative suspicion the voter must then rebut, which returns the burden of proof to the individual. Eg. Rule 18 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 requires individual notice before a deletion, and its observance has been contested in petitions against the current revision.
      The Fix: Require a reasoned notice, a hearing and an appeal decided within a fixed period before any flagged name is removed.
    5. Privacy and proportionality: Building the electoral roll on a national biometric identity concentrates a population wide database against a constitutional right. Eg. Any state intrusion into privacy must satisfy legality, a legitimate aim and proportionality between the means and that aim.
      The Fix: Subject the application to a published proportionality assessment and to independent audit of every authentication log.

    Conclusion

    The revision and the alternative are not two methods for the same task. One tries to settle a legal status in the field, which the Court has already held the field cannot settle, and the other cleans the roll of the dead, the duplicated and the departed, which is the part a machine can actually do. Keeping the two apart is what would allow the roll to be cleaned without a citizenship test attached to it. The thing to watch is whether the Election Commission is given an express statutory basis for face authentication, because without one the alternative inherits the same legal fragility that stopped the last attempt.

    Electoral Roll Management in India

    1. One roll for all: Article 325 mandates one general electoral roll for every territorial constituency, and bars exclusion from it on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex.
    2. Universal adult suffrage: Article 326 guarantees the vote to every citizen of 18 years and above, the age fixed by the Sixty first Amendment.
    3. Who qualifies for registration: Section 19 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 requires a voter to be 18 or above and “ordinarily resident” in the constituency, while Section 16 lists the disqualifications for registration, including non citizenship.
    4. The machinery: Sections 13A to 13CC set the administrative hierarchy of the Chief Electoral Officer at state level, the District Election Officer at district level and the Electoral Registration Officer at constituency level.

    Government Initiatives on Electoral Roll Management

    1. Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021: It permits the Electoral Registration Officer to seek a voter’s Aadhaar number on a voluntary basis, through Form 6B, to establish identity and to identify duplicate entries.
    2. National Voters’ Service Portal: It allows voters to register, modify and confirm their electoral details online without visiting an office.
    3. ECINET: Launched in 2026, it is a single digital interface integrating more than 40 mobile and web applications for voters and election officials.
    4. Faster delivery of the identity card: A standard operating procedure requires the Electors Photo Identity Card to be delivered within 15 days of an update.

    Back2Basics

    1. What Aadhaar is: It is a 12 digit random number issued to a resident of India after biometric and demographic de duplication, and it establishes identity rather than citizenship.
    2. Governing law: It rests on the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016.
    3. Issuing authority: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is the statutory authority under that Act, functioning under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
    4. Judicial limits: In K S Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2018) a five judge Constitution Bench upheld the Act and struck down Section 57, so a private entity cannot demand Aadhaar authentication under a contract.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”

  • BJP’s states route to UCC, over one central law

    Why in the News

    The Union Home Minister has said the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) will be introduced in all 21 Bharatiya Janata Party led National Democratic Alliance ruled states before the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. The abolition of triple talaq was cited in the same statement as part of the effort to provide equal rights to Muslim women. The commitment follows a settled preference within the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since 2023 that states enact their own codes first, with the Centre considering an overarching law later, so what had been a state first strategy now carries a date. The tension is constitutional as much as political: Entry 5 of the Concurrent List lets every state legislate its own code, so a promise of uniformity is being delivered through four statutes that are similar but not identical, and none of which is literally universal.

    What is the Uniform Civil Code?

    1. Constitutional source: The promise stems from Article 44, which says the State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India.
    2. Adoption: The Constituent Assembly adopted the Article on 23 November 1948 after a spirited debate, and had no consensus on what such a code would actually contain.
    3. Enforceability: The Article sits among the Directive Principles of State Policy, and under Article 37 those principles are fundamental to governance but are not enforceable by any court.

    Why is the code being legislated state by state rather than through one central law?

    1. Legislative competence: Marriage, divorce, adoption, wills, intestacy, succession and joint family matters fall under Entry 5 of the Concurrent List, giving both Parliament and state legislatures competence over them.
    2. Variation in personal law: A single national code would have to negotiate enormous variation in personal laws and customary practices, particularly among tribal communities and in the Northeast.
    3. Codification is not like criminal law: The recorded objection in 2023 was that a civil code could not simply be codified the way criminal law was, because a tribal community in Uttarakhand or Himachal Pradesh practises very differently from one in Chhattisgarh or the Northeast.
    4. Political utility of the state route: Legislating state by state allows different models to be tested, local customs to be accommodated and implementation to be demonstrated, without first confronting the full political and constitutional complexity of a nationwide law.
    5. The Sangh’s stated caution: The RSS position in 2023 was that the subject required deeper study and wider consultation because it affected every section of society. The RSS general secretary welcomed the Uttarakhand model in March 2024 and said it should be studied and implemented across the country.

    What do the four enacted state codes actually contain?

    1. Uttarakhand: The only code currently in force, implemented in January 2025, it provides common rules on marriage, divorce, inheritance and succession, prohibits polygamy and mandates marriage registration.
    2. Regulation of live in relationships: Its most distinctive feature requires couples to register the relationship and its termination, while recognising children born of such relationships as legitimate.
    3. Gujarat: The Assembly passed its Bill in March 2026, broadly following the Uttarakhand model on marriage, divorce, succession and live in relationships, and prohibiting bigamy.
    4. Assam: The Bill was passed in May, covering marriage, divorce, succession and live in relationships, prohibiting polygamy and making live in registration compulsory.
    5. Madhya Pradesh: The Bill was passed in July and additionally covers adoption, with provisions relating to triple talaq and nikah halala, alongside live in registration and a bar on polygamy.
    6. Scheduled Tribes are excluded: All four laws exclude Scheduled Tribes, and Uttarakhand also exempts certain communities protected by constitutional customary law provisions.

    What has the Law Commission said?

    1. The 2018 position: The 21st Law Commission, in its Consultation Paper on Reform of Family Law (2018), said a uniform civil code was “neither necessary nor desirable at this stage”.
    2. Equality within over equality between: Its emphasis was on achieving “equality within communities” between men and women rather than “equality between” communities, reforming discriminatory provisions across personal laws while preserving diversity.
    3. Piecemeal change over absolute uniformity: It preferred making piecemeal changes to imposing absolute uniformity, and flagged the constitutional protections enjoyed by tribal and northeastern communities as a complication.
    4. The issue reopened: The 22nd Law Commission reopened the matter in 2023, seeking fresh views from the public and from recognised religious organisations, on the ground that more than three years had elapsed since the 2018 consultation and that developments including court orders warranted fresh examination.

    Where do the Opposition and the NDA allies stand?

    1. The Opposition’s framing: Opposition parties have questioned whether the code is genuinely a gender equality reform or an attempt to alter the personal laws of minorities through a majoritarian framework.
    2. State level opposition: The Congress opposed the Gujarat Bill as directed against Muslims, and in Madhya Pradesh criticised the legislation as an RSS agenda.
    3. Assam’s Opposition: Opposition parties there sought wider consultation and raised concerns over the tribal exemption and the regulation of live in relationships.
    4. Janata Dal (United): The party has consistently said it is not opposed to a uniform code but wants it to emerge through consensus rather than imposition. Its president told the Law Commission that such a code should respect India’s “delicate balance” between different religious and ethnic groups.
    5. Telugu Desam Party: The party has called for discussion and consensus, and in 2024 said it would ensure that Muslim interests were protected.

    Challenges to the Uniform Civil Code

    1. Four codes do not produce one code: Legislating separately in each state produces similar but not identical statutes, so uniformity is not what the project delivers. Eg. Madhya Pradesh’s law covers adoption, triple talaq and nikah halala, while Uttarakhand’s does not.
      The Fix: Anchor state enactments to a model law drafted by the Law Commission, so the substantive rules converge even where the enacting legislature differs.
    2. Exclusion of Scheduled Tribes: A code that exempts Scheduled Tribes leaves the customary law of a large population outside the very uniformity it is named for. Eg. All four enacted codes carry the exclusion, and Uttarakhand exempts further protected communities.
      The Fix: State the constitutional basis of the exemption openly, in the Fifth and Sixth Schedule protections, rather than leaving it as a silent exception.
    3. Directive Principles create no claimable right: Article 44 gives a citizen nothing to enforce, so the pace and the content of the code are settled entirely by political choice. Eg. The Article has stood since the Constitution commenced without any central statute enacted under it.
      The Fix: Route the contested questions through parliamentary scrutiny of a draft bill, so the content is debated before it binds anyone.
    4. Registration of private relationships: Compulsory registration of a live in relationship and of its termination extends the state into conduct that was previously unregulated. Eg. Uttarakhand’s code requires both the registration and the recorded termination of such a relationship.
      The Fix: Limit registration to the consequences the state must settle, namely the legitimacy of children and maintenance, rather than the existence of the relationship itself.
    5. Federal friction on a Concurrent List subject: A later central law can override a state code on the same entry, so the states legislating first face the prospect of their statutes being displaced. Eg. Article 254 gives a central law precedence over a repugnant state law on a Concurrent List subject.
      The Fix: Reserve state codes for Presidential assent under Article 254(2), which protects them until Parliament legislates on the same matter.

    Conclusion

    The commitment now carries a date, and the instrument chosen to meet it remains the state legislature rather than Parliament. That choice buys the ability to work around customary law without arguing a national case, and it also guarantees the codes keep diverging as each state adds subjects of its own. What is unresolved is whether uniformity describes the outcome or only the ambition. The thing to watch is whether an overarching central law is eventually brought, because the moment it is, the enacted state codes become the question rather than the answer.

    Back2Basics

    1. What it is: The Law Commission of India is a non statutory executive body constituted by the Ministry of Law and Justice, and it is not created by any Act of Parliament.
    2. Term and composition: It is constituted afresh for a fixed term, normally three years, and is headed by a chairperson who is usually a retired judge, with full time and part time members.
    3. First Commission: The first Law Commission of independent India was constituted in 1955, chaired by the then Attorney General for India.
    4. Weight of its output: Its reports and consultation papers are recommendatory, so the government is free to act on them, to act against them, or to leave them unacted.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015, GS2, 12.5 marks] Discuss the possible factors that inhibit India from enacting for its citizens a uniform civil code as provided for in the Directive Principles of State Policy.”

  • The rebuilding of the city must begin, after Satya Niketan

    Why in the News

    A building collapse at Satya Niketan in Delhi killed seven of the 50 Delhi University students living in a makeshift arrangement inside an unauthorised structure, with many others hospitalised in serious condition. The collapse followed monsoon water reaching the basement and foundations of a structure almost half a century old, in which alterations were being carried out at basement level at the time. Given the building’s age, its condition, its unauthorised status and its position in a dense neighbourhood, the event was not preventable at the moment it happened. The tension is that almost 60 per cent of Delhi’s population lives in structures of this kind, and the city will hold nearly 40 million people by 2030, so the response has to be a documentation and licensing regime rather than an inquiry into one building.

    What is a Lal Dora area?

    1. Lal Dora, the village habitation core: A Lal Dora area is the settled habitation core of a village that was recorded separately from its agricultural land, and which municipal planning and building regulation historically did not reach.
    2. Shadow pockets outside municipal planning: These are shadow pockets that evade municipal planning, and they exist in virtually all large Indian cities rather than in Delhi alone.
    3. High density construction in urbanised villages: Urbanised villages of this kind now carry high density four and five storey buildings put up outside the building bye laws that apply elsewhere in the city.

    Why is the city’s building stock undocumented?

    1. The scale of the unregulated stock: Almost 60 per cent of Delhi’s population lives in unauthorised structures, mostly slums, low rise makeshift tenements, or high density four and five storey buildings in urbanised villages.
    2. Existing street maps of illegal colonies: Street maps of most illegal colonies already exist, so the gap is not location but the building itself.
    3. The missing building by building record: There is no building by building documentation of the type and size of each structure, no assessment of its physical condition, and no enumeration of who lives inside it.
    4. Infra red structural imaging: Advanced infra red and other imaging techniques allow a reasonably accurate assessment of a building’s structural condition without dismantling it.

    Why does the age of the stock make documentation urgent?

    1. Buildings are no longer built to last: The lifespan of structures built in this century is barely 30 to 40 years, against the generational life expected of older construction.
    2. Non compliant buildings last less: Structures such as those at Satya Niketan follow none of the required safety codes, which shortens that span further.
    3. A finite lifespan and the inspection cycle: A building stock with a known expiry has to be checked on a cycle, and partially or wholly demolished and replaced when it fails, rather than inspected only after a collapse.

    Why does the use of a building matter as much as its construction?

    1. A structure is designed for one function: Every building is engineered for a specific use, and inappropriate use with heavy loads on floors weakens and damages the structure.
    2. Residential to commercial conversion: In unauthorised colonies, blocks of flats designed for domestic use are converted into stores and restaurants, which raises the number of occupants and alters the weight carried by the floors.
    3. Makeshift student hostels: Makeshift hostels compress living space to raise the return to the property owner, which is the arrangement the Satya Niketan students were housed under.
    4. Occupancy permit tied to a designated function: No occupancy permit should be issued unless the building authority has approved a designated function for the building and allocated a minimum floor space per person.

    What does the layout of a colony do to the water?

    1. Nobody owns the shared ground: Builders take no responsibility for the ground they share with neighbouring buildings, so no one assesses the plot as part of a layout.
    2. Permeable ground and drain capacity: Whether there is adequate natural ground around a structure to absorb rainwater, and whether there are enough wide mouth drains to move water away quickly.
    3. The mechanism of failure: Too much building in too small a ground area traps excess water, directs it into basements and foundations, and destabilises the structure from below.
    4. Climate change and drainage capacity: Climate change is altering weather patterns, producing flash floods and sudden very large volumes of rain, so drainage capacity has become a structural safety question rather than a convenience one.

    Why does enforcement fail even where rules exist?

    1. The bye laws are not the binding constraint: A battery of building bye laws carries no value if it cannot be enforced, and the enforcement machinery is the part that has not been built.
    2. Inspection is purchasable: Structural evaluation of buildings achieves nothing where inspectors and site engineers can be bribed to record a passing assessment.
    3. The Bengaluru apartment collapse: A newly completed apartment building in Bengaluru collapsed after the builder added two floors beyond the three approved, weakening the structural capacity of the columns. The collapse killed 12 people.
    4. Authority is split across agencies: Control of roads, buildings, transport and other infrastructure sits with different political parties and municipal agencies, which raises the question of whether all of it should be brought under one legal entity such as the mayor.

    Challenges to regulating unauthorised construction in Delhi

    1. Regularisation has become the expected endpoint: Repeated amnesty for unauthorised colonies teaches builders and residents that non compliance is a delay rather than a risk, so the next structure is also built outside the code. Eg. Delhi has run successive rounds of recognition and regularisation of unauthorised colonies over decades.
      The Fix: Tie any future regularisation to a passed structural assessment and a registered occupancy function, so recognition follows safety rather than substituting for it.
    2. Enforcement is fragmented across agencies with no single accountable office: Land, building approval, drainage and services sit with separate bodies, so no one authority can be held responsible for a collapse. Eg. The proposal on the table is to bring roads, buildings, transport and infrastructure under one legal entity such as the mayor.
      The Fix: Vest building safety, drainage and occupancy licensing in one municipal office with statutory liability for a structural failure in its jurisdiction.
    3. The inspector’s incentive runs against the resident’s safety: A single site engineer signs off on a structure whose owner gains directly from an extra floor, and detection is unlikely. Eg. A Bengaluru apartment approved for three storeys was completed with five and collapsed, killing 12 people.
      The Fix: Move structural certification to empanelled third party engineers who are randomly assigned to sites and carry personal liability for their certificate.
    4. A hostel or a paying guest establishment sits outside the licensing net entirely: Converting a residential flat to shared student accommodation multiplies occupancy without triggering any approval. Eg. Fifty students were living in a makeshift arrangement inside one unauthorised Satya Niketan building.
      The Fix: Require a separate occupancy licence keyed to persons per unit for any shared residential use, renewable annually against a fire and structural check.
    5. Drainage capacity is planned at city scale while the failure happens at plot scale: Storm water design covers arterial drains, and the ground condition immediately around a building is nobody’s design responsibility. Eg. Water reaching a basement and foundation is what destabilised an almost fifty year old structure.
      The Fix: Make a layout level permeable ground and drainage assessment a condition of building approval, so the plot’s water behaviour is fixed before construction rather than after flooding.
    6. Demolition is politically impossible at the scale the stock requires: Sixty per cent of the population cannot be displaced, so unsafe structures stay occupied while the enforcement file remains open. Eg. Delhi will approach 40 million people by 2030, with continued in migration from nearby towns.
      The Fix: Pair every condemnation order with an in situ rental rehousing entitlement, so removing an unsafe structure does not require removing the household from the city.

    Conclusion

    The city’s governing problem is not that its bye laws are wrong but that most of its building stock sits outside any record that a bye law could be applied to. Documentation, a licensed function with a stated occupancy, a plot level drainage assessment and a single accountable authority are four separate instruments, and none of them requires a new law before it can begin. Delhi is heading towards nearly 40 million residents and the stock it will house them in has a working life measured in decades, not generations. The thing to watch is whether any municipal agency begins building by building documentation of a single Lal Dora pocket, since every other measure depends on that record existing first.

    Urban Local Bodies in India

    1. Urban local bodies: Urban local bodies (ULBs) are the elected municipal governments of Indian cities and towns, governed by Part IX-A of the Constitution as introduced by the 74th Amendment Act, 1992.
    2. Municipal planning and service functions: They prepare master plans, regulate land use, provide basic services and guide urban growth, with reserved seats for women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes built into their composition.
    3. Own revenue and property tax collection: Own revenue of Indian ULBs is under 1 per cent of GDP, against 6 per cent to 7 per cent in Brazil and South Africa, and property tax collection efficiency stays at 35 per cent to 40 per cent.
    4. The planning deficit: About 65 per cent of Indian cities operate without an updated master plan, per NITI Aayog.

    Government Initiatives for Urban Local Bodies

    1. AMRUT 2.0: Targets 100 per cent water tap coverage in all 4,800 and more ULBs and 100 per cent sewerage coverage in 500 major cities, with mandatory rejuvenation of at least one water body in every city.
    2. Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0: Works to a Garbage Free City star rating, requires material recovery facilities in cities above five lakh population, and targets remediation of all 2,400 and more legacy dumpsites by 2027.
    3. Urban Challenge Fund: Rs 1,00,000 crore of central assistance aimed at catalysing Rs 4 lakh crore of investment, with the Centre funding 25 per cent of a project only where the ULB raises 50 per cent from the market.
    4. Urban Infrastructure Development Fund: Managed by the National Housing Bank, it lends to Tier 2 and Tier 3 ULBs at low interest for water supply, sanitation and storm water drainage.
    5. City Economic Regions: A Budget 2026-27 framework linking a core city with its satellite towns and industrial hubs into one labour market, with Rs 5,000 crore per region for 14 identified regions.
    6. Smart Cities Mission legacy: The mission concluded on 31 March 2025, and its Integrated Command and Control Centres now operate in all 100 cities as traffic and emergency monitoring hubs.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2023, GS2, 10 marks] “The states in India seem reluctant to empower urban local bodies both functionally as well as financially.” Comment.”

  • SIR: Glaring oddities in Maharashtra’s deletion patterns

    Why in the News

    The draft roll published on 31 August under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has dropped 2.07 crore electors from Maharashtra’s 288 Assembly Constituencies (ACs), which is 21.14 per cent of the 9.79 crore electors carried on the rolls before the revision. That single State figure is larger than the entire electorate of Chhattisgarh, and larger than the 2.04 crore deletions recorded during the same revision in Uttar Pradesh, a State with 13.4 crore electors. The Election Commission of India (EC) has not released the Elector to Population (EP) ratio for any State during the revision, though its own Manual on Electoral Rolls requires that disclosure during and after every revision. The contest is therefore not over whether a roll needed cleaning but over whether a deletion of one in five electors, justified largely by two blanket reasons, can be checked at all while the one ratio designed to check it is withheld.

    What is the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls?

    1. Rebuilding the roll by fresh enumeration: An intensive revision rebuilds the electoral roll through a fresh house to house enumeration rather than adding and removing names against the existing roll, so every elector has to be re accounted for.
    2. The enumeration phase and the draft roll: The enumeration phase collects forms from electors, and the draft roll published at the end of it shows who survived enumeration and who was deleted, with a reason recorded against each deletion.

    What is the Elector to Population ratio?

    1. What the ratio measures: The Elector to Population ratio expresses enrolled electors as a share of the population old enough to vote in the same area, so it converts a raw roll count into a figure that can be compared across constituencies of different sizes.
    2. The benchmark it is read against: Official projections for the 18 plus age group give an expected number of electors for an area, which supplies a comparison derived independently of the roll being tested.
    3. What a low ratio signals: A roll sitting far below the ratio implied by those projections is evidence of under enrolment rather than of a cleaner roll, since removing duplicate and deceased entries does not pull the total below the eligible population.
    4. The disclosure obligation attached to it: The Election Commission’s Manual on Electoral Rolls requires the ratio to be disclosed during and after every revision, which makes it the audit built into the revision rather than an external check on it.

    How large is the deletion, measured against the roll itself?

    1. Names deleted and names retained: 2,06,88,487 names were deleted from a pre revision roll of 9,78,54,049, leaving 7,71,65,562 electors in the draft roll.
    2. Comparison with Uttar Pradesh: The deletion exceeds Uttar Pradesh’s, and the draft rolls of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi combined hold fewer electors than Uttar Pradesh alone.
    3. The gap against projected population: Set against a projected voter population of 9,65,00,000, the draft roll is short by 1,93,34,438 electors, about 20 per cent.
    4. The Technical Group on Population Projections: That population estimate is the 18 plus age group projection from the Government of India’s Technical Group on Population Projections, not an independent construction.
    5. Deletion size against shortfall size: The shortfall against projected population is roughly the same size as the deletion, so the revision has removed almost exactly the number of electors that a demographic estimate says the roll should have retained.

    Where are the deletions concentrated?

    1. Urban concentration of the deletions: About 75 per cent of all deletions occurred in the 147 constituencies classified as highly or moderately urban.
    2. The clustering by district: Almost all of the heaviest deleting constituencies lie in and around Mumbai, Pune, Thane and Nashik.
    3. Constituencies at the extremes: 58 ACs lost at least a third of their names and 25 ACs lost 40 per cent or more, with Bhiwandi East in Thane the highest at 49.1 per cent.
    4. Night time light classification of constituencies: Constituencies were sorted into urban and rural using night time light intensity from the Socio economic High resolution Rural Urban Geographic Platform for India (SHRUG), a public geographic database maintained by the Development Data Lab, read off 2023 satellite data.
    5. Akole, the lowest deleting constituency: Akole in Ahmednagar recorded the lowest share of deletions against its pre revision roll.

    What do the recorded reasons for deletion show?

    1. Permanently Shifted and Untraceable or Absent: Permanently Shifted and Untraceable or Absent were applied as blanket categories across large numbers of names.
    2. Kalyan Rural in Thane: Kalyan Rural in Thane lost 2,52,247 names, 46 per cent of its roll, of which 2.39 lakh, or 96.5 per cent, were marked shifted or absent, against only 4,882 marked Deceased.
    3. The 85 constituency cluster: In 85 ACs shifted and absent accounted for between 75 per cent and 96.5 per cent of all deletions. Those 85 constituencies held 3.21 crore electors before the revision and lost 1.17 crore, of which 97.9 lakh were marked shifted or absent.
    4. The Manual’s bar on deleting an absentee: The EC’s own manual states that an absentee voter cannot be deleted, because that elector continues to be an ordinary resident of the place where enrolled.
    5. The Chief Electoral Officer’s definition of Absent: An explanatory note issued by the Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra defines Absent as meaning that the elector was unavailable, which is a condition of the enumerator’s visit rather than a finding about residence.

    Why does the variation between similar constituencies matter?

    1. Pune’s 21 constituencies: In Pune’s 21 ACs, the share of deletions marked Absent ranged from 0.4 per cent to 88.3 per cent.
    2. Nashik, Palghar, Aurangabad and Nagpur: Nashik’s 15 ACs ranged from 8.1 per cent to 86.5 per cent, Palghar’s six from 3.3 per cent to 85.5 per cent, Aurangabad’s nine from 7.3 per cent to 67.3 per cent and Nagpur’s 12 from 4.4 per cent to 59.7 per cent.
    3. Maval and Hadapsar: Maval marked just 322 names, 0.4 per cent, as Absent while marking over 77,000 as shifted, and Hadapsar marked 86 per cent of its 2.98 lakh deleted voters as absent.
    4. The Deceased and Duplicate shares: Across a sample of constituencies the share of deletions recorded as Deceased runs from 1.9 per cent to nearly 45 per cent, and the share recorded as Duplicate from 1.3 per cent to about 25 per cent.
    5. Enumerator practice as the source of the spread: Constituencies of similar urban or rural character, inside one district, were processed under reasons applied arbitrarily and interchangeably, which points to the enumerator’s practice rather than to any underlying difference in the electors.

    Challenges to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls

    1. Deletion is the default outcome of a re enumeration: Rebuilding a roll from scratch places the burden of proof on the elector, so anyone missed at the door is removed rather than retained. Eg. In 85 Maharashtra constituencies, shifted and absent together accounted for up to 96.5 per cent of all deletions.
      The Fix: Require a second visit and a recorded notice to the elector’s address before any name is deleted for absence, so a missed visit cannot by itself end an enrolment.
    2. The categories used are not verifiable after the fact: Shifted and Untraceable record what the enumerator could not find, not a fact about the elector, so a wrongly recorded deletion leaves no trace to audit. Eg. The Chief Electoral Officer’s own note defines Absent as the elector being unavailable.
      The Fix: Publish the booth level list of deletions with the reason and the date of the enumerator’s visit, so a deletion can be contested against a record rather than against a category.
    3. Withholding the mandated ratio removes the only aggregate check: The Elector to Population ratio is what tells a reader whether a revision corrected the roll or thinned it, and no substitute measure exists. Eg. The estimated ratio for Maharashtra shows the draft roll short by 1.92 crore electors.
      The Fix: Release the ratio constituency by constituency at draft publication, as the Manual on Electoral Rolls already requires, rather than after the claims and objections period closes.
    4. Urban electors are structurally easier to delete: Rented accommodation, migrant work and multi storey buildings make an occupant harder to locate on a single visit than a settled rural household. Eg. About 75 per cent of Maharashtra’s deletions fell in the 147 highly or moderately urban constituencies.
      The Fix: Allow urban electors to complete enumeration through a self service digital submission verified against an existing identity record, so presence at the door is not the only route to staying on the roll.
    5. The claims and objections window assumes the deleted elector knows: A person removed from the roll usually discovers it at the polling station, by which time the remedy has expired. Eg. Deletions in Maharashtra ran to 2.07 crore names, which no individual notice system currently covers.
      The Fix: Send a mandatory individual intimation by post and message to every deleted elector at the address on record, with the reason and the deadline for restoration stated.
    6. Roll revision decides delimitation and reservation downstream: Electoral rolls feed constituency sizes, reserved seat calculations and future revision baselines, so an error does not stay inside one election. Eg. The Maharashtra draft roll now sits 20 per cent below the projected 18 plus population used by official population projections.
      The Fix: Freeze the revised roll as a baseline only after an independent statistical audit against the Technical Group’s population projections has been published.

    Conclusion

    The revision has produced a roll that is smaller than the population estimate by almost exactly the number of names it removed, and the reasons recorded for those removals swing from near zero to near universal between constituencies that are otherwise alike. What settles the dispute is not another analysis of the draft but a single disclosure the revising authority is already obliged to make. The marker to watch is whether the Elector to Population ratio is published constituency by constituency before the claims and objections period closes, since restoration after the final roll is published is a different and far harder remedy.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”

  • Uniform Civil Code in all 21 NDA states before 2029: Shah

    Why in the News

    The Union Home Minister has stated that the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) will be implemented across all 21 NDA ruled states before the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. The announcement completes a shift the Sangh Parivar first expressed in 2022-23, away from a single national code enacted by Parliament and towards state by state legislation, with Uttarakhand’s code as the template. Gujarat and Assam have already followed with similar laws and Madhya Pradesh’s Bill awaits assent. The tension is that a code whose entire claim is uniformity is being built through separate state statutes that already differ from each other, and all of which exclude Scheduled Tribes.

    What is a Uniform Civil Code?

    1. The scope of a uniform civil code: A UCC is a single set of civil laws on marriage, divorce, maintenance, succession and adoption applying to all citizens, in place of the separate personal laws that currently apply by religious community.
    2. Where the Constitution places it: Article 44, a Directive Principle of State Policy, directs the State to endeavour to secure a uniform civil code for citizens throughout the territory of India. A Directive Principle is not enforceable by any court.
    3. Why a state can enact one: Marriage, divorce, succession and related civil matters fall under Entry 5 of the Concurrent List, so a state legislature is competent to legislate on them.

    What does the state led approach change?

    1. The route has changed, not the objective: The stated resolve is to enforce the UCC in all 21 alliance ruled states before the 2029 Lok Sabha polls, rather than to enact one national statute.
    2. The Sangh Parivar position of 2022-23: The shift from a national push to a state led approach is a position the Sangh Parivar expressed in 2022-23.
    3. The template already exists: Uttarakhand’s code has been in force since last year and is the model the other states have worked from.
    4. Three states have followed: Gujarat, Assam and Madhya Pradesh have brought similar legislation, and Madhya Pradesh’s Bill is awaiting assent.

    What do the four state codes have in common?

    1. Polygamy is prohibited: All four state laws ban polygamy.
    2. Marriage must be registered: All four require registration of marriage.
    3. Divorce and inheritance are standardised: The laws apply common rules for divorce and for inheritance across communities.
    4. Women get equal inheritance rights: All four grant women equal inheritance rights.
    5. Live in relationships must be registered: All four mandate registration of live in relationships.

    Where do the state codes diverge?

    1. Uttarakhand builds in an exit and a protection: Its code allows deregistration of a live in relationship and recognises children born from such a relationship.
    2. Assam attaches a penalty instead: Its code penalises non registration of a live in relationship.
    3. The consequence of divergent state codes: Two codes drawn from the same template already treat the same relationship differently, which is the outcome a national statute was meant to prevent.

    Why are Scheduled Tribes excluded?

    1. The exclusion is common to all four: All four state laws exclude Scheduled Tribes from their application.
    2. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh concerns behind the exclusion: The exclusion was written in response to concerns raised by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
    3. Two states go further: Uttarakhand and Assam add explicit protections for specific tribal customs.

    What else was placed on record as the government’s reform list?

    1. Personal law: The abolition of Triple Talaq is cited as having given equal rights to Muslim women.
    2. Constitutional change: The reading down of Article 370 is cited as having been done without violence.
    3. Criminal law: The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) has been enforced, with a conviction rate of 30 per cent recorded in one year.
    4. Citizenship registration: The government is in discussion with alliance partners and various groups on implementing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Manipur.
    5. Enforcement drives: A drive to identify and deport illegal immigrants was reiterated, alongside a zero tolerance position on Naxalism and terrorism.

    Challenges to a state led Uniform Civil Code

    1. State by state enactment produces the opposite of uniformity: Each legislature settles its own definitions and penalties, so a citizen’s civil status changes at a state border. Eg. Uttarakhand permits deregistration of a live in relationship while Assam penalises failure to register one.
      The Fix: Enact a central model code under Entry 5 of the Concurrent List that states adopt with limited variation, so Article 254 resolves conflicts instead of leaving them to accumulate.
    2. A code that exempts a category is not uniform: Excluding Scheduled Tribes preserves exactly the community specific personal law regime the code was framed to end. Eg. All four enacted or pending state codes exclude Scheduled Tribes.
      The Fix: Convert the blanket exclusion into an opt in mechanism exercisable by an Autonomous District Council under the Sixth Schedule, so the exemption is a community’s decision rather than a permanent carve out.
    3. Compulsory registration of live in relationships raises a privacy question: Registration converts a private arrangement into a state record with penal consequences for failure to file. Eg. Justice K S Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), a nine judge Bench, held informational privacy and decisional autonomy to be part of the right to life under Article 21.
      The Fix: Make registration voluntary and tie the statutory benefits of maintenance and legitimacy of children to it, so the incentive to register replaces the penalty for not registering.
    4. Freedom of religion sits against the directive: Article 25 guarantees the freedom to profess, practise and propagate religion, and every personal law reform is contested on that ground. Eg. The Supreme Court in Shayara Bano v. Union of India (2017) set aside instant triple talaq by a majority, and the decision was argued through the religious practice test rather than through Article 44.
      The Fix: Legislate reform head by head, on succession, on registration, on the grounds of divorce, so each provision is defended on its own constitutional footing rather than as a single omnibus code.
    5. Enforcement capacity is assumed rather than built: Universal marriage and relationship registration requires a functioning registry down to the block level, and civil registration coverage is already uneven. Eg. Registration of marriage was made a general requirement only after Seema v. Ashwani Kumar (2006), and compliance still varies widely across states.
      The Fix: Fund a digital civil registry linked to the existing birth and death registration system before a registration mandate takes effect, so the obligation lands on a system that can receive it.

    Conclusion

    The position now on record converts a manifesto commitment into a dated legislative programme with a stated count of states and a stated deadline. Four codes exist or are pending, and their differences on live in relationships are already visible, so what is being built is a family of codes rather than one. The marker to watch is Madhya Pradesh’s Bill and the assent it awaits, followed by whether the remaining alliance ruled states legislate on the Uttarakhand template or draft their own variations.

    Back2Basics: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023

    1. Indian Penal Code, 1860: The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 replaced the Indian Penal Code, 1860 as India’s substantive criminal law.
    2. When it took effect: It came into force on 1 July 2024.
    3. The three companion criminal statutes: It was enacted alongside the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, which replaced the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.
    4. New provisions added: It added community service as a form of punishment for specified minor offences and grouped offences against women and children into a dedicated chapter.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015, GS2, 12 marks] Discuss the possible factors that inhibit India from enacting for its citizens a uniform civil code as provided for in the Directive Principles of State Policy.”

  • Draft SIR poll roll: names flagged for 11 ‘logical’ discrepancies in Delhi

    Why in the News

    Over a third of the electorate included in Delhi’s newly published draft electoral roll is being served notices to verify documents and attend hearings. The drive is part of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the roll. The Election Commission’s software flagged 19.33 lakh electors under 11 different “logical discrepancies”, and they form the bulk of the 33.1 lakh voters now facing scrutiny. A software flag is an inference drawn from a mismatch between two databases, not a finding that an entry is false. The elector nonetheless carries the burden of answering it within a fixed calendar.

    What is a Special Intensive Revision?

    1. What it revises: It is a full re enumeration of the electoral roll, in which every existing elector is covered afresh rather than only additions, deletions and corrections being processed.
    2. How it differs from the routine exercise: A summary revision updates an existing roll on the basis of applications received from citizens. An intensive revision rebuilds the roll through house to house enumeration.
    3. What it produces: A draft roll is published first, a period for claims and objections follows, and a final roll is published at the end.

    What do the 11 discrepancies actually test?

    1. The first category, relationships inside a household: Flags arise where more than six children are linked to one parent, where the age gap between a child and a parent is under 15 or over 50 years, where the gap between a child and a grandparent is under 40 years, or where two children are less than nine months apart.
    2. The first category also covers changed relative details: Flags arise on mismatched parent names, on a change of relative type from father to mother, and on a shift from “father” to “husband” between the current and the previous SIR rolls.
    3. The second category, age inconsistency: Electors were flagged where the age difference between the current and the last SIR does not reconcile.
    4. The third category, name mismatch: Flags arise from a discrepancy in either the elector’s own name or the father’s name between the two rolls.

    How large is the verification load, and where does it fall?

    1. The base: Delhi has a total electorate of 1.45 crore registered voters.
    2. What the draft actually carries: The draft roll published on 31 August holds around 97.5 lakh voters whose enumeration forms were successfully digitised.
    3. A second and larger category of notices: Over 13.79 lakh electors remain “unmapped” on the draft roll and face notices for lacking mapping details from previous rolls.
    4. Concentration by district: North East district will see the highest volume of action, with over 3 lakh voters set to receive notices.

    What does the calendar allow at each stage?

    1. For those left out of the draft: Claims and objections can be filed until 30 September.
    2. For those included in the draft: All notices must be served, and all claims and objections disposed of, by 29 October.
    3. The end point: The final electoral roll is scheduled for publication on 4 November.

    Why is the flagged elector at a disadvantage?

    1. The list is not public: The full list of flagged electors has not been uploaded publicly. Booth Level Officers, the field staff who maintain a polling station’s roll, can see the names through their own application.
    2. The documentary standard is discretionary: Where none of the 11 prescribed documents is available, the matter rests on the satisfaction of the Electoral Registration Officer, the officer who decides inclusion for an assembly constituency, and varies with the anomaly involved.
    3. Flexibility cuts both ways: A standard looser than the one applied to unmapped electors is also a standard that is not written down, so two electors with the same gap in records can be treated differently.

    Challenges to the Special Intensive Revision

    1. Field capacity decides accuracy: A house to house exercise rests on a single Booth Level Officer covering an entire polling station inside a fixed calendar. Eg. In the revision carried out in Bihar in 2025, officers were reported completing enumeration forms themselves where households were not found at home.
      The Fix: Publish the workload per officer, cap it, and sanction temporary staff wherever a polling station exceeds the cap.
    2. Mobile and migrant electors are the likeliest to be dropped: A person absent from the registered address during enumeration has no way to be counted in place. Eg. Tenants and daily wage migrants in urban constituencies routinely hold a roll entry at one address and live at another.
      The Fix: Allow a flagged elector to complete verification at any electoral office in the State, and through a documented online submission.
    3. A software flag carries no reasoning the elector can rebut: A person told that an entry is inconsistent is not told which record produced the inconsistency. Eg. Transliteration of one name across two scripts generates mismatches between rolls without anything about the person having changed.
      The Fix: Serve the specific field and the two conflicting values with every notice, so the reply can address the actual mismatch.
    4. The remedy is slower than the roll: Appeals against exclusion run to the District Magistrate and then to the Chief Electoral Officer, on a timeline unconnected to the election calendar. Eg. An elector wrongly excluded shortly before a poll regains the entry only after that poll is over.
      The Fix: Fix outer time limits for the first and second appeal that close before the final roll is published, not after it.

    Conclusion

    The revision has quietly reversed the default. An entry on the roll is now provisional until the elector re establishes it, and what triggers that is a mismatch between two databases rather than an objection raised by a person. A cleaner roll may well result, and it does so by moving the cost of administrative error onto the individual least equipped to absorb it. What to watch is the disposal record, specifically how many flagged electors were restored and on what proof, because that ratio is the only measure of whether the drive corrected the roll or shrank it.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”

  • Manipur’s demand for a 1951 baseline for NRC: Why the date is contentious

    Why in the News

    The State’s Home Minister has told the Manipur Assembly that 1951 will be the base year for updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the State, a register of residents against which claims to belonging are tested. The State cannot implement an NRC without the Centre’s approval, and officials are tracing the records of the register prepared in 1951. The choice of year is not an administrative detail. Manipur’s own permit system controlling entry from outside lapsed in 1950, which is why valley based organisations treat 1951 as the point from which outsiders must be identified. The Kuki Zo Council has challenged the reliability of that baseline, since the hill districts were barely enumerated in that year. A baseline that one set of claimants treats as the earliest honest record is the same baseline another treats as a record of its own absence.

    Why does 1951 have a claim as Manipur’s baseline?

    1. The permit system lapsed just before it: The erstwhile princely State ran a permit system regulating the entry of people from outside, and that system was abolished in 1950.
    2. 1951 produced both a count and a register: The first Census of independent India was conducted in 1951, and an NRC was prepared alongside it carrying names, parentage and residence.
    3. The earliest available demographic baseline: The Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System (JCILPS), the umbrella body that led the agitation for an Inner Line Permit, argues that 1951 is the earliest point against which later migration and population change can be measured.
    4. The growth figure it relies on: The same body cites recorded decadal population growth rising from 12.80% in 1951 to 35.04% in 1961. A rise of that size does not by itself establish illegal immigration as its cause.

    What earlier settlements already named 1951?

    1. The 1980 understanding: The “Proceedings of Understanding” between the State government and student organisations named 1951 as the baseline.
    2. The 1994 agreement: A further agreement between the Lieutenant Governor and student organisations, concluded under President’s Rule in the State, carried the same year.
    3. The 2018 Bill: The Manipur People’s Protection Bill, 2018 named 1951 and classified as “non Manipuris” those who were not Meitei, not Meitei Pangal, not members of the Scheduled Tribes, and not resident in Manipur before 1951.
    4. Passed but never law: The Assembly passed that Bill unanimously and it did not become law.

    Why did Assam settle on a 1971 cut off instead?

    1. A longer agitation produced it: Assam had a far longer and more intense history of agitation over illegal immigration, culminating in the Assam Movement of 1979 to 1985.
    2. The Accord fixed a base date: Under the Assam Accord, 1 January 1966 was fixed as the base date. Those who entered before it were to be regularised.
    3. Two further brackets followed: Entrants between 1 January 1966 and 24 March 1971 were to be detected and registered under the law. Those entering on or after 25 March 1971 were to be detected and expelled.
    4. The date came from a settlement, not a survey: The 1971 date emerged from that specific political settlement, shaped by migration from East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.
    5. Manipur’s proponents distinguish their case: They argue their problem arises from the abolition of the permit system and later demographic change rather than from partition era migration.

    Why has the demand gained urgency now?

    1. It predates the current conflict: The demand existed before the ethnic violence that began in May 2023.
    2. A cross border influx added a security dimension: The movement of people from Myanmar after the 2021 military coup gave the demand a security framing it did not previously carry.
    3. Representation is the new stake: The 2027 Census and the prospect of delimitation have made the sequence of the two exercises politically significant.
    4. Valley organisations want the register first: Meitei and Naga organisations want the NRC completed before the Census, arguing that population figures should not influence future political representation until illegal immigration has been addressed.

    Why do the hill based organisations reject a 1951 baseline?

    1. The 1951 enumeration was incomplete in the hills: The Kuki Zo Council says most hill areas of Manipur had virtually no road connectivity in 1951, which made comprehensive population enumeration difficult.
    2. An incomplete record excludes rather than verifies: On that reading, a 1951 benchmark could exclude indigenous communities who were never fully counted in the first place.
    3. A community older than the boundary: Kuki, Zomi and Chin communities have historically lived on both sides of the India Myanmar border, so organisations representing them fear that a 75 year old baseline would fall hardest on them.

    Challenges to a 1951 baseline for the Manipur NRC

    1. The State has already reversed itself on the year: A shift in the proposed base year from 1971 to 1951 in 2018 triggered protests. Eg. In Jiribam, people from communities with longstanding links to neighbouring Assam feared exclusion, and the Bill was never brought into force.
      The Fix: Settle the base year through a published inquiry into record availability district by district before it is announced as policy.
    2. Its own operational choice was a different year: When the government had to operationalise the Inner Line Permit system, the Cabinet chose 1961 as the base year in 2022. Eg. The then Chief Minister said the choice followed consideration of the interests of the State’s 34 recognised tribes, and the 2024 recommendation of an NRC to the Centre also proposed 1961.
      The Fix: Align the NRC base year with the year already in force for the permit system, so one State does not operate two definitions of residence.
    3. Proof falls on those least able to furnish it: A baseline that old cannot distinguish a recent migrant from a long settled resident who simply cannot produce records. Eg. Assam’s own exercise left over 19 lakh applicants out of the final register published in 2019, largely on documentary grounds.
      The Fix: Accept a defined ladder of alternative proof, including school, land and ration records and village level certification, rather than a single documentary standard.
    4. The legal consequence of exclusion is undefined: The Centre would have to prescribe the evidentiary and appeals framework and clarify what exclusion means in law. Eg. Applicants excluded in Assam were left to Foreigners Tribunals, a forum whose orders have been criticised for inconsistent standards.
      The Fix: Publish the appeal forum, the time limit and the legal status of an excluded person before any enumeration begins.
    5. Displacement compounds verification: In a State where conflict has displaced thousands, documentary verification becomes harder still. Eg. Households moved into relief camps after the violence left property and identity records behind.
      The Fix: Treat a State certified displacement record as admissible proof of prior residence.

    Conclusion

    A base year is a political settlement presented as a date. Manipur’s valley and hill organisations both accept a register in principle and cannot agree on the year that defines belonging, because each candidate year redistributes the burden of proof. What to watch is the order of steps. If a base year is announced before the rules of evidence and appeal are written, the exercise will start producing exclusions before it has defined what exclusion means.

    Back2Basics: Inner Line Permit

    1. What it is: A travel document that an Indian citizen from another State must obtain to enter a protected State, valid for a limited period and purpose.
    2. Its legal source: It operates under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873, which empowered the authorities to restrict entry into designated frontier areas.
    3. Where it applies: Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram have long required it, and Manipur was brought under the regime in 2019.
    4. What it does not decide: It regulates entry and stay by citizens of other States and does not by itself determine citizenship or residence for any other purpose.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2021] With reference to India, consider the following statements: 1.There is only one citizenship and one domicile. 2.A citizen by birth only can become the Head of State. 3.A foreigner, once granted citizenship, cannot be deprived of it under any circumstances. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) 1 and 3 (d) 2 and 3 ANSWER: (a)”

  • Court protects space for protest, it needs to

    Why in the News

    The Chief Justice of India has rebuked a Greater Noida executive magistrate for issuing a notice to a student over his alleged participation in the Cockroach Janta Party led protests over examination paper leaks. The notice went out after the Supreme Court had already quashed cases against student protesters, other than those carrying a criminal history. It was revoked afterwards, and the Court has demanded accountability for its having been issued at all. Days earlier the Allahabad High Court quashed charges under the National Security Act, 1980 against another student arising from workers’ protests in Noida. Both orders grant relief to students and both uphold the right to protest. The space for protest is being preserved case by case through judicial relief, rather than by the state defining the limits on protest narrowly in the first place.

    What did the two court interventions actually decide?

    1. The earlier Supreme Court order: An order of 1 September quashed cases against student protesters, with an exception carved out for those carrying a criminal history.
    2. Accountability for a notice already withdrawn: Withdrawal of the magistrate’s notice was not treated as closing the matter, and an explanation for its issue was sought.
    3. The High Court’s characterisation: Invocation of the National Security Act, 1980 was described as “arbitrary and vague”, and the decision to invoke it as “worthy of derision”.
    4. Officials named in a chain: Responsibility was fixed on officials from the District Magistrate down to the Station House Officer.
    5. Compensation as the remedy: The student was ordered to be paid compensation for the “casual and cavalier exercise of authority by the state”.
    6. Why the wording matters: The order locates the failure in the application of an extraordinary law to ordinary protest, not in any dispute about the facts.

    Why does the right to protest need active protection?

    1. Protest is the channel for those outside institutions: In a democracy with a young population, the ability to speak and to talk back to power has to be protected and widened rather than merely tolerated.
    2. The protests produced a response: Student agitations at Jantar Mantar and beyond forced those in authority to listen, which is the function protest performs.
    3. Amplification changes the stakes on both sides: A young population with a voice and a phone to carry it makes suppression both more visible and more tempting.
    4. The record the courts are drawing on: Judicial review has been used to widen the constitutional promise of civil liberties, including the scope of the freedom of speech and expression.

    Where should the limits on protest be drawn?

    1. Limits exist and are not in dispute: Protest cannot extend to violence, vandalism or incitement to violence.
    2. The burden of definition sits with the state: Those restrictions must be framed reasonably, precisely and narrowly rather than at large.
    3. Overbreadth is the mechanism of abuse: Loose and wide definitions allow ordinary protest to be recast as an offence, which the use of a preventive detention law against a student illustrates.
    4. The stated risk: Abuse of power on that scale risks reducing a state to an “Orwellian dystopia”, a landscape denuded of freedom and marked by severe government control.

    Why is relief in individual cases not a sufficient answer?

    1. Relief arrives after the cost has been imposed: A notice or a detention order does its work in the interval before a court reaches it, through legal expense, interrupted study and the deterrent it sets for others.
    2. The incentive facing the official is unchanged: Where an overbroad order is set aside without consequence for the officer who signed it, the calculation that produced it survives intact.
    3. The guarantee has to travel downward: A constitutional promise is worth what it is worth at the police station and in the office of the local politician, not only in a constitutional court.
    4. Judicial capacity is finite: Intervention one case at a time cannot match the volume of orders a wide statute permits, so the remedy has to sit in the definition of the offence.

    Challenges to protecting the freedom to protest

    1. Preventive detention is constitutionally permitted: Detention without trial for a limited period is contemplated by the Constitution itself, so its use is a question of proportionality rather than of legality. Eg. Article 22 expressly provides for preventive detention laws and regulates only the procedure around them.
      The Fix: Require a written and reasoned satisfaction naming the specific apprehended act before a detention order takes effect, and make that record reviewable.
    2. Prohibitory orders substitute for a ban on protest: Standing orders against assembly convert a gathering into an offence without any judgment on what it is about. Eg. Orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which replaced Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, are renewed for long stretches in parts of the capital.
      The Fix: Cap the duration and the geographic extent of such orders and require publication of the reasons for every renewal.
    3. The process itself is the punishment: Bail applications, hearings and travel impose a cost that does not depend on any conviction. Eg. Undertrials make up the large majority of India’s prison population.
      The Fix: Provide for compensatory costs against the state as the default where a case against a protester is quashed for overbreadth.
    4. Space to assemble is shrinking: Where a city permits assembly at a single notified site, the state controls the audience a protest can reach. Eg. Ramlila Maidan and the Boat Club lawns in Delhi have progressively been closed to routine demonstrations.
      The Fix: Notify several protest sites in every city with a transparent and time bound permission process.
    5. Communication restrictions accompany protest policing: Suspension of mobile data around a protest site limits coordination and documentation together. Eg. India has recorded among the highest numbers of internet shutdowns of any country over the past decade.
      The Fix: Require every suspension order to be published with its duration and reasons, and to lapse automatically unless a review committee renews it.

    Conclusion

    The pattern in both orders is the same. An extraordinary power was turned on an ordinary protest, and a court had to say so. That is a working check and a poor system, because it places the burden of defending a constitutional guarantee on the person who was first denied it. The durable answer is a narrower statutory definition of what the state may prohibit, so that the question stops arriving in court at all.

    Back2Basics: National Security Act, 1980

    1. What it allows: It permits preventive detention of a person in order to stop an anticipated act, without charge or trial.
    2. Who may order it: The Central Government, a State Government, and a District Magistrate or Commissioner of Police so empowered may issue a detention order.
    3. Grounds: Detention may be ordered on grounds including the security of the State, the maintenance of public order, and the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community.
    4. Duration and review: Detention may extend up to twelve months, and an advisory board must examine the order within a fixed period for it to continue.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS2, 15 marks] “Constitutional morality is the fulcrum which acts as an essential check upon the high functionaries and citizens alike…” In view of the above observation of the Supreme Court, explain the concept of constitutional morality and its application to ensure balance between judicial independence and judicial accountability in India.”

  • How should RUPPs be regulated?

    Why in the News

    Six Registered Unrecognised Political Parties (RUPP) based in Gujarat received donations of about Rs 1,700 crore in the 2023 to 2024 financial year. A RUPP is a party registered with the Election Commission of India (EC) that has not met the vote and seat tests for recognition as a State or a national party. That single figure exceeds the Rs 1,480 crore received in the same period by five nationally recognised parties other than the Bharatiya Janata Party. The six remain on the list of active parties because they fielded candidates in the last general election. Registration brings tax exemption and a common symbol, and the law gives the Election Commission almost no power to remove a party that does nothing else.

    What is a Registered Unrecognised Political Party?

    1. The registering provision: Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (RP Act) sets out the requirements for registering a political party with the Election Commission.
    2. How registration happens: The Commission registers a party as a RUPP after satisfactory scrutiny of the documents submitted to it.
    3. Tax exemption on donations: Donations received are exempt under Section 12 of the Income Tax Act, 2025.
    4. Electoral privileges: A RUPP gets a common symbol for contesting general elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies, and is allowed 20 star campaigners during a campaign.

    What must a RUPP disclose, and what follows if it does not?

    1. Donor records above a threshold: Details of individual donors giving more than twenty thousand rupees in a financial year must be maintained and submitted to the Election Commission every year.
    2. The penalty for non disclosure: Under Section 29C of the RP Act, failure to furnish those details results in loss of income tax exemption.
    3. A cap on cash: Donations above two thousand rupees may be accepted only by cheque or bank transfer under the Income Tax Act, 2025.

    Why do parties that never seriously contest stay on the register?

    1. The gap between registration and contest: India had more than 2,800 RUPPs as of July, and only around 750 contested the 2024 general elections.
    2. The label that followed: The remainder are described as “letter pad parties”, since registration is all they maintain.
    3. No power to deregister: The RP Act confers no explicit power on the Election Commission to remove a party from the register for failing to contest elections, hold internal elections or lodge required returns.
    4. The position in law: In Indian National Congress v. Institute of Social Welfare and Others (2002) the Supreme Court held that the Commission has no power to deregister a political party under the RP Act.
    5. The narrow exceptions: Removal is available only where registration was obtained by fraud, where the party ceases to have allegiance to the Constitution, or where it is declared unlawful by the government.
    6. Delisting is not removal from the register: The Commission periodically publishes a list of delisted RUPPs, and its notification of October 2025 carried over 800 such parties.
    7. A minimal contest keeps a party active: The six Gujarat based parties stayed on the active list by fielding a total of 15 candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Eg. They are the Aam Janmat Party, Bharatiya National Janata Dal, Garib Kalyan Party, New India United Party, Satyawadi Rakshak Party and Swatantrata Abhivyakti Party.

    What does the compliance record show?

    1. Most annual reports never reach the public: A July 2025 report of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), analysing annual reports for 2022 to 2023, found reports of only 26% of RUPPs available in the public domain.
    2. What weak compliance enables: Poor compliance with statutory requirements together with low transparency lets these parties serve as an opaque channel for tax evasion and money laundering.
    3. The scale problem: A register of thousands of entities, most of which never contest, cannot be policed through annual return scrutiny alone.

    What reforms have been proposed?

    1. The Law Commission’s recommendation: The 255th report of the Law Commission recommended amendments allowing removal from the register of a party that fails to contest elections for ten consecutive years.
    2. The Election Commission’s own proposal: Its memorandum on electoral reforms of 2016 sought an amendment to the RP Act empowering it to deregister a party.
    3. Enforcement rather than registration alone: Transaction level monitoring by the Income Tax Department and other enforcement agencies is feasible with digital records and would act as a deterrent against misuse of exemptions.
    4. Linking exemption to electoral success: The Election Commission has suggested that tax exemption be confined to parties that win seats in the Lok Sabha or a Legislative Assembly.
    5. Why that proposal is contested: Confining exemption to winners is open to the objection that it is undemocratic and extreme, since parties contest consistently without electoral success.
    6. A vote share threshold instead: A vote percentage threshold fixed by law could govern eligibility for tax exemption, on the model of the 1% vote threshold already used for allotting common symbols to RUPPs.

    Challenges to regulating Registered Unrecognised Political Parties

    1. Entry is easy and exit is absent: The statute sets a documentary threshold for entry and provides almost no route out, so the register only grows. Eg. The number of registered parties has risen steadily across successive general elections.
      The Fix: Provide for statutory lapse of registration where a party files no return and contests no election within a fixed period.
    2. Token candidature defeats a contest based test: A party that fields a handful of candidates satisfies any rule keyed to mere participation while doing nothing else. Eg. A large share of candidates in a general election forfeit their security deposit for polling below one sixth of valid votes.
      The Fix: Key the test to a minimum vote share rather than to the act of contesting.
    3. Tax exemption is the actual prize: Exemption on donations makes registration valuable to entities with no electoral purpose at all. Eg. Tax investigations into registered unrecognised parties have found arrangements in which most of a donation was returned to the donor in cash against a commission.
      The Fix: Make exemption conditional on an audited annual return filed on time, rather than automatic on registration.
    4. Disclosure thresholds leave most money invisible: Only contributions above the reporting threshold must be itemised, so funds can be split into smaller amounts. Eg. Parties routinely report large sums under the head of voluntary contributions from unnamed donors.
      The Fix: Require itemised reporting of every contribution above the cash limit, aligning the disclosure threshold with the banking channel threshold.
    5. Enforcement is split across agencies with different mandates: The Election Commission holds the register and the Income Tax Department holds the financial trail, and neither can act on the other’s finding. Eg. Delisting by the Commission does not by itself withdraw an exemption already claimed.
      The Fix: Provide for automatic reference from the Commission to the tax authority on default, with a statutory timeline for action.

    Conclusion

    Regulation here has been treated as a records problem when it is a design problem. The register was built to be easy to enter, because a democracy should not gate the formation of parties, and nothing was built to remove an entity that stops behaving like one. Every measure repeatedly proposed shifts the test from whether a party exists on paper to whether it seeks votes. Whether Parliament is willing to give the Election Commission that power, having left the position untouched since the Court described the gap, is what decides the outcome.

    Back2Basics: Recognition of political parties in India

    1. Who decides: The Election Commission recognises a party as a State party or a national party under the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968.
    2. State party test: Recognition in a State requires a fixed share of valid votes together with seats in the Assembly or the Lok Sabha from that State, or a minimum number of Lok Sabha seats from it.
    3. National party test: Recognition as a national party requires recognition as a State party in at least four States, or a fixed vote share along with Lok Sabha seats from several States.
    4. What recognition brings: A recognised party gets a reserved symbol, free broadcast time on public service media, a larger number of star campaigners and copies of the electoral roll.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2024, GS2, 10 marks] Examine the need for electoral reforms as suggested by various committees with particular reference to “one nation-one election” principle.”

  • No Statehood, Ladakh to get unique elected body, says Chief Secretary

    Why in the News

    The Ladakh Chief Secretary has stated that neither Statehood nor a Union Territory with a legislature is on offer for Ladakh. What is being offered instead is a *sui generis* body under the Constitution, carrying legislative, executive and financial powers. The proposal follows the reorganisation that made Ladakh a Union Territory without a legislature, and the sustained agitation since then for an elected tier with real powers. The Union Home Ministry has discussed the structure of the proposed Union Territory level body under Article 371 of the Constitution with the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA). Both called the discussion disappointing and said the Union Territory administration and the Home Ministry are not on the same page. The nomenclature of the new body has not been settled, which is the immediate reason the talks remain open.

    What is the body being offered to Ladakh?

    1. Not Statehood: Ladakh was never a State, having been part of Jammu and Kashmir before becoming a Union Territory, so the proposal is not framed as a restoration.
    2. Not a Union Territory with a legislature: The model is stated to be neither Statehood nor the Union Territory with legislature form that already exists elsewhere in the country.
    3. What it is to carry: The body is to hold legislative, executive and financial powers, which the Centre describes as the aspiration it is answering.
    4. Direct election through constituencies: Members of the two Ladakh bodies recorded their consensus that the Union Territory level body should be filled by direct election through constituencies.

    Why is Article 371 the route being used?

    1. Special provisions as the vehicle: Article 371 carries special provisions for particular States and regions, and the proposed structure is being discussed under it.
    2. A constitutional amendment is required: Constitutional safeguards of this kind require a detailed and established legal and parliamentary process rather than an executive order.
    3. The stated preconditions: Any such amendment needs broad political consensus, consultation and parliamentary consideration.
    4. No imposition: The Centre’s stated position is that no framework will be imposed on Ladakh without due consultation with stakeholders.

    What is still unresolved between the new body and the existing councils?

    1. A list of questions to answer: The Ladakh representatives have been handed eight to nine questions to examine.
    2. The substance of those questions: They cover the structural relationship and the distribution of powers between the existing hill councils and the proposed Union Territory level body.
    3. The designation is undecided: Whether the head of the elected body will be called a Chief Minister has not been settled, and discussions continue for that reason.
    4. The next step: The next round of discussions is expected in October.

    Why do the Ladakh bodies call the process unsatisfactory?

    1. Two arms of government reading it differently: Both bodies said the Union Territory administration under the Lieutenant Governor and the Union Home Ministry were not on the same page.
    2. No agenda circulated in advance: A Leh Apex Body representative said the questions involve legal issues and cannot be answered on the spot, and that the agenda should have been shared beforehand.
    3. No concrete progress on core demands: A member of the delegation that met Ministry officials said no concrete progress has been made on the key demands.
    4. A threat to resume agitation: The same delegation cautioned that protests would resume if assurances were not provided within a week.
    5. A charge of divide and rule: The delegation also said efforts have been made to drive wedges between communities and regions and to tire the leadership out.

    Challenges to the proposed Ladakh elected body

    1. A body with no precedent has no settled template: A structure that exists nowhere else must define its relationship with Parliament, the Lieutenant Governor and the courts from the beginning. Eg. The Union Territory of Delhi has spent decades litigating the division of executive power between its elected government and the Centre.
      The Fix: Write the division of legislative and executive subjects into the enabling amendment itself rather than leaving it to rules framed later.
    2. Three tiers competing for the same functions: An elected Union Territory level body layered above the existing hill councils risks duplicating their subjects and their budgets. Eg. The councils already administer land allotment, local development planning and village level works in Leh and Kargil.
      The Fix: Fix a clear subject list for each tier, with the councils retaining village level administration and the new body taking Union Territory wide legislation.
    3. Financial powers without an assured revenue base: A legislature that cannot raise its own revenue depends on central allocation for every decision it takes. Eg. Ladakh has a small population, a short working season and almost no industrial tax base.
      The Fix: Attach a formula linked share of central transfers to the new body, so its budget is not an annual negotiation.
    4. Leh and Kargil press different core demands: A single settlement has to satisfy two regions that differ on representation and on the weight given to religious and ethnic composition. Eg. The two have separately pressed for reserved seats and for safeguards on land and employment.
      The Fix: Provide for guaranteed regional representation inside the new body rather than leaving the balance to constituency delimitation alone.
    5. An elected tier is not a land and jobs safeguard: Representation does not by itself restrict outside purchase of land or reserve employment for residents. Eg. Sixth Schedule status, which the Ladakh bodies have demanded, carries land and forest protections that an ordinary legislature does not.
      The Fix: Pair the new body with a statutory domicile rule and a restriction on land transfer, so representation and protection arrive together.

    Conclusion

    The offer settles one question and leaves the harder one open. The Centre has accepted that Ladakh will get an elected tier with real powers, and has ruled out both of the forms that already exist in the constitutional scheme. What has not been agreed is how much power that tier holds against the administration currently exercising it, and how it sits alongside the councils already in place. Those are the questions the next round has to answer, and the Ladakh leadership has tied its restraint to visible progress on them.

    Back2Basics: Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils

    1. Statutory basis: They were created under the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council Act, 1995, enacted by the Jammu and Kashmir legislature.
    2. Two councils: One functions for Leh, set up in 1995, and a second for Kargil, set up in 2003.
    3. What they do: Each council handles local development planning, allotment of land and execution of village level works within its district.
    4. Composition: Members are directly elected from territorial constituencies alongside a few nominated members, and the council is headed by a Chief Executive Councillor.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS2, 10 marks] Discuss the nature of Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly after the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019. Briefly describe the powers and functions of the Assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.”