Sample Material of Current Public Administration Magazine
1. Accountability and Control
Right to information
The relationship of the RTI with the judiciary has been fraught from the
beginning. Since the RTI Act conferred powers on the chief justice of the
Supreme Court of India and the chief justices of high courts of states for
carrying out its provisions, all these courts framed their own rules. On
November 13, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court passed its
order in the Subhash Agarwal matter, bringing a closure to cases pending
resolution for nearly 10 years. Has Subhash Agarwal got the information he had
sought from the Supreme Court? Not yet. Will he get it soon? Not very likely,
certainly not the entire information he wanted. The five-judge Supreme Court
bench recently disposed of the civil appeals its own registry had filed before
it. In the process, the bench, in a dissertation length order, has delved deep
into the concepts of fiduciary relationship, public interest, privacy,
confidentiality and independence of judiciary and, in conclusion, cast an
onerous duty on its Central Public Information Officer to decide on disclosure
of the information taking into account the observations of the court.
<< Read More >>
2. Indian Government and Politics
Citizen Rights and Duties
The nation celebrated Constitution Day on November 26 to mark the anniversary
of the adoption of the Constitution in 1949. Since 1979, this day was observed
as National Law Day, and from 2015, it has being observed as Constitution Day.
The traditions and temperament of Indian thought through the ages laid greater
emphasis on duties. Swami Vivekananda even termed “devotion to duty” as the
highest form of worship of God. The Constitution of India, originally, did not
contain the aspect of fundamental duties for citizens. However, during
discussions on the draft Constitution and fundamental rights therein, in the
constituent assembly, few members had raised their voices in favour of citizens’
duties towards the nation. Prabhu Dayal Himatsingka, a member of the Constituent
Assembly representing West Bengal during the discussion on the draft
constitution on November 18, 1949, had said: “I wish along with fundamental
rights there were certain fundamental duties also. If we think more of our
duties than of our rights, a lot of our difficulties will be over and the rights
will take care of themselves and there will be no occasion to feel any
difficulty for want of those rights”.
<< Read More >>
3. Significant Issues in Indian Administration
Viable Solutions to PDS
Migrants’ woes are often invoked in making a case for portability of benefits
in the public distribution system (PDS). Most recently, an article (‘A hundred
small steps’, IE, September 26) did just that. However, in many cases of
short-term seasonal migration (a dominant form in India), only one or two of the
household members migrate, leaving the ration card behind for the rest of the
family to use. What proportion of migrants would prefer to draw their ration at
the place of work rather than in their village is a key piece of the puzzle in
understanding the extent to which portability of PDS benefits is valued by
migrants. If the food security of migrants is the motivating concern, this need
is probably better met by other initiatives such as Tamil Nadu’s Amma canteens
or Karnataka’s Indira canteens, which provide heavily subsidised meals. Such
community kitchens have quietly become popular across the country — Jharkhand’s
dal-bhaat kendras, Delhi’s Jan Aahaar kiosks, and others in Andhra Pradesh,
Odisha, Chhattisgarh are such initiatives. Of course, protecting migrants from
exploitation through stricter enforcement of their rights as labourers will go
much further
<< Read More >>
4. Administrative Ethics
Gandhian Ethics
November 17 marked the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution organised by
the Czech Civic Forum and the Slovak public against one of the last Soviet-orbit
regimes. The Velvet Revolution (sametová revoluce) was a non-violent transition
of power in what was then Czechoslovakia. The Czech and Polish experiences of
democracy have shown that democratisation in Eastern Europe took place less
within the framework of the existing state systems than at the level of civil
societies. When the Czech and Polish dissidents of the 1980s were struggling
against their communist authoritarian regimes, they returned to the concept of
civil society. What Eastern European intellectuals and civic actors understood
by civil society was not just the 18th century concept of the rule of law, but
also the notion of horizontal self- organised groups and institutions in the
public sphere that could limit the power of the state by constructing a
democratic space separate from state and its ideological institutions.
<< Read More >>
5. Current Topic
Ayodhya Ruling
India’s Supreme Court is acclaimed as the most powerful among its
counterparts in the world. It has rewritten the Constitution of the country on
several major issues. It has even become the third chamber of Parliament. Its
verdict in the Ayodhya case must be evaluated in this light. The founding
fathers of the Constitution gave us an enlightened, forward-looking basic law,
which is not just a legal document but is aimed at bringing about socio-
economic transformation in the country. Secularism is an important precept
underlying the framework of fundamental rights. But, as in several other areas,
there is a considerable divergence between the precept and the reality.
Significantly, the Constituent Assembly failed to agree on the definition of the
word “secular”. It also could not agree on calling the Constitution secular. It
was only during the Emergency in 1976 that the word secular was introduced in
the preamble to the Constitution by the highly controversial 42nd amendment.
Secularism acquired a new status when the Supreme Court declared it as a part of
the basic structure of the Constitution. Whenever the concept of secularism is
under threat, this injunction of the Court is invoked.
<< Read More >>
