Indian Politics Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: The President, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha

Under Article 79, Parliament consists of the President and the two Houses - the Council of States or Rajya Sabha and the House of the People or Lok Sabha. Including the President is not a formality. No bill becomes law without assent; the President summons and prorogues the Houses and may dissolve the Lok Sabha; the President addresses both Houses at the first session after a general election and at the start of each year; and money bills may be introduced only on the President’s recommendation. In this the Indian Parliament follows the British model, where the Crown is part of Parliament. The President is not a member of either House, and may not sit in or vote in them. The Lok Sabha may have up to 550 elected members, and the Rajya Sabha 250 including 12 nominated. Note also that the President is part of the Union executive, which is what makes the parliamentary system one of fused rather than separated powers.

Answer: A

A High Court judge's pension is charged to the Consolidated Fund of India, not to any state.

Salaries and allowances are charged to the state's fund, but the pension is a central charge because a judge may serve in more than one High Court. Being a charged expenditure it is not put to a vote in the legislature, which protects judicial independence.

Answer: D

Correct answer: The 86th Amendment

The 86th Amendment of 2002 inserted Article 21-A, making free and compulsory education for all children aged six to fourteen a fundamental right, to be provided in such manner as the State may by law determine. It did three things at once. It created the new right; it amended Article 45, which had been a directive to provide free and compulsory education up to fourteen, so that it now directs the State to provide early childhood care and education below six; and it added the eleventh Fundamental Duty, requiring a parent or guardian to provide educational opportunity to a child of that age. The enabling legislation is the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which came into force in 2010 and requires private unaided schools to reserve a quarter of their entry-level places for children from disadvantaged groups. It is one of the few instances of a right moving into Part III; the right to property moved out of it in 1978.

Answer: D

None of the listed devices is wrongly named - questions, supplementary questions and adjournment motions are all genuine instruments of parliamentary control.

The Question Hour compels ministers to answer for their departments, and an adjournment motion sets aside the day's business to censure the government over a matter of urgent public importance.

Answer: C

The Rajya Sabha can hold a money bill for at most fourteen days.

Under Article 109 it may only recommend amendments; if it does not return the bill within fourteen days, the bill is deemed passed by both Houses in the form the Lok Sabha sent it. This is the sharpest limit on the upper House's power.

Answer: D

The president is elected by an electoral college of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament and of the state legislative assemblies, including Delhi and Puducherry.

Votes are weighted so that the states as a whole balance the centre, and the election is by proportional representation with a single transferable vote.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Part II

Citizenship is covered by Part II, Articles 5 to 11. These articles determine who was a citizen at the commencement of the Constitution on 26 January 1950 - by domicile, by migration from or to Pakistan, or by descent for persons of Indian origin residing abroad. Article 11 then empowers Parliament to regulate the whole subject by law, which it did through the Citizenship Act of 1955. The Act provides five modes of acquiring citizenship: by birth, descent, registration, naturalisation and incorporation of territory; and three of losing it: renunciation, termination and deprivation. Two features are worth remembering. India has single citizenship, with no separate citizenship of a state, borrowed from Britain rather than the United States. And India does not permit dual nationality - acquiring another citizenship terminates Indian citizenship automatically, and the Overseas Citizen of India card is a residency and travel status, not citizenship. Part I deals with the Union and its territory, Part III with Fundamental Rights and Part IV with the Directive Principles.

Answer: A

Dr S. Radhakrishnan was India's first vice-president, from 1952 to 1962, and then president from 1962 to 1967.

A philosopher who had held chairs at Calcutta and Oxford, he is the only person to have served two full terms as vice-president. His birthday, 5 September, is observed as Teachers' Day.

Answer: B

The Instrument of Instructions in the Government of India Act, 1935 became the Directive Principles of State Policy.

It set out directions to the Governor-General and the Governors on how their powers should be exercised - morally binding but not enforceable in court, which is exactly the character the directive principles have under Article 37.

Answer: C

Somalia signed the agreement with India for the transfer of sentenced prisoners.

Such treaties let a prisoner serve out a sentence in their own country, near their family. India has signed them with more than thirty countries since the enabling Act of 2003.