The National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) is a statutory body established by the Government of India in the year 2004 via an ordinance. Subsequently, the ordinance was converted into an Act by Parliament in 2005. In the years 2006 and 2010, two amendment Acts were passed by Parliament, and the current NCMEI Act... Continue Reading →

Edit: 26th April: Please see comment from Prathisthan member. The institution gets Rs 30 crores annually. I am retaining the article to highlight the difference in the amounts granted. But the conclusion below about funding being stopped is wrong. --------- Today the Minister of Minority Affairs announced 1 lakh madrassas in the country will be... Continue Reading →

In the next 3 weeks, the 16th Lok Sabha and the NDA-2 Government under Narendra Modi will be completing 3 years. In these 3 years, it has had fairly reasonable success in pushing through several legislation in both the houses of Parliament. In fact, up to April 2014, the Government has been successful in pushing... Continue Reading →

In Part I of the post, we had looked at the arguments, opinions and decision of the Supreme Court on the 93rd amendment. In this part, let us look at the same judgement with respect to Article 21A of the Constitution. (Note: It would help if one goes through Part I so the background and... Continue Reading →

From a #Core point of view, there can be no dispute that the "Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust and Others Vs Union of India and Others" judgement on the issues of validity of the 93rd amendment to the Indian Constitution and the validity of Article 21A/RTE Act is the single most important judgement in India's... Continue Reading →

In India, there are many tribunals established over the past few decades with the aim of delivering speedy and efficient justice over disputes, that can otherwise take years to get addressed. The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), the Armed Forces Tribunal and the National... Continue Reading →

It has been argued since a while now that implementing the RTE Act for only Hindu schools will be detrimental to them, while at the same time helping proliferation of minority schools. This article attempts to find out if this is indeed happening. Given the lack of direct data, information from multiple sources had to... Continue Reading →

There are a number of articles, opinion posts and research material on the internet that evaluate the benefits and shortcomings of India's Right to Information (RTI) Act. While I have my own reservations about how it has been enacted and implemented, I will stay away from any comments on that in this article. Here, I... Continue Reading →