This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Constitution. The Constitution – which was framed over a period of three years, and during the tumult of the Partition as well as the incorporation of the princely states into India – was a remarkable achievement for its time; the fact that it has endured for 75 years (the average lifespan of Constitutions is less than two decades) is equally remarkable. In many ways – such as the grant of universal adult suffrage in one stroke, or in its abolition of untouchability and forced labour – the Constitution was a leap of faith, which expanded the horizons of social and political imagination in the newly-born nation-State. The occasion of 75 years is also a chance, however, to reflect critically on the Constitution’s structure and design, and to ask whether some of those design choices might call for greater scrutiny. The framers of our Constitution were faced with numerous problems, on a vast scale: Problems of poverty and illiteracy, of communal violence, and of deep social inequalities. They, therefore, believed that a strong executive was necessary to tackle these problems at the speed – and at the scale – that they demanded. Thus, while the Constitution, in formal terms, guaranteed a parliamentary and federal structure of government, in the fundamental principles of design, it skewed heavily towards the executive. Consider, first, the question of Parliament. In parliamentary systems in general, the executive and the legislature are partially fused, and when elections throw up clear results, the former tends to dominate the latter even though, formally, the executive is “responsible” to Parliament. To mitigate this drift towards the executive, parliamentary systems provide a number of mechanisms: for example, an independent Speaker of the House, whose role it is to defend and represent the interests of Parliament to the executive; some (limited) space to the Opposition to set the agenda on certain days; spaces where the Opposition can critique the executive’s record, both on the floor of the House (such as through Prime Minister’s questions), and elsewhere (through parliamentary committees). Bicameral systems have the additional check of an Upper House on executive dominance. However, even as the Constitution codified many aspects of governance, it maintained a conspicuous silence on entrenching some of the features that might have guaranteed parliamentary independence from the executive. Furthermore, given that in colonial times, the British executive was structurally designed to dominate the provincial and central legislatures, there was no long-standing set of conventions guaranteeing the independence of Parliament (as in Britain). A combination of these factors meant that the Indian Parliament was born a structurally weak institution, depending on the goodwill of the executive for its functioning. The results of these design choices are with us today. Similarly, on the question of federalism, the Constitution seems to treat states more as administrative units rather than as repositories for linguistic or cultural self-determination. This is evident from how it grants to Parliament to rearrange the federal map at will, how it skews legislative, administrative, and fiscal powers towards the Centre, and how it entrenches the role of colonial-era governors in the post-colonial set-up. This might have been intelligible at the time of independence, when the state boundaries of newly independent India reflected British units of administrative governance. From very early on, however, that position changed: indeed, the first reorganisation of the states was on linguistic basis, after strong social movements. In 2024, it should be clear that the states are a lot more than just administrative units: they reflect genuine aspirations for internal self-determination within the territorial borders of India. The constitutional design, however, continues to reflect the old model, as is evident from enduring controversies over the role of the governor, conflict over the distribution of revenue (especially GST revenue), and the legislative and administrative dominance that the Union continues to exercise. We must therefore ask whether this structural skew is compatible with a truly federal system that we aspire towards. Furthermore, while the Constitution also reflects the pluralism within the country through “asymmetric federal” arrangements for certain states, these arrangements have come grudgingly, and often as political compromises in order to prevent more militant solutions (as in the case of Manipur and Nagaland). The dominant constitutional vision appears to still be in favour of homogeneity and uniformity, as was reflected in the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the effective abrogation of the most prominent example of asymmetric federalism in India – that of Article 370. Classic constitutional theory divides the powers of the State between three branches – the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary. However, it has long been understood that the complexities of the modern State require the existence of a fourth branch of independent institutions that perform certain vital functions that require them to be independent of the executive. Examples include the Election Commission, human rights commissions, information commissions, and so on; these bodies are often tasked with holding the executive accountable, or implementing the infrastructure of important rights (such as the right to vote). Many modern Constitutions, therefore, specifically provide for the independence of these fourth branch institutions. The Indian Constitution, however, in its executive-trusting vision, either does not entrench fourth branch institutions at all, or – as in the case of the Election Commission – fails to adequately guarantee their separation from the executive, especially in the matter of appointments. Thus, long-standing concerns about the neutrality of the Election Commission, and executive interference in other bodies such as the Central Information Commission, can be traced back to the constitutional design itself. And finally, although the Constitution is enacted in the name of the people, it excludes the people, as collective actors, from engaging with public affairs through constitutional channels, and acting as external checks upon the executive; there are no guarantees of public participation in law-making, leading to a top-down process that actively discourages consultation with communities and groups specially affected by the actions of the State. Thus, as we look back on the last 75 years, there is much to celebrate about the Indian Constitution. We must also, however, refrain from hagiography, and recognise that the Constitution – for various reasons – is a centralising and executive-oriented document. While there may have been reasons for that in 1949, a public debate is needed about whether those reasons still hold – and what might an alternative constitutional vision look like. Gautam Bhatia is a New Delhi-based advocate. The themes in this article are explored in greater detail in his forthcoming book, The Indian Constitution: A Conversation with Power (HarperCollins 2025). The views expressed are personal.Gordon Bell High School in Winnipeg demonstrates leadership with federally supported retrofitsuper casino slot 。

US lawmakers concluded a two-year investigation Monday into the Covid-19 outbreak that killed 1.1 million Americans -- backing the theory that the virus likely leaked from a Chinese laboratory. A 520-page report from the Republican-controlled House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic looked at the federal and state-level response, as well as the pandemic's origins and vaccination efforts. "This work will help the United States, and the world, predict the next pandemic, prepare for the next pandemic, protect ourselves from the next pandemic, and hopefully prevent the next pandemic," panel chairman Brad Wenstrup said in a letter to Congress. US federal agencies, the World Health Organization and scientists across the planet have arrived at different conclusions about the most likely origin of Covid-19, and no consensus has emerged. Most believe it to have spread from animals in China, but a US intelligence analysis said last year that the virus may have been genetically engineered and escaped from a virology lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where human cases first emerged. The congressional panel was persuaded by the lab leak theory after meeting 25 times, conducting more than 30 transcribed interviews and reviewing more than one million pages of documents. The investigation included two days of interviews behind closed doors with Anthony Fauci, the government scientist who became the nation's most trusted expert in the chaotic early days of the 2020 outbreak. Fauci's clashes with former and incoming president Donald Trump over the response sparked fury on the right, and he now lives with security protection following death threats against his family. Republicans accuse the 83-year-old immunologist of helping to set off the worst pandemic in a century by approving funding passed on to Chinese scientists they accuse of manufacturing the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes Covid-19. Among its headline conclusions, the report said the National Institutes of Health had indeed funded contentious "gain-of-function" research -- which seeks to enhance viruses as a way of finding ways to combat them -- at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Fauci angrily denied covering up the origins of Covid-19 before the panel in June, arguing that it would be "molecularly impossible" for the bat viruses studied at the lab to be turned into the virus that caused the pandemic. But the panel's report said SARS-CoV-2 "likely emerged because of a laboratory or research related accident." The probe found that lockdowns "did more harm than good" and that mask mandates were "ineffective at controlling the spread of Covid-19," contradicting other research showing that masking in public does reduce transmission rates. Social distancing guidelines also came under criticism, although travel restrictions were deemed to have saved lives. Investigators found that Trump's Operation Warp Speed -- the publicly-funded project to develop Covid vaccines -- was a "tremendous success" but that school closures would have an "enduring impact" on US children. ft/jgc

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(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump’s return to the White House is forcing one of Wall Street’s more jargon-filled corners to rethink its talking points. Investment managers targeting climate change — a concept Trump has referred to as both a “scam” and a “hoax” — say it’s time to start speaking in terms that don’t alienate the millions of Americans who voted for the president-elect. “We need to change the language we’re using when we talk about climate and the energy transition,” said Joe Sumberg, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. managing director who now runs real estate investments at billionaire Tom Steyer’s Galvanize Climate Solutions. The goal should be to “make sure that we don’t sound like a bunch of coastal elites coming into middle America telling people that they need to install carbon capture at their properties and compost toilets on industrial properties,” he said in an interview. It’s one of a number of takeaways from the Nov. 5 election that investors targeting a whole range of ESG (environmental, social and governance) strategies are now busy analyzing. The consensus view forming among green asset managers is that many of the policies themselves are popular, based on their uptake in many Republican states. But the way that ESG professionals tout what they do is polarizing. The election “is a wake-up call for people who label what they do as ESG or even, frankly, sustainable investing,” said Ian Simm, the chief executive of Impax Asset Management, which oversees about $50 billion dedicated to investing in the clean-energy transition. “These are relatively new terms and they don’t always sit well with a traditional or mainstream view of fiduciary duty,” Simm said in an interview. “People who are using these ESG and similar phrases to reflect a values-driven or even ethical view of investment are now increasingly and probably unavoidably forced to declare their hands.” Since Trump’s election victory, investors have dumped stocks associated with high-profile ESG themes such as wind and solar. And analysts have even advised ESG professionals to keep their lawyers close, given the new political environment. The president-elect has made clear he plans to ratchet up fossil-fuel production, wind back environmental protections and embrace deregulation. That follows more than two years of ESG bans and legal threats in mostly Republican states. How the ESG investment industry communicates its agenda in a GOP-dominated America will be crucial in shaping its survival. So far, there has been “a lot of confusion and frankly a lot of laziness around definitions and the framing of these issues,” Simm said. “ESG as a phrase or label has been with us for far too long and needs to be replaced with clearer language.” As the political environment grows increasingly hostile toward all things labeled ESG, those whose business depends on it are being told to quickly adapt. The day after the US election, analysts at Jefferies predicted ESG professionals will stop touting their efforts in terms that once defined their work. Aniket Shah, the lead analyst of the Nov. 6 Jefferies note, said the ongoing backlash should result in a more “focused and pragmatic” approach to handling and talking about ESG. Even before Trump’s election victory, efforts by GOP-led states to sue climate-finance alliances were forcing a rethink in the ESG industry. Maslansky + Partners, a New York-based consultancy that focuses on language use, warned last year that the words ESG professionals use risk “alienating half the population.” And BDO, an international network of accounting and tax consultancies, said in September that ESG programs need to stop using “technical terms that can be hard to grasp” and instead start to “communicate in the language of the business” they serve. Ultimately, the business case should speak for itself, Sumberg said. “We’re not ignorant to the fact that if a different administration was in office, they probably would be more supportive,” he said. “But at the core of it, this is already profitable.” Sumberg just oversaw a third green real estate deal this year for Steyer, with the purchase of an industrial property in New Jersey. The goals, as with the other properties Galvanize has bought, are lower energy costs and emissions, as well as higher property values. He cautions against assuming that a Trump presidency will coincide with a major retreat from green investing. “The last time Trump was in power, the tax credits were extended for wind and solar,” he said. And Trump’s first presidency also coincided with a significant increase in energy-transition investments, he said. “The reason wasn’t because the administration at that time was adding subsidies to that sector,” Sumberg said. “The reason was because it’s profitable.”The AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll is back every week throughout the season! Get the poll delivered straight to your inbox with AP Top 25 Poll Alerts. Sign up here . HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — Denijay Harris’ 24 points helped Southern Miss defeat Milwaukee 66-65 on Saturday. Harris hit a 3-pointer and Neftali Alvarez made a layup with 2 seconds left as the Golden Eagles (3-4) rallied from a 65-61 deficit in the final minute. Jett Montgomery scored 13 points while shooting 5 for 8, including 3 for 6 from beyond the arc. Cobie Montgomery finished 3 of 6 from 3-point range to finish with 10 points. Themus Fulks led the way for the Panthers (5-4) with 17 points. Milwaukee also got 13 points and seven rebounds from Kentrell Pullian. AJ McKee also had 10 points and eight rebounds. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .In-Depth Analysis Of The Global Smart Apartments Market: Key Drivers, Trends, And Forecast 2024-2033