Post-Independence India — Glossary

ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla (1976) was the Supreme Court ruling that during a Proclamation of Emergency the right to move courts for enforcement of Articles 14, 21 and 22 stood suspended.

The Agricultural Prices Commission was an advisory body set up by the Government of India in 1965 to recommend remunerative crop prices and guide the country's food procurement policy.

The Allahabad High Court is the High Court of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, established in 1866 and constitutionally continued under Article 214 of the Constitution.

Analytical and evaluative is a UPSC answer-writing directive demanding that candidates dissect a question into causes and components and then deliver a reasoned, evidence-based judgement.

The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 is the parliamentary statute that bifurcated the State of Andhra Pradesh to create Telangana as India's 29th state with effect from 2 June 2014.

Andhra State was the first Indian province created on a purely linguistic basis, carved out of Madras State in 1953 for Telugu speakers.

The Anti-Hindi agitations were a series of mass protests in the Madras Presidency and Tamil Nadu opposing the imposition of Hindi as India's sole official language.

Armed rebellion is a violent organised uprising against lawful state authority that, since 1978, is a constitutionally enumerated ground for proclaiming a National Emergency in India.

Under Article 359(1) as amended by the 44th Amendment (1978), the enforcement of Articles 20 and 21 cannot be suspended even during a National Emergency.

The Assam Accord was a 1985 memorandum of settlement ending the six-year Assam Movement, fixing 24 March 1971 as the cut-off date for detecting and deporting illegal migrants.

The Atomic Energy Commission is India's apex policy-making body for nuclear matters, established in 1948 to formulate and oversee atomic energy programmes.

The basic structure doctrine holds that Parliament's amending power under Article 368 cannot alter the Constitution's essential framework, which courts may strike down even validly enacted amendments to protect.

Continuity-and-change is a historiographical analytical lens that weighs the persistence of older structures, institutions and ideas against their transformation across a defined period.

A First Five-Year Plan is a state's inaugural medium-term economic blueprint setting production targets and investment priorities, deployed by both the People's Republic of China (1953–57) and India (1951–56).

The Food Corporation of India is a statutory public-sector body created under the Food Corporations Act, 1964 to procure, store, distribute and stabilise prices of foodgrains in India.

Hyderabad was the largest and richest princely state of British India whose Nizam sought independence in 1947 but was annexed by the Indian Union through the September 1948 military action codenamed Operation Polo.

The Indus Waters Treaty is a 1960 water-distribution agreement between India and Pakistan, brokered by the World Bank, allocating the eastern rivers to India and the western rivers to Pakistan.

An Industrial Policy Resolution is a formal Government of India statement of objectives and strategy for the industrial sector, defining the respective roles of the public and private sectors.

An Instrument of Accession was the legal document by which the ruler of a princely state acceded to either India or Pakistan after the lapse of British paramountcy in 1947.

Jammu and Kashmir is a Himalayan region acceded to India in 1947, granted special autonomy under Article 370, and reorganised into two Union Territories in 2019.

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) was independent India's first and longest-serving Prime Minister, holding office from 15 August 1947 until his death in May 1964.

The JVP Committee was a 1948 panel comprising Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel and Pattabhi Sitaramayya that examined and cautioned against the linguistic reorganisation of Indian states.

The Mahalanobis model was the theoretical framework underlying India's Second Five-Year Plan (1956-61), prioritising rapid industrialisation through state-led heavy and capital-goods industries.

The Mandal Commission was India's Second Backward Classes Commission (1979) whose 1980 report recommended 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes in central government jobs.

The National Food Security Act, 2013 is an Indian statute that gives a legal right to subsidised foodgrains to roughly two-thirds of the population through the Public Distribution System.

India's Northeast is a region of eight states linked to the mainland by the narrow Siliguri Corridor, governed under special constitutional provisions and shaped by tribal autonomy and insurgency.

The Official Languages Act, 1963 is the Indian statute that provides for the continued use of English alongside Hindi for the official purposes of the Union and in Parliament.

Pakistan is a South Asian federal parliamentary republic created on 14 August 1947 by the Partition of British India as a homeland for the subcontinent's Muslims.

Panchsheel are the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence governing inter-state conduct, first codified in the preamble to the 1954 India-China Tibet Agreement.

The Planning Commission was India's apex non-statutory advisory body, established in 1950 to formulate Five-Year Plans for centralised economic development, replaced by NITI Aayog in 2015.

Potti Sriramulu was a Gandhian activist whose 1952 fast-unto-death for a separate Telugu-speaking province triggered the creation of Andhra State and India's linguistic reorganisation of states.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is ISRO's four-stage expendable rocket, operational since 1994, designed primarily to place satellites into Sun-synchronous polar orbits.

The Second Five-Year Plan (1956–61) was India's industrialisation-focused plan built on the Mahalanobis model emphasising heavy and capital-goods industries in the public sector.

The Sino-Indian War was a month-long border conflict fought in October–November 1962 between India and the People's Republic of China over the disputed Himalayan frontier.

The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India provides for autonomous administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram through Autonomous District and Regional Councils.

The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 reconstituted India's internal boundaries on a linguistic basis, creating 14 States and 6 Union Territories and abolishing the Part A/B/C/D classification.

The States Reorganisation Commission was a three-member body appointed in 1953 to examine the reorganisation of India's states, primarily on linguistic lines.

Telangana is the 29th state of the Indian Union, carved out of Andhra Pradesh on 2 June 2014 under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014.