THE UNION AND ITS TERRITORY

Solved Objective Questions related to this topic

• According to Article 1 - India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.
•  India is indestructible union of destructible states.

Solved Objective Questions related to this topic

The territory of India shall comprise—

a.                    the territories of the States;

b.                   the Union territories specified in the First Schedule; and

c.                    such other territories as may be acquired.

• Article 3 Says Parliament by law passed with simple majority can form new States and alter the areas, boundaries or names of existing States.
•  No Bill for the purpose shall be introduced in either House of Parliament except on the recommendation of the President.
• The Bill then referred by the President to the Legislature of that State for expressing its views within specified period of time.
• The Bill can be introduced if State does not expresses its views.
• Parliament is not bound to accept the views expressed by State Legislature.
• States Reorganisation:
•  The political units devised in 1950 after Independence, in many cases, lacked economic viability or a suitable administrative machinery because the borders of these states, inherited from British India.
• Language was made the basis of this reorganisation based on the Congress Party resolution of 1920 in Nagpur Session as it would help replace the caste and religion-based identities with less controversial linguistic identities.
• On 17 June 1948, Rajendra Prasad, the President of the Constituent Assembly, set up the Linguistic Provinces Commission (aka Dar Commission) to recommend whether the states should be reorganized on linguistic basis or not. The Commission recommended that "the formation of provinces  exclusively on linguistic considerations is not in the larger interests of the Indian nation".
• In 1948 Congress, at its Jaipur session, set up the "JVP committee" to study the recommendations of the Dar Commission. The committee comprised Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, in addition to the Congress president Pattabhi Sitaramayya. In its report dated 1 April 1949, the Committee stated that the time was not suitable for formation of new provinces, but also stated "if public sentiment is insistent and overwhelming, we, as democrats, have to submit to it, but subject to certain limitations in regard to the good of India as a whole".
• By the 1952, the demand for creation of a Telugu-majority state in the parts of the Madras State had become powerful. Potti Sreeramulu, one of the activists demanding the formation of a Telugu-majority state, died on 16 December 1952 after undertaking a fast-unto-death. Subsequently, the Telugu-majority Andhra State was formed in 1953.
• In December 1953, States Reorganisation Commission was appointed by government of India to study creation of states on linguistic lines. This was headed by Justice Fazal Ali. The commission presented a report in 1955 recommending the reorganization of Indian states into 16 states and 3 Union Territories. Finally, The States Reorganization Act was passed in 1956.
• This abolished the British system of provinces and princely states. In its place, new states were drawn based on ethnicity and language.
• 1 May 1960 - Bombay State was split into the linguistic states of Gujarat and Maharashtra by the Bombay Reorganization Act.
•  1962 - The former French and Portuguese colonies in India were incorporated into the Republic as the union    territories of Pondicherry, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa, Daman and Diu.
•  1 December 1963 - Nagaland was made a state.
• 1966 - The Punjab Reorganization Act of 1966 divided the Punjab along linguistic lines, creating a new Hindi-speaking state of Haryana on 1 November, transferring the northern districts of Punjab to Himachal Pradesh, and designating Chandigarh, the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana, a union territory.
•  25 January 1971 - Statehood was conferred upon Himachal Pradesh.
• 21 January 1972 - Statehood was conferred upon Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura.
•  26 April 1975 - The Kingdom of Sikkim joined the Indian Union as a state.
•  1987 - Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram became states on 20 February, followed by Goa on 30 May, while Goa's northern exclaves of Daman and Diu became a separate union territory.
•  2000 - three new states were created; Chhattisgarh (1 November 2000) was created out of eastern Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal (9 November 2000), since renamed Uttarakhand, was created out of the Hilly regions of northwest Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand (15 November 2000) was created out of the southern districts of Bihar.