What is the minimum voting age for men in India?

The correct answer is A, the final goal of a stateless society. Both Gandhi and Marx saw the State as an instrument of coercion and imagined an ideal society in which it would no longer be needed.

Marx held that after a proletarian revolution and a transitional dictatorship of the proletariat, class divisions would vanish and the State would "wither away", leaving a classless, stateless communist society. Gandhi called the State "violence in a concentrated and organised form" and hoped for an enlightened anarchy, a Ram Rajya of self-governing, self-reliant village republics in which people rule themselves. The two differed sharply on the means: Marx accepted violent revolution, while Gandhi insisted on non-violence and change of heart.

B is wrong: class struggle is central to Marxism, but Gandhi rejected it in favour of harmony between classes.

C is wrong: Marx wanted private property abolished, while Gandhi proposed trusteeship, in which owners hold wealth in trust for society.

D is wrong: economic determinism, the idea that the economic base shapes everything else, is Marxist; Gandhi gave primacy to moral and spiritual forces.

Exam tip: Gandhi and Marx agree on the end (stateless society) but differ on the means (non-violence and trusteeship versus class struggle and revolution).

The correct answer is C, Rights are claims of the citizens against the State. A right is a claim that the individual makes and that the State recognises and is bound to respect.

In political theory, rights mark out an area of freedom that the State must not enter and conditions it must secure. In the Indian Constitution this idea is clearest in Part III: Article 12 defines the "State" against which Fundamental Rights are available, Article 13 declares void any law that takes them away, and Article 32, which Dr. B.R. Ambedkar called the "heart and soul" of the Constitution, lets a citizen go straight to the Supreme Court when the State violates them. Rights therefore limit the power of the government over the individual.

A is wrong: claims the State makes on citizens are duties or obligations, not rights.

B is wrong: rights are not privileges granted as a favour; many rights exist even beyond those written in a constitution.

D is wrong: privileges of a few against the many are the opposite of rights, which belong equally to all.

Exam tip: right = claim of the individual against the State; duty = claim of the State on the individual.

The correct answer is A, Directive Principles of State Policy. The Directive Principles in Part IV lay down the social and economic goals that make India a welfare state.

Articles 36 to 51 direct the State to secure a social order based on social, economic and political justice (Article 38), adequate means of livelihood, fair distribution of resources and equal pay for equal work (Article 39), the right to work, education and public assistance (Article 41), and humane conditions of work and maternity relief (Article 42). They are not enforceable by courts (Article 37), but they are fundamental in the governance of the country. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar called them a "novel feature" and they were inspired by the Irish Constitution.

B is wrong: Fundamental Rights in Part III aim at political democracy by limiting the State, not at welfare goals.

C is wrong: the Preamble states the objectives of justice, liberty and equality in general terms, while the welfare state ideal is spelt out in the Directive Principles.

D is wrong: the Seventh Schedule only divides subjects between the Union and the States.

Exam tip: Fundamental Rights = political democracy; Directive Principles (Part IV, Articles 36–51, from Ireland) = social and economic democracy, the welfare state.

The correct answer is A, 1 only. Parliament can add a law to the Ninth Schedule by a constitutional amendment, but such a law is not beyond judicial review.

The Ninth Schedule and Article 31B were added by the First Amendment Act of 1951 to protect land reform laws from challenge on the ground that they violated Fundamental Rights. Laws are added to it only by amending the Constitution, which Parliament does under Article 368. In I.R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu (2007), a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court held that laws placed in the Ninth Schedule after 24 April 1973, the date of the Kesavananda Bharati judgment, can be examined by courts and struck down if they damage the basic structure of the Constitution.

B is wrong: statement 2 is false after the Coelho judgment.

C is wrong: only statement 1 is correct.

D is wrong: statement 1 is correct, since Parliament does place laws in the Schedule.

Exam tip: Ninth Schedule = 1st Amendment 1951, Article 31B; I.R. Coelho 2007 opened post-24 April 1973 entries to basic-structure review.

The correct answer is B. The five-judge Bench read Article 239AA as a scheme of representative government and held that the Lieutenant Governor has no independent decision-making power; he must act on the aid and advice of the elected Council of Ministers except on public order, police and land, and where a law requires him to act in his discretion. Option A is wrong because the judgment rejected exactly that claim of a general power to differ, holding that the proviso to Article 239AA(4) is an exception to be used sparingly on substantial issues, not a routine veto. Option C is wrong because Delhi remains a Union Territory with a special status and the Lieutenant Governor is an administrator under Article 239, not a Governor appointed under Article 155. Option D is wrong because the dissolution of the assembly and the failure of constitutional machinery in Delhi are dealt with under Article 239AB by the President.