An op-ed by the National Spokesperson of a Tamil Nadu regional party argues that before imposing fresh levies, the State must close its audit-flagged compliance gaps, institute zero-based budgeting, and shift to outcome-linked expenditure reporting.

• Against a budget of ₹4.47 lakh crore, actual expenditure was ₹4.14 lakh crore — a net underspend of ₹33,302.53 crore, signalling poor expenditure planning.
• ₹1,078 crore in supplementary provisions across 81 cases in 26 grants was unnecessary as original allocations were unspent.
• 2.89% of revenue expenditure and 6.14% of revenue receipts were unreconciled with the Accountant General's records.
• A separate CAG audit flagged ₹1,538.18 crore in irregularities across 337 GST cases; only ₹8.64 crore had been recovered at the time of audit.
• 244 taxpayers were found operating entirely outside the GST net.

Zero-Based Budgeting is a method in which every budget line must justify its existence afresh each cycle, rather than being rolled over from the previous year's allocation. It reverses the conventional incremental approach.

• Origin: Developed by Peter Pyhrr at Texas Instruments in the 1960s; institutionalised by Jimmy Carter as Governor of Georgia and later in the US federal budget (1977).
• India: The Union government experimented with ZBB in 1986–87; Tamil Nadu adopted it on paper in 1988 but never made it an operational discipline.
• Relevance today: The 15th Finance Commission and successive Economic Surveys have recommended outcome-based expenditure reviews — a variant of ZBB logic.

Performance-Based Budgeting links budget allocations to measurable service-delivery outputs and outcomes — not just inputs (funds released) or outputs (roads tendered). It converts budgeting from an accounting exercise into a public management tool.

• Example cited: When the Greater Chennai Corporation opened smaller road-restoration contracts to wider competitive bidding, a ₹25 lakh Ambattur project attracted nine contractors and closed 25.9% below the official estimate.
• PBB benchmarks: cost per km of road built, cost per household connected to piped water, administrative cost per welfare rupee delivered.
• PBB complements the Expenditure Reforms Committee announced by the Tamil Nadu government to review scheme outcomes.

• The Montek Singh Ahluwalia-led Revenue Augmentation Committee has been tasked with closing compliance gaps, rationalising exemptions, and identifying uncollected revenue — not proposing new tax heads.
• GST compliance improvement alone (the 244 off-net taxpayers + ₹1,538.18 crore irregularities) offers significant fiscal headroom before any rate increase is justified.
• The article's central argument: fix the leaks first; spend against outcomes; then — and only then — ask the taxpayer for more.

• GS-II: Fiscal federalism (Centre-State financial relations, Finance Commission, CAG's role); welfare delivery and governance reform.
• GS-III: Budgeting process, taxation, fiscal deficit management, GST compliance.
• Prelims hook: CAG is established under Article 148; ZBB was first proposed at the Union level in India in the 1986–87 Budget.

The Supreme Court has declined to strike down hanging as the prescribed method of executing death sentences, ruling that existing scientific evidence does not displace the foundational reasoning of its 1983 Deena judgment — but left the door open for future challenges if materially stronger evidence emerges.

• Short-drop method (historical): A brief fall causes asphyxiation — a slow, painful death. Widely abandoned.
• Long-drop method (current): Drop length calibrated to the prisoner's weight and height. Intended to snap the C2–C3 cervical vertebrae, severing the spinal cord and causing near-instant unconsciousness. Standard protocols require the body to remain hanging for 30 minutes after the trap-door opens.
• Risk of error: Too short a drop → strangulation without cervical fracture; too long → decapitation.

• Article 21 — "No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law." The Supreme Court has expanded this to include the right to live — and die — with dignity.
• Gian Kaur v State of Punjab (1996): A five-judge constitutional bench held that the right to life under Article 21 encompasses the right to die with dignity.
• Deena v Union of India (1983): A three-judge bench upheld hanging as a constitutional mode of execution after examining medical evidence and comparative methods. The court held hanging (properly administered) to be "quick and certain" and not violative of Article 21.

• The petition challenged hanging as "accompanied by intense physical torture and pain" and inherently unpredictable, citing a 1992 study of 34 executions in England (1882–1945) — finding the "hangman's fracture" (C2–C3 snap) in only 3 of 34 cases; six died of asphyxiation.
• The bench held the petitioners' scientific material did not displace the basis on which Deena was decided, nor establish that alternative methods (lethal injection, electrocution, nitrogen hypoxia, shooting) offered a demonstrable advantage.
• The Union government submitted that no botched execution has ever been recorded in India, contrasted with documented failures of lethal injection in the US.
• Court's formulation: the existing method continues to satisfy the State's obligation to carry out executions with "decency and decorum" and without "degradation or brutality."
• Prospective opening: The bench noted constitutional law evolves — future challenges may succeed if new scientific, medical or empirical material fundamentally alters the assumptions underlying Deena. It also left it open to the Union to examine alternative methods voluntarily.

• Hanging: Still authorised in 60+ countries (Cornell Law School, 2012), predominantly those influenced by British common law — India, Singapore, Japan.
• Lethal injection: Dominant in several US states and China; a three-drug protocol (anaesthetic → paralytic → potassium chloride). Prone to failures from compromised venous access.
• Firing squad / single bullet: China, North Korea, Somalia, parts of West Asia. Proponents cite near-instantaneous cardiac destruction.
• Beheading: Saudi Arabia; dependent on executioner precision.
• Nitrogen hypoxia: Newest US method — pure nitrogen inhalation to cause asphyxiation without the hypercapnic alarm response. Critics argue it is insufficiently vetted.

Figure 2 — Capital Punishment in India and the World (2025)

India has carried out only 8 executions since 2001, even as global numbers rose 12% in 2025. Image courtesy The Indian Express; reproduced with credit for educational use.

• GS-II: Fundamental Rights (Article 21 — right to life and dignity); Supreme Court's interpretive role; judiciary and criminal justice reform.
• GS-II: Landmark judgments — Deena v Union of India (1983), Gian Kaur (1996); doctrine of constitutional evolution.
• Prelims hooks: BNSS = successor to CrPC; Article 148 = CAG; Article 21 = Right to Life; Deena = 1983 three-judge bench; Gian Kaur = 1996 five-judge bench on right to die with dignity.
• Mains angle: Tension between retributive justice (State's right to execute) and restorative/rehabilitative justice; India's trajectory — high sentencing, very low execution rate.