In the Preamble of the Constitution lie the keystones of our democracy

Shaped by some of India's finest minds, drafted by a committee headed by B.R. Ambedkar and conflating the world's best political systems-the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Ireland and Canada-India's Constitution has two birthdays. It was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949, and formally enforced three months later on January 26, 1950.

If democracy is religion, the Constitution is the Gita and Bible of sovereign India. A critic once called it a "beautiful document" enshrining the fundamental rights of citizens irrespective of caste, creed and religion, unblemished by its 84 amendments. The Constitution is too often shrugged aside as an idealistic document, a First World rulebook. It is a bit like the best prefect at school-whom you attempted to circumvent, but who stood by you if the going got tough.

BORDER ROADS ORGANIZATION
Right of Passage

Army convoys at a border road at the 11,500-ft-high Zoji La

What is common among Nathu La in Sikkim, Bomdi La in Arunachal Pradesh, Khardung La and Siachen in Jammu and Kashmir? These remote spots, mostly passes, are linked to the country through an impressive 32,800 km road network built by the low-key but effective Border Roads Organisation (BRO). Besides 13 road projects-including an extensive network along the Indo-Bangladesh border-the bro has diversified into infrastructure like airfields and strategic bridges. The 22-year-old organisation, set up under the Ministry of Defence after India's military debacle in 1962 against China, is fast becoming a key artery in India's strategic arm. Having dedicated the 160 km Moreh (Manipur)-Tamu (Myanmar)-Kalemyo-Kalewa road, (called the Burma Road), to the growing ties between India and Myanmar on February 13, 2001, bro is looking at road building opportunities in Afghanistan. To cement Indo-Afghan friendship, the bro engineers are examining ways to link Kabul and Herat via Bamiyan, famous for the Taliban-destroyed Buddha statue. As much as those in the business of transmitting data through ether, bro knows that the future belongs to connectivity.

SEWA
United Ladies

Ela Bhatt (left) and SEWA changed the lives of Gujarat's poorest women

Some movements have a life of their own. The Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) is one such, now bigger than the wildest dreams of its founder, a feisty lawyer-turned-labour leader from Ahmedabad-Ela Bhatt. Technically, SEWA is still a labour union, registered as such in 1975, three years after its inception, to safeguard the interests of impoverished self-employed women. They were slum-dwelling weavers, cigarette rollers, vendors, waste-paper pickers and construction workers. Today, its over two lakh members make it among India's biggest trade unions, its reach spread beyond Gujarat to Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Kerala and Delhi.

Through their organisation, SEWA members have successfully negotiated with employers to establish health, death and maternity benefits, set up 71 cooperatives of various trades to share expertise, develop new designs and techniques and for joint marketing. Each cooperative has an average of 1,000 members.

Most importantly, SEWA, in 1974 established a micro-finance bank that now has 70,000 accounts. This has rescued thousands of women from money-lenders and pawn-brokers, allowing them to accumulate land, assets and means of production. Another triumph: the repayment rate on its loans is an impressive 96 per cent. SEWA has shown that self help works and works well.

SUPREME COURT
Active Justice

The British set it up as early as 1774 in Kolkata, with jurisdiction merely over the Crown's subjects in the colony. After Independence, the Supreme Court in Delhi became an institution which, unlike many others that besmirch India's name, pride and future, has lived up to the responsibilities the Constitution vested in it. It has given distinct meaning to the fundamental rights of citizens-except for two years between 1975 and 1977, when every institution espousing civil liberties and justice, including the Supreme Court, was subverted by the Emergency. It has put the concept of equality on the sound footing of reason, and has reconciled the needs of a welfare state with the right to freedom. Since the 1980s, it has expanded the scope of public-interest litigation, giving the affected minority a voice against decisions imposed on it by the brute majority-affirmative action by another name. The fruits of positive interference by the apex court are now evident in a host of public policy initiatives, be it in combating environmental pollution or in the battle against executive corruption and high-handedness.

IIMs
First Among Equals

THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, AHMEDABAD: World standard

It's official. The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, is the toughest management school in the world to get into, ahead of Harvard Business School, Columbia University, Spain's Instituto de Empressa and France's Insead, according to a survey by The Economist. There's more. In terms of course content, it comes in fifth after Yale, Harvard, IE and Paris' Haute Etudes Commerciales.

Established with the idea of equipping a fledgling India with good managers, there are now six IIMs-IIM-A in 1963 was followed by those in Kolkata, Bangalore, Lucknow, Indore and Kozhikode. The IIM graduates have gone on

to prove their mettle in leading India Inc and fairly impressive niche of World Inc. Sunil Alagh, managing director of Britannia, M.S. Banga, chairman, Hindustan Lever Ltd, and Sanjay Kumar, CEO of global major Computer Associates, have all passed through the IIM portals. The list goes on and so does IIMs' tradition of helping management trainees to become powerhouse managers. Even in times of crisis in the global job markets, the McKinseys,

JP Morgans and AT Kearneys of the world flock to recruit youngsters from the IIM campuses. They clock an average pay of Rs 21 lakh a year-a little less than half the starting average for graduates of Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Stanford. But you will agree that it's hardly shabby.

UDUPI
Dosa Express

Sometimes the best-kept secrets spread like wildfire. Take Udupi. This small temple town of Karnataka is known as the birthplace of Hindu saint Madhavacharya, who set up the Puthige Krishna Math here, one of the seven centres of Hindu pilgrimage in India. Since it was set up several centuries ago, it has been a Math tradition to feed the devotees the typical vegetarian Brahmin cuisine cooked by the Math's pundits. The cuisine uses coconut, rice, lentils, jackfruit, cashewnuts and other local agricultural produce. Some cookery historians believe that masala dosa, one of the world's favourite south Indian dishes, was conjured on a tawa outside the Udupi Krishna Math.

As with the spread of dosa, Udupi, also known as Udipi, with its staple fare of idli, uthapam and puri palya, has spawned a vast network of hotels across India, besides the tiffin-room culture in southern India. You will also find Udupi hotels in Chicago, London, Tokyo, Abu Dhabi, Johannesburg and other points in all five continents, offering three surefire guarantees: a clean place serving good food at reasonable prices. It may not be a chain but Udupi has become a symbol, even a brand.