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3.12. Amendment of the Constitution
There are two ways to amend the Constitution:
♤ Proposed by the Congress and ratified by the States
o Amendment to be passed by 2/3rd majority in both the Houses
o To be ratified by the State Legislatures of at least 3/4th of the States
♤ Proposed by States and ratified by the States
o 2/3rd of the States should pass a resolution to this effect
o They will communicate to the Congress. The Congress will call the convention.
o In the convention, it has to be ratified by 3/4th of the States
In case of India, the amendment process is easy and flexible as compared to the US. In India, it is only the Parliament that can propose an amendment to the Constitution and States do not have any role to play in this matter. While some of the Articles can be amended by a simple majority, special majority is required for others, and in some limited Articles, ratification by more than half of the States is also required. Majority here means majority of the Members of the Parliament present on the date of the amendment, and is not related to the total strength of the Parliament.
The fact that the US Constitution got amended only 27 times in the last 225 years, shows how rigid it is to amend the US Constitution, in contrast to the Indian Constitution.
China is a socialist country. There is supremacy of socialist ideology in China. The Chinese Constitution accepts the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Communist Party of China (CPC) is the largest political party in the world, having millions of local level members. It works on the principle of Democratic Centralism. The full meeting of the party is called as National Party Congress (NPC), which is convened once in five years. Though theoretically all power lies with the people, but in practice, it is with the top leaders.
NPC members select the members of the Central Committee. The Central Committee selects the Polit Bureau (around 200 members). The Polit Bureau selects the Standing Committee of the Polit Bureau (at present 24 members; the most powerful members of the party).