Indian Commerce Research Articles

A taxation perspective on how domestic double taxation on corporate taxes affects Indian commerce

A taxation perspective on how domestic double taxation on corporate taxes affects Indian commerce

The Original Meaning of Commerce in the Indian Commerce Clause

The Original Meaning of Commerce in the Indian Commerce Clause

PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK ON MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS IN INDIA UNDER THE COMPANIES ACT,2013

The purpose of this paper is to analyze, illustrate, and discuss Indian procedural laws governing mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The goal is to provide institutions and directors involved in deals involving foreign investment and accession with useful policy guidelines. The purpose of this article is to investigate the legal framework of the Companies Act of 2013's junction and accession clauses. Deals with advanced valuations have been delayed or failed due to a lack of fiscal structure, the erratic behavior of government officers, and interference of the politicians. Additionally, the recently elected governing authorities has attempted to encourage additional investment from other progressive and upcoming requests by simplifying the investment regulations and providing duty breaks. These are the most significant compliances. Eventually, the change would support rule makers, M&A counsel, legal advisers, investment bankers, private firms, transnational funds planning to invest in Indian commerce, and legal advisers.

Executive Discretion in Administering the Government's Rights and the Delegation Problem

Governments regulate private conduct. They also exercise rights of ownership and contract that are like those of private people. From the founding to today, executive officials have exercised substantial policy discretion in managing the government's own resources. That practice is consistent with the text and structure of the Constitution. Administering the government's resources, and making policy judgments in doing so, is at the core of carrying the law into execution. The executive itself does not have power to create programs that employ federal resources such as federal funds, but when Congress creates such a program, it may leave many important choices to the executive. At most, the Constitution requires that Congress provide an intelligible principle to guide that discretion. The non-delegation principle concerning regulation of private conduct may be more demanding than that, but the exercise of the government's own rights is a distinct category of executive activity. The practical scope of this principle is substantial. Federal spending today is a major tool through which Congress affects behavior. Like spending and contracting, federal regulation through licensing takes the form of the administration of the government's resources. Licensing of broadcasting, for example, rests on the principle that the airwaves are public and not private property, and that private people may use that resource only on terms the government sets. Licensing schemes put the government in the position of an owner, able to give licenses that permit conduct that otherwise would violate the owner's rights. Congress therefore may give executive officials substantial discretion when it creates a licensing system. The important question is the extent of Congress's power to put the government in the position of an owner. Two well-known early examples of delegation to the executive, the Indian Commerce Act of 1790, and the regulation of steamboat safety, took the form of licensing. The historical evidence does not indicate that proponents of those systems justified delegation on the grounds suggested here. It does suggest that steamboat licensing was understood to be based on federal control of the public right of navigation of interstate waterways. The executive function of administering the government's resources is a distinct category of executive activity from the standpoint of constitutional structure, and the principles that apply to delegation in other contexts need not apply in that context.

The Missing Indian Affairs Clause

Conflicting lines of precedent and philosophy are the defining characteristics of Federal Indian Affairs law. Scholarship and case law run the gamut from finding a pre-constitutional federal plenary power over Native Americans to narrow readings of the Indian Commerce Clause limiting Congressional power to trade only. All claim historical legitimacy, but none has been able to explain why the Indian Affairs Clause from the Articles of Confederation failed to appear in the Constitution, or, conversely, why the new federal government never limited themselves to regulating Indian trade. The combination of the unexplained textual shrinkage and disharmony between text and practice seems to suggest that the Framers made a mistake in drafting the Constitution. In fact, the Framers did make a mistake, or at least five of them did. This article examines the drafting history of the Constitution and suggests a startling explanation for the omission of an Indian Affairs Clause: at its heart is an innocent but consequential scrivener’s error. The five-member Committee of Detail, tasked by the Constitutional Convention to produce a working draft of a Constitution, seems to have accidentally omitted an Indian Affairs Clause. Inclusion of a Congressional power over Indian Trade and Affairs was compelled by its long pre-history and a unanimous vote by the Convention, and John Rutledge as Committee chair directed James Wilson to include it in a marginal note. The evidence indicates that Wilson meant to comply with the command: not only was he personally motivated to comply, but he placed a checkmark next to the Clause. However, he simply failed to include the power in his final draft. Thereafter, only Madison caught the mistake, the Committee of Detail deigned to address their lapse—over the Convention’s directive—by importing “Indians” into the Commerce Clause, thereby incorporating only part of pre-constitutional power over tribes, and none thereafter fixed the half-fix. The omission has thereafter caused a bicentennial of confusion to the detriment of the tribes. This history raises serious questions for constitutional theory, federal Native American policy, state-tribal relations, and Commerce Clause jurisprudence. This article addresses the question of whether the partially-fixed scrivener’s error should be fixed, and suggests some possible responses. These responses include judicial correction via statutory construction’s mistake doctrine, constitutional amendment, or re-implementation of the Washington Administration’s accord to treat with tribes as foreign nations, but with a textual twist: the United States would have to treat with a tribe before Congress could enact legislation to address subjects external to the Indian Commerce Clause. Though it does not provide a clean textual fix, the last option provides a practical one and affords the greatest normative benefits—it is consistent with the Constitution’s text, history, structure and precedent. Moreover, treating with tribes again would restore tribal sovereignty and dignity.

COVID-19 and Indian Commerce: An Analysis of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), and Retail Industries of Tomorrow

Introduction: This paper examines the effect of COVID-19 on Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and Retail industries of India and examines emerging trends in these markets Background: COVID-19 has impacted our lives from all the fronts Businesses and Global Commerce will never be the same once the world restarts post COVID-19 Multiple new trends like Direct to Consumer model(D2C), Omnichannel fulfilment, etc would emerge in the industries of tomorrow Macroeconomic Dynamics, consumer behaviour and supply-side disruptions form a complex network that drives these trends in the economy This network has to be studied to proactively identify the emerging trends in the industry Methods: Existing literature on COVID-19 and its effect on business and commerce in India were retrieved through secondary research The retrieved literature was analyzed to identify emerging trends Conclusion: Emerging trends in FMCG and Retail industry suggest that the previously existing layers of wholesalers, distribu-tors, etc between the producer and the end consumer is being eliminated Companies are leveraging technology to achieve direct distribution and thus, are getting closer to the customer © 2020 Global Research Online All rights reserved

Currency Flow in an Economy: India’s Demonetarization Event

In a previous paper, we analyzed an economic event in 2016-17 of a sudden demonetarization of India, to test the empirical validity of the Chartalist school of monetary theory. The Chartalist school had distinguished three kinds of money: Fiat, Commodity, and Managed Money. The demonetarization event provided empirical evidence for this currency distinction being significant and empirically valid, in the context of the nation of India. That sudden withdrawal of Fiat money immediately decreased the amount of Commodity money, creating an economic crisis in local Indian commerce. Managed Money (as bank accounts) was unable to fill the temporary gap in the supply of money, because a large portion of the Indian population did not have bank accounts. Also the government had not supplied a sufficient number of new Fiat money (new 500 and 2000 rupee notes) to quickly replace the withdrawn 500 and 1000 rupee notes. Our analysis showed that the policy thinking behind the demonetarization event lacked a proper understanding of valid monetary theory. In this paper, we continue the analysis of the demonetarization event by constructing a model of monetary flow in India. This model builds upon the Chartalist theory of money and may help fiscal policy makers to make sound decisions about currency and credit in a nation.

Modeling Currency Flow in an Economy: The Case of India’s Demonetization in 2016

The 2016-2017 economic event of a sudden demonetization in India can provide an empirical example in which to test the validity of some schools of monetary theory, particularly the Chartalist School. The Chartalist School distinguished three kinds of money: Fiat, Commodity, and Managed Money. The event provided empirical evidence that this distinction between currencies in an economy is valid and important. The sudden withdrawal of Fiat money immediately decreased the amount of commodity money, creating an economic crisis in local Indian commerce. Managed money, as bank accounts, was unable to fill the temporary gap in the supply of money because a large portion of the Indian population did not have bank accounts. Also the government did not supply a sufficient number of new 500 and 2000 rupee notes to quickly replace the withdrawn 500 and 1000 rupee notes.

IMPACT OF NEGATIVE PUBLICITY ON BRAND ‘GOA’- AN OPINION SURVEY OF DOMESTIC TOURISTS.

31May 2016 IMPACT OF NEGATIVE PUBLICITY ON BRAND ‘GOA’- AN OPINION SURVEY OF DOMESTIC TOURISTS. Abhishek Karmali and B. Ramesh. Asst. Professor and Course Director of the BBA Department of SridoraCaculo College of Commerce and Management Studies, Mapusa, Goa. Ex Head & Dean, Faculty of Commerce, Goa University, Goa, Former President of Indian Commerce Association, Former President of Indian Accounting Association.

Mind the Gap: The Unique Disadvantage Faced by Indigent Indians

In 2014, the Ninth Circuit created a federal circuit split over the use of tribal court convictions in federal prosecutions that the Supreme Court will soon resolve. In United States v. Bryant, the Ninth Circuit held that tribal court convictions cannot be used as predicate offenses in subsequent federal prosecutions unless the tribal court guarantees a right to counsel commensurate with the Sixth Amendment right. The Court accordingly dismissed a federal domestic assault charge under 18 U.S.C. § 117(a) because the predicate offense upon which the prosecution relied would have violated the Sixth Amendment right to counsel had the case arisen in federal or state court. The Court rooted its decision in the principle commonly espoused in criminal procedure jurisprudence that uncounseled convictions are unreliable. Extending this reliability principle to tribal proceedings is, perhaps predictably, problematic since indigent defendants are rarely guaranteed the right to appointed counsel, and the Constitution itself is without force in tribal courts. The Eighth and Tenth Circuits have thus upheld the use of uncounseled tribal court convictions on comity grounds. This Note analyzes the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit cases to highlight the unique disadvantage indigent Indian defendants with prior uncounseled tribal court convictions confront when prosecuted under § 117(a). With an eye toward the Supreme Court, this Note proposes an alternative interpretation of the statute that avoids the constitutional quandary created by the Eighth and Tenth Circuits' holdings. This Note concludes by urging the Court to seize the opportunity United States v. Bryant presents to reassess Congress' immense plenary power under the Indian Commerce Clause.

‘In the wreck of a master's fortune’: slave provisioning and planter debt in the British Caribbean

ABSTRACTThis article traces how debates over the ability of indebted West Indian planters to adequately provision their slaves influenced the politics of slavery in the British Empire in an era of abolitionism and amelioration projects. Specifically, the article examines the promulgation of colonial laws establishing priorities for debts incurred for the purchase of slave provisions over mortgage debts in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Debt-priority laws and contemporary responses to them suggest the ways in which both proslavery and antislavery interests defined and contested the moral as well as material dimensions of West Indian commerce and finance. A detailed quantitative case study provides information on provisioning and other expenses on two Tobago sugar estates (1807–1815).

Utilization of Novel Technologies in Natural Product Research: Radical Progress

Present day health care scientists are engaged in development of herbal formulations for all kind of health related problems as an alternative to modern medicine which show high level of side effects. Now a day’s use of indigenous medicines from plant origin has enormously increased worldwide. The world market for herbal drugs, herbal products and raw materials is estimated as US $80-90 billion and is expected to grow [1] to US $5 trillion by the year 2050. India is known for immense wealth of long established acquaintance and perception in the use of herbal medicines since ancient time. Indian herbal formulation industry is growing enormously every year with widespread market growth per annum. The increased global demand for herbal plants and their various constituents opened a new avenue to expand the Indian trade and commerce [2]. The scientific validation and technological standardization of herbal drugs may be achieved using a safe path of reverse pharmacology approach based on traditional knowledge database [3]. This may help in drug discovery, development and therapeutics, more than all, may help in dealing with a distinctive Western bias against Indian traditional medicine [4].

What next for ‘Amazon of India’?

Purpose – This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach – This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings – Efficient use of various marketing strategies has catapulted the Indian online commerce company Flipkart to its success. They have successfully overcome most of the hurdles put in their way. However, much needs to be discussed to find out ways to meet the challenges thrown by its competitors to maintain its supremacy over other online e-retailers and continue its exponential growth to meet US $1 billion sales by 2015. Practical implications – The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations. Originality/value – The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The Two Faces of Mutuality: Contemporary Themes in Anthropology

The Two Faces of Mutuality: Contemporary Themes in Anthropology João de Pina-Cabral The theme of mutuality has lately emerged in anthropology by the hand of some of our most influential contemporary thinkers. Yet they explore it in apparently unrelated guises: in the work of Johannes Fabian (2001, 2007) or of Michael Carrithers (2005), mutuality emerges as a methodological preoccupation in discussions about fieldwork ethics referring to the way in which anthropologist and informant are engaged in processes of co-responsibility1; by the hand of Marshall Sahlins (2011a), mutuality is a constitutive principle in personal ontogeny that allows for a theoretical re-founding of kinship studies. Are the two meanings simply unconnected or do they share something in common which may turn out to be of theoretical relevance for contemporary anthropology? In this essay, I aim to show that both meanings are indeed relevantly interrelated but, in order to do so, I find it necessary to explore further Marilyn Strathern’s proposals concerning the intrinsic plurality of persons. Mutuality would be the movement between singularity produced out of plurality and plurality produced out of singularity—and that is why it implies “co-presence” to use Sahlins’ term or “participation” to use Lévy-Bruhl’s. Ethnographic Mutuality in Fabian’s Work In his well-known essay “Ethnographic Misunderstanding and the Perils of Context,” Fabian provides us with one of the best definitions [End Page 257] of ethnographic mutuality in the literature: “the promise of nontrivial understanding that is produced by researcher and researched together” (1995:47). In short, an unavoidable aspect of all fieldwork interaction would be the occurrence of a feeling of shared revelation. In our present world of almost instantaneous globalization, even more so than in the past, the ethnographer’s presence in the field, as well as what she eventually comes to write about it, has an impact on the field but, more than that, it corresponds to processes of joint discovery. A superb example of this is provided by Michael Carrithers when he describes a conversation he had with a group of men during his fieldwork among Jains in India: they thought themselves independent, since they ran their own businesses and were not, as I was, subservient to an institution and to the will of others; I thought myself independent because I could pursue my research interests and not be bound to the drudgery and anxiety of Indian commerce. We never agreed, but we did understand for immediate purposes. We also managed, though with more strain and evasion on my part, to agree to differ about Western eating habits versus their vegetarianism, which for them touches very closely the self-evident practices of Jain living. But in either case it is the very conversation itself, with its mutual understanding and its differing views, that illustrates my point. Here is an ad hoc morality of mutual recognition, mutual trust, and mutual forbearance which arises more or less spontaneously in the course of interaction, in some part because of and in greater part despite our cultural differences. (2005:438) In passages such as this one, we can see how the typical preoccupation of the young ethnographer of being lied to by the informants soon gives way, in the more seasoned ethnographer, to what one might call a Rashomon fascination: the awareness that there is no end to interpretation and that we will ever be working on processes where absolutes play no role. Ambiguity will ever persist, as the ethnographic moment is part of the broader process of human communication and, thus, it is subject to what Donald Davidson (2001) calls the indeterminacy of interpretation. More than that, however, the traditional propensity of anthropology towards semiotic models of interaction, where conscious meaning is treated as the be-all and end-all of communication, has presently given way to more sophisticated understandings of the fieldwork context. We [End Page 258] must find ways of approaching analytically the ethnographic gesture that do not disembody it; that preserve its physicality in a world where what we understand is as much communicated by others as it is understood with others. We participate jointly in environments that are historically inscribed with sociality...

The Pharmacognosy of Rauwolfia

Summary Rauwolfia of Indian commerce consists of the dried rhizomes and roots, with occasional small pieces of attached aerial stem, of Rauwolfia serpentina Benth. The important histological features are the cork, composed of alternating layers of broad and narrow cells, giving a somewhat spongy and friable exterior to the drug; the narrow bark and the wide central mass of wood in the root or broad ring in the rhizome, showing about 3 to 8 growth rings; a tetrarch, or occasionally triarch, primary xylem in roots or a very small pith at the centre of rhizomes; in the periphery of the pith a ring of about 20 small groups of perimedullary phloem. All the cells of the wood, including those of the medullary rays are lignified. The xylem vessels, fibres and parenchyma form narrow undulating radially arranged bands, separated by large medullary rays in the root and by smaller ones in the rhizome. The vessel segments are small and narrow and the xylem fibres are often irregularly shaped with long, usually much contorted, tapering ends; many of the vessels, especially in the rhizome, show tylosis and occasionally contain resinous masses. The phloem also occurs in undulating bands similar to those of the xylem; phloem fibres are absent. In the rhizome, unlignified pericyclic fibres occur, either singly or in groups of 2 to 4; they show the local and sub-terminal elongated-oval enlargements characteristic of the Apocynaceæ. All the parenchymatous tissues, except the cork, contain numerous starch grains, about 4 to 20 to 50μ in diameter. Cells containing a brownish yellow secretion occur in small numbers, either singly or in short longitudinal rows, in the bark, wood and pith, being most frequent in the cortex of pieces of rhizome. Typical laticiferous tubes are absent. Calcium oxalate occurs in numerous cells of the phloem and of the medullary rays of the bark; the crystals are either well-formed prisms or aggregates of irregular angular components.

Taxation of Class III Tribal Gaming: Is it on the Horizon?

451 TRIBAL GAMING HAS EXPLODED across the American landscape in the past 15 years. Initially starting out as card rooms and super bingo games, it has expanded to massive Las Vegas style casinos that generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue for the recognized tribes that have aggressively developed sophisticated gaming businesses. There is no question but that these gaming operations have brought much needed revenue to tribes and their members that were previously impoverished and largely dependant upon federal assistance programs to meet their everyday needs. However, as tribes have developed financial strength and concomitant political muscle in the form of massive well placed political contributions at the local, state, and federal levels—their assertion of “sovereignty” in the face of ever increasing private enterprise— local and state attempts to regulate business operations affecting non-tribal persons, entities, and governments is causing an increasing portion of the citizenry to question the extent to which tribes should be free from the regulatory and tax framework that is imposed upon the rest of the population. At the heart of the growing controversy over tribal rights is a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between tribes and the United States government. Tribes are not, in fact, sovereign nations in the traditional sense (i.e., a separate country that is governed solely by its own laws). Rather, Article 1 Section 8 of the United States Constitution (the so-called Indian Commerce Clause) places the regulation of “Indian Tribes” in the hands of the United States Congress by providing that: “The Congress shall have the Power . . . to regulate Commerce . . . with the Indian Tribes.” When Congress adopted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act1 (IGRA) in 1988 in accordance with the power granted to it by Article 1 Section 8 of the United States Constitution, it was responding to the United States Supreme Court’s declaration in California et al. v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians et al.2 that the State of California could not enforce the state’s bingo and card game statutes on tribal lands. The case arose out of the state’s attempt to regulate bingo games and card games being operated by the Cabazon and Morongo Bands of Mission Indians on tribal land. In the face of strong tribal opposition, Congress enacted IGRA based upon findings that included the Congressional declaration that “a principal goal of Federal Indian policy is to promote tribal economic development, tribal self-sufficiency, and strong tribal government.”3 Congress went on to declare that the purpose of IGRA is:

The Warfare on and over American Government in Waldonian Perspective

What's happened? Why is my government such a terrible thing? -- Congressman Henry Hyde, remarks on the House floor, April 2, 1996 From the perspective of Waldonian thought, war against American government challenges public administration to preserve and promote the integrity and capacity of government to pursue the constitutional and policy objectives and values for which it is responsible. To paraphrase James Madison in Federalist Paper 51, provision for defense must be commensurate to the danger of attack. Public administration should not succumb to a failure of nerve or to simplistic, grandiose, and mechanistic schemes of reform in the face of intellectual, political, emotional, and physical assaults. Waldonian thought is a strong provision for defense against the danger of attack and the superficial and mechanistic responses this war invites. In the war over and on government there are assertions, arguments, and actions to the effect that government does not, cannot, or should not carry out its constitutional and policy responsibilities. Differences in values and policy often are expressed as attacks on government. The war on and over government advances distrust of action by government. To use the words of the National Performance Review, government is broke and broken (Gore, 1993). In historical perspective, contemporary warfare on government might prove to be a phase in a modified version of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s interpretation of the cycles of American history (Schlesinger, 1987). In this interpretation the American public alternates between reliance on public and private action to address its concerns. Forms of Warfare The major forms and sources of warfare are constitutional and legal, economic, political, moral, media-exploitative, and nihilistic. The constitutional and legal form may be the least visible but the most important. This form has three levels. At the Supreme Court level, several justices -- in some cases a majority, in some a minority -- question the constitutionality of federal action in various forms. They raise questions that have long seemed settled. Whatever the intent, the effect is to bring into question the legitimacy of various kinds of federal policies and administration. Two cases are illustrative. In U.S. v. Lopez (131 L Ed 2d 626, 1995), five members held that the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 exceeded Congress's authority under the commerce clause, only the second such holding in almost 60 years. In Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida (64 US Law Week 4167, 1996) five members held that Congress lacks power under the Indian commerce clause to abrogate states' Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in federal court for violations of federally created rights. These cases raise uncertainty for established practices. The second level of legal warfare is a lack of emphasis on the rule of law in public administration (Moe and Gilmour, 1995) The basic documents of the National Performance Review (NPR) barely mention the role of the rule of law and constitutional values in the brave new world of administration the NPR envisions. The NPR ignores the purposes of government expressed in the Preamble to the Constitution, such as a more perfect union, justice, the general welfare, and liberty. It ignores such central values as due process and equal protection in administration. The NPR defines administration as pursuit of results -- excluding from its concept of results the realization of the fundamental values upon which the nation was founded, and upon which the legitimacy of government and public administration rests (Rohr, 1986). The third level of legal warfare is carelessness about or indifference to law, or worse, in the behavior of both political and career administrators. Whatever the merits or demerits of the behavior of government officials in the Ruby Ridge and Waco incidents, the record indicates an indifference to legal requirements and values in official reports and explanations of these events (Stern, 1996). …

Equal Protection and the Special Relationship: The Case of Native Hawaiians

This article contends that government programs for Native Americans that are not limited to members of “Indian Tribes” in the constitutional sense will be subject to strict scrutiny, rather than rational basis review. Morton v. Mancari and its progeny apply rational basis review only to programs for members of Indian tribes, and the substitution of some other political classification for tribal status likely will not suffice. Tribal status appears to be a sine qua non. Moreover, strict scrutiny will apply even where the federal government has mistreated the relevant native group, and even where the reason that no tribe exists is that the government helped to extinguish it. Finally, a history of statutes singling out the relevant group also will not create a special relationship. The effect of strict scrutiny on existing programs for Native Americans may be dramatic: It is not clear that any such programs will meet the Supreme Court's requirements for demonstrating a compelling interest and narrow tailoring. The obvious solution is for native groups to create tribal structures, but this would work only if there is no requirement that a tribe have had a continuous existence. Even then, existing programs for native groups, defined racially, would probably have to be reformulated so that they applied only to tribal members (and federal authorization would be necessary for state programs, even after they were reformulated). This underscores the stark dichotomy that exists in the post-Adarand Constructors v. Pena world: All programs containing racial classifications are presumptively invalid, except for the programs that apply to “Indian Tribes” under the Indian Commerce Clause; the latter programs are consistently upheld, regardless of whether they benefit or harm tribal members. The forbidding environment for racial classifications has no impact on the legal status of programs for Indian tribes. This has significant implications for native groups, as they may attempt to expand the existing universe of Indian tribes to include them and thereby ensure that programs benefiting them are upheld. The ramifications are also important for individual Native Americans: As long as the programs singling out members of the new Indian tribe confer benefits (as is the case with most of the current programs treating Native Hawaiians specially), there will be a great incentive for individual Native Americans to join them. Adarand, then, will have the presumably unintended effect of encouraging tribalism. At bottom, a native group's constitutional status will depend on whether or not it is an “Indian Tribe[].” The need to create a tribe may seem unfair to Native Hawaiians and other Native Americans who are not organized into tribes; they may believe that their status should not be any different from that of members of Indian tribes. On the other hand, Native Americans' ability to create a tribe and thereby avoid strict scrutiny for their programs may seem unfair to other ethnic groups, like African Americans; no matter what entity, tribal or otherwise, such ethnic groups create for themselves, strict scrutiny will apply. Both sets of concerns go to the heart of the special relationship, as they raise doubts about the granting of preferences based on (voluntary) membership in an organization, as opposed to (involuntary) membership in a racial or ethnic group. It is not clear that it makes any sense for so much to depend on a person's membership in a tribe; but unless the Court rejects Adarand or Mancari, that sharp dichotomy, and its serious consequences, will remain.

A Return to Uncertainty in Indian Affairs: The Framers, the Supreme Court, and the Indian Commerce Clause

A Return to Uncertainty in Indian Affairs: The Framers, the Supreme Court, and the Indian Commerce Clause

Religious Gifting and Inland Commerce in Seventeenth-Century South India

AbstractsMost accounts of South Indian commerce in the seventeenth century depend on European documents and focus on Indo-European trade along the Malabar and Coromandel coasts. This article makes use of indigenous documents to analyze the way a caste of itinerant salt traders, the Nakarattars, combined worship and commerce in the interior of Tamil-speaking South India. It focuses on Nakarattar activities in the seventeenth century before they had achieved power under their better-known name, Nattukottai Chettiars, and at a time when their commercial expansion was just getting under way and when the close association of this expansion with rituals of religious gifting was already apparent. The two main purposes of the article are to illuminate the ritual dimension of commercial activity in precolonial South India and to enrich current transactional models of the relationship between temples and small groups in South India by incorporating a mercantile perspective.