Question

does a diplomat always represent one party's interest to another party?

Answer 1

The Constitution clearly defines the role and activities of central and state governments by specifically enumerating them in the central list, state list and concurrent list. While there is no ambiguity with regard to the central list and state list, activities falling under the concurrent list are subject to the overlapping jurisdiction of the Union and states. States are primarily responsible for maintaining law and order, defining and ensuring property rights and providing key social and economic services covering health, education, employment and economic infrastructure, etc. which often involve large public expenditure. Most of the services and activities which have an interaction with people are in the domain of a state. In contrast, the powers to raise resources are largely biased in favour of the Union government.

If we consider developmental expenditure (the expenditure on social and economic services), the share of states together has averaged around 66% during the last 25 years and, except for some years, this share has generally been stable. The increase in the share of expenditure in the last two years is largely due to an accounting adjustment as the expenditure incurred on schemes where funds were earlier transferred directly to implementing agencies was included in the state budget and accounts