DHAKA: Indian president Pranab Mukherjee gave a stern assessment of India 65 years after it declared itself a republic, criticising parliamentary dysfunction and the overuse of decrees in a message that might also resonate with his visitor, United States president Barack Obama.

In a Republic Day address on the eve of the celebrations, India’s largely ceremonial president was also scathing about rampant violence against women in the world’s second most populous nation.

Mukherjee said the opposition should debate laws responsibility rather than disrupting the houses of Parliament, and warned prime minister Narendra Modi’s government against governing by decree.

He was referring to 10 ‘ordinances’ issued by Modi, including ones to raise the foreign investment limit in insurance, auction coal mines and ease land acquisitions.

‘Enacting laws without discussion impacts the law-making role of the parliament. It breaches the trust reposed in it by the people,’ Mukherjee said in a televised address on Sunday, The Straits Times publishes this report on Monday.

‘This is neither good for the democracy nor for the policies relating to those laws.’

BDST: 1247 HRS, JAN 26, 2015