If It quacks like a duck, notice dekho

You'd think identifying a duck is relatively straightforward business. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the reasonable conclusion would be that it is a duck. Well, no, not if the notice states: This is not a duck. Remember, scuba divers also have webbed feet. Parliament has bills, too. Caps of accomplished people also bear feathers. So, to hastily bestow duckhood to birds of a feather can be a cunning ploy. If the competent authority has clarified the matter, to persist in calling it a duck would be mischievous, irresponsible and actionable.

A major combat operation is not necessarily a war. A water-harvesting initiative doesn't have to be a pothole. Entrepreneurial freedom is not automatically being unemployed. Law and order action needn't be a crackdown. A duck, provided the requisite notification has been gazetted, may well be a swan or goose, coming as they all do from the Anatidae family.

The need to be precise lies in administrative efficiency. George Orwell imagined a state demanding that citizens disbelieve their senses. He was right, and his tip should apply to all forms of hopping, skipping or jumping to conclusions. Unless officially verified, even an entity supposedly sure of its own nature doesn't have the right to call itself so. Meanwhile, the genuine duck is most likely to be a quack.