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Mar 12, 2016 · Roles and Responsibilities of the state governments. State governments have separate departments for proper functioning of the state. States have jurisdiction over education, agriculture, public ...
- Rumani Saikia Phukan
Aug 9, 2023 · Structure of State Government. State governments have three branches - the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial - each with specific roles and responsibilities. Executive Branch. The executive branch comprises the Governor, Chief Minister, and the Council of Ministers. The Governor serves as the ceremonial head of the state, while the Chief ...
- State governments in India hold significant importance as they are responsible for governing specific regions within the country. They play a cruci...
- State governments have jurisdiction over specific states or regions within a country, whereas the central government governs the entire nation. Sta...
- State governments are formed through democratic elections. Citizens of a state vote for their representatives, and the political party or coalition...
- Yes, state governments have the power to make laws within their jurisdiction, as long as those laws do not contradict or conflict with the laws ena...
- State governments interact with the central government through various means, including regular meetings between state and central government offic...
t. e. State Governments of India are the governments ruling over the 28 states and 3 union territories (8 union territories of India but 3 union territories have Legislative Assembly as well as governments) of India with the head of Council of Ministers in every state being the Chief Minister. Power is divided between the Union government ...
- Overview
- Executive branch
- Legislative branch
- Bureaucracy
- Foreign policy
- State and local governments
- Justice
- Political process
- Security
The three lists contained in the constitution’s seventh schedule detail the areas in which the union and state governments may legislate. The union list outlines the areas in which the union government has exclusive authority, which include foreign policy, defense, communications, currency, taxation on corporations and nonagricultural income, and railroads. State governments have the sole power to legislate on such subjects as law and order, public health and sanitation, local government, betting and gambling, and taxation on agricultural income, entertainment, and alcoholic beverages. The items on the concurrent list include those on which both the union government and state governments may legislate, though a union law generally takes precedence; among these areas are criminal law, marriage and divorce, contracts, economic and social planning, population control and family planning, trade unions, social security, and education. Matters requiring legislation that are not specifically covered in the listed powers lie within the exclusive domain of the central government.
An exceedingly important power of the union government is that of creating new states, combining states, changing state boundaries, and terminating a state’s existence. The union government may also create and dissolve any of the union territories, whose powers are more limited than those of the states. Although the states exercise either sole or joint control over a substantial range of issues, the constitution establishes a more dominant role for the union government.
India’s head of state is the president who is elected to a five-year renewable term by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both houses of parliament and the elected members of the legislative assemblies of all the states. The vice president, chosen by an electoral college made up of only the two houses of parliament, presides over the Rajya Sabha. If the president dies or otherwise leaves office, the vice president assumes the position until an election can be held.
The powers of the president are largely nominal and ceremonial, except in times of emergency, and the president normally acts on the advice of the prime minister. The proper limits of the president’s power are sometimes a matter for debate. The president may, however, proclaim a national state of emergency when there is perceived to be a grave threat to the country’s security or impose direct presidential rule at the state level when it is thought that a particular state legislative assembly has become incapable of functioning effectively. The president may also dissolve the Lok Sabha and call for new parliamentary elections after a prime minister loses a vote of confidence.
Of the two houses of parliament, the more powerful is the Lok Sabha, in which the prime minister leads the ruling party or coalition. The constitution limits the number of elected members of the Lok Sabha to 530 from the states and 20 from the union territories, allotted roughly in proportion to their population. The president may also nominate two members of the Anglo-Indian community if it appears that this community is not being adequately represented. Members of the Lok Sabha serve for terms of five years, unless the house is dissolved before that.
Membership in the Rajya Sabha is not to exceed 250. Of these members, 12 are nominated by the president to represent literature, science, art, and social service, and the balance are proportionally elected by the state legislative assemblies. The Rajya Sabha is not subject to dissolution, but one-third of its members retire at the end of every second year. Legislative bills may originate in either house—except for financial bills, which may originate only in the Lok Sabha—and require passage by simple majorities in both houses in order to become law.
The day-to-day functioning of the government is performed by permanent ministries and other public service agencies. These are led by members of the Indian Administrative Service and other specialized services, who are chosen by competitive examination. Rules of recruitment and retirement and conditions of service are determined by the Union Public...
India’s foreign policy has been officially one of nonalignment with any of the world’s major power blocs. The country was a founding member of the Nonaligned Movement during the Cold War. India has also been a major player among the group of more than 100 low-income countries, loosely described as the “Global South,” that have sought to deal collectively in economic matters with the industrialized states of the “Global North.”
India has maintained its membership in the Commonwealth (formerly the British Commonwealth of Nations), and in 1950 it became the first Commonwealth country to change from a dominion to a republic. It was a charter member, even though not yet independent, of the United Nations (as it was of the earlier League of Nations) and has played an active role in virtually all the organs within the United Nations system. In 1985 India joined six neighbouring countries in launching the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.
The government structure of the states, defined by the constitution, closely resembles that of the union. The executive branch is composed of a governor—like the president, a mostly nominal and ceremonial post—and a council of ministers, led by the chief minister.
All states have a Vidhan Sabha (Legislative Assembly), popularly elected for terms of up to five years, while a small (and declining) number of states also have an upper house, the Vidhan Parishad (Legislative Council), roughly comparable to the Rajya Sabha, with memberships that may not be more than one-third the size of the assemblies. In these councils, one-sixth of the members are nominated by the governor, and the remainder are elected by various categories of specially qualified voters. State governors are also regarded as members of the legislative assemblies, which they may suspend or dissolve when no party is able to muster a working majority.
Each Indian state is organized into a number of districts, which are divided for certain administrative purposes into units variously known as tahsils, taluqs, or subdivisions. These are further divided into community development blocks, each typically consisting of about 100 villages. Superimposed on these units is a three-tiered system of local government. At the lowest level, each village elects its own governing council (gram pancayat). The chairman of a gram pancayat is also the village representative on the council of the community development block (pancayat samiti). Each pancayat samiti, in turn, selects a representative to the district-level council (zila parishad). Separate from this system are the municipalities, which generally are governed by their own elected councils.
From the state down to the village, government appointees administer the various government departments and agencies. Financial grants from higher levels, often made on a matching basis, provide developmental incentives and facilitate the execution of desired projects. Approving, withholding, or manipulating grants, however, often serves as a lever for the accumulation of personal power and as a vehicle of corruption.
The tradition of an independent judiciary has taken strong root in India. The Supreme Court, whose presidentially appointed judges may serve until the age of 65, determines the constitutional validity of union government legislation, adjudicates disputes between the union and the states (as well as disputes between two or more states), and handles ...
Oversight of the electoral process is vested in the Election Commission. There is universal adult suffrage, and the age of eligibility is 18. Seats are allocated from constituencies of roughly equal population. A certain number of constituencies in each state are reserved for members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes based on their proportion of the total state population. Those reserved constituencies shift from one election to the next. As candidates do not have to be and frequently are not residents of the areas they seek to represent, none runs the risk of losing a seat solely by virtue of the allocation procedure.
The Indian party system is complex. Based on performance in past elections, some parties are recognized as national parties and others as state parties. Parties are allocated symbols (e.g., a cow or a hammer and sickle), and ballots are printed with these symbols to help illiterate voters. The only party that has enjoyed a nationwide following continuously from the time of independence (in fact, since its founding in 1885) is the Indian National Congress. There have been several party schisms, however, and the Indian National Congress–Indira, or simply the Congress (I)—created in 1978 by the former prime minister Indira Gandhi and her supporters—has been by far the most successful of its derivative entities. Parties to the left of the Congress have included not only the Communist Party of India, which generally followed the lead of the Soviet Union, and the subsequently formed Communist Party of India (Marxist), more inclined toward policies espoused by China, but also an assortment of small, mainly short-lived Marxist and socialist groups. Parties to the right of the Congress have largely appealed either to Hindu sentiments (such as the Bharatiya Janata [“Indian People’s”] Party; BJP) or those of other communally defined groups, and some have sought to further the interests of landed constituencies (the preindependence princely families or the more recently affluent peasant factions).
Most police functions in India are handled through the states. There are, however, a number of centrally controlled police forces, including the Central Bureau of Investigation (to deal with certain breaches of union laws), the Border Security Force, the volunteer auxiliary force of Home Guards (to help in times of emergency, such as riots or natural disasters), the Central Reserve Police Force, and the Central Industrial Security Force. There are also several paramilitary forces deployed to provide internal security and border defense.
The combined Indian armed forces—comprising the army, navy, coast guard, and air force—are among the largest in the world. The army is the largest of these, with more than four-fifths of military personnel. Each of the services consists solely of volunteers and is led by a well-trained, professional corps of officers that historically has eschewed interfering with domestic politics.
State government. A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, or be subject to the direct control of the federal government.
Political system - Structure, Government, Power: The study of governmental structures must be approached with great caution, for political systems having the same kind of legal arrangements and using the same type of governmental machinery often function very differently. A parliament, for example, may be an important and effective part of a political system; or it may be no more than an institutional facade of little practical significance. A constitution may provide the framework within ...
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Sep 10, 2024 · state, political organization of society, or the body politic, or, more narrowly, the institutions of government. The state is a form of human association distinguished from other social groups by its purpose, the establishment of order and security; its methods, the laws and their enforcement; its territory, the area of jurisdiction or ...
