Government of India

The Union Government of India comprises 3 main branches: the Judiciary, the Executive, and the Legislature. The Constitution of India assigns all powers to the Prime Minister, the Parliament, and the Supreme Court, under the Union Government.

The formal head of the Union Executive is the President but the elected Prime Minister serves as the actual head who ensure the proper functioning of the Union Government. The Legislature consists of the Indian Parliament which is bicameral in nature. The Parliament has a lower house in the form of Lok Sabha and an upper house in the form of Rajya Sabha, The Judiciary is a system of the various courts in the country. Its highest court is the Supreme Court of India. Further, the country has a total of 25 High Courts spread across different states and union territories, and has many District and Metropolitan Courts.

Explore the diagram on the homepage of the interface to view the differences and overlaps in the work of the Union and the State governments.

The State governments in India are responsible for governing individual states. These governments govern 29 states and 8 union territories of India. Power is divided between the Union government and State governments. While the Union government handles defense, external affairs, etc., the State government deals with internal security (through state police) and other state issues. Explore the diagram on the homepage of the interface to view the differences and overlaps in the work of the Union and the State governments.

In a state Executive, the Chief Minister serves as its head who ensures the proper functioning of the State government. A state Legislative can be unicameral or bicameral. A one house state Legislature is unicameral in nature and comprises the State Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha). A two house state legislature is bicameral and comprises the State Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) and State Legislative Council (Vidhan Parishad) - is a bicameral legislature. The Vidhan Sabha is the lower house and corresponds to the Lok Sabha while the Vidhan Parishad is the upper house and corresponds to the Rajya Sabha of the Parliament of India.

The governmental jurisdiction below the level of the state is referred to as Local governments. Local governments were formally established in India in the year 1992. Through the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendment, the Panchayati Raj Institutions and Urban Local Governments were both formalized. The Urban localities derive their powers from individual State governments. In comparison, the powers of the rural localities are provided by the Panchayati Raj System.

As of 2017, a total of 267,428 local government bodies were in existence in India. Of this, a majority of 262,771 bodies were urban and the remain 4657 were rural.