Overview 1: Government of India

Why I would like to introduce PA by understanding a little bit about Government of India, because Public Administration is all about Government activities and its functionalities. So to begin with, it would be better for you to have some ideas about  the Government and India. So, I am going to brief you some terms about Government.

Government of India(GOI)

Constitution of India defines the role of various branches of Government and their roles and functions. There is demarcation of duties - Law making, Law Execution and Law interpretation functions. Law making duties are performed by Parliament of India at the Center while in the States, these are performed by State Legislative Assemblies. Law Execution duties are done by Executive branch which you usually called the Government sometimes casually. Law interpretation works are done by the Courts - High Courts and the Supreme Court of India.

These Duties/Roles are fixed by the Constitution of India and any infringement of duties will leads to dispute which will be settled by Courts i.e., the Supreme Court of India and High Courts.

• Why Executive branch is usually called as Government! 

It is because of its nature of duties which are execution or implementation functions of Government. So We can consider Executive branch as the Captain of a Ship which takes the role of running the ship. So in the eye of the citizens, Executives are the front runners and they are seen as the Government. 

• But the meaning or sense provided by the term Government depends of the context where the term is used. 

It may give the meaning of the Executive branch or the whole of the Three Branches. But Usually, the term Government would mean the Executive branch, as they are the one handling the tasks/functions of a Government. To take an example: In news, we often heard, the current government is doing this and that.... So, the Term Government here means the Executive branch headed by Prime Minister Of  India.

In India, We have parliamentary form of Government and here we mean that the Legislature and Executives have some relationship and there is a little separation of power of functions between the two branches. This means, the executives are also a part of the legislature. 

There are ten points I would like to highlight about the Government of India(GoI) are as follows:

1. GoI is headed by the Prime Minister not by the President. President is the head of the State or ceremonial head.
2. Prime Minister must be a member of the legislature(the parliament), not necessarily while its selection as PM but PM must be a member of parliament within 6 months from his/her day one in his office. - parliamentary form of Government
3. The Cabinet Ministers or other ministers are also member of the legislatures.
4. Prime Minister is the Pivot of the Government, when he/she vacates his/her office, A new Government has to form, not necessarily a new election.
5. Every Five year there must held General election for Lok Sabha(House of people), and a new government will be form according to the election results.
6. Legislative branch or the parliament of India has three Components - The President of India, The Lok Sabha(House of People) and The Rajya Sabha(House of States).
7. Each house of the parliament are headed by the chairmen in case of Rajya Sabha and the Speaker in case of Lok Shabha.
8. The Government i.e., the executives are responsible to the Lok Sabha only. That means if the Government couldn't claim its majority in Lok Sabha(Lower House), then the Government has to resign and could result to a fresh election of Lok Sabha.
9. The Rajya Shabha(Upper House) is the permanent house of the Indian parliament and it doesn't dissolve at all. The house is headed by the Chairmen and The Vice President of India is ex-officio Chairmen of RS.
10. Judiciary of India is unitary i.e., there is no separate system of judiciary for states unlike the Executives and Legislative branches. That Supreme Court of India is the Ultimate interpreter of Any laws in India.

• The Governments at the states are the replication of the parliamentary form of government at the Center.

With these few points, you would get a picture of the Government. And in the future, we will mean by the term according to the context. So guys keep visiting my blog for updates in next post.