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The Executive Branch
Chapter 1 of the Constitution of India creates a parliamentary system, with a Prime Minister who, in practice, exercises most executive power. The prime minister must have the support of a majority of the members of the Lok Sabha, or lower House of Parliament. If the Prime Minister does not have the support of a majority, the Lok Sabha can pass a motion of no confidence, removing the Prime Minister from office. Thus the Prime Minister is the member of parliament who leads the majority party or a coalition comprising a majority. The Prime Minister governs with the aid of a Council of Ministers, which the Prime Minister appoints and whose members head ministries. Importantly, Article 75 establishes that "the Council of Ministers shall be collectively responsible to the House of the People" or Lok Sabha. The Lok Sabha interprets this article to mean that the entire Council of Ministers can be subjected to a no confidence motion. If a no confidence motion succeeds, the entire Council of Ministers must resign.

Despite the Prime Minister exercising executive power in practice, the constitution bestows all the national government's executive power in the office of the President. This de jure power is not exercised in reality, however. Article 74 requires the President follow the "aid and advice" of the Council, headed by the Prime Minister. In practice, this means that President's role is mostly ceremonial, with the Prime Minister exercising executive power because the President is obligated to act on the Prime Minister's wishes. The President does retain the power to ask the Council to reconsider its advice, however, an action the President may take publicly. The Council is not required to make any changes before resubmitting the advice to the President, in which case the President is constitutionally required to adhere to it, overriding the President's discretion. Previous Presidents have used this occassion to make public statements about their reasoning for sending a decision back to the Council, in an attempt to sway public opinion. This system, with an executive who only possesses nominal power and an official "advisor" who possess actual power, is based off the British system and is a result of colonial influences on India before and during the writing of its constitution.

The President is chosen by an electoral college composed of the members of both the national and state legislatures. Article 55 outlines the specifics of the electoral college. Half of the votes in the electoral college are assigned to state representatives in proportion to the population of each state and the other half are assigned to the national representatives. The voting is conducted using a secret, single transferable vote.

While the Constitution gives the legislative powers to the two Houses of Parliament, Article 111 requires the President's signature for a bill to become law. Just as with the advice of the Council, the President can refuse to sign and send it back to the Parliament, but the Parliament can in turn send it back to the President who must then sign it.

Dismissal of the Prime Minister
Despite the President's mandate to obey the advice of the Prime Minister and the Council, Article 75 declares that both "shall hold office during the pleasure of the President." This means the President has the constitutional power to dismiss the Prime Minister or Council at anytime. If the Prime Minister still retained a majority vote in the Lok Sabha, however, this could trigger a constitutional crisis because the same article of the Constitution states that the Council of Ministers is responsible to the Lok Sabha and must command a majority in it. In practice the issue has never arisen, though President Zail Singh threatened to remove Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi from office in 1987.

Presidential Power to Legislate
When either or both Houses of Parliament are not in session, the Prime Minister, acting via the President, can unilaterally exercise the legislative power, creating ordinances that have the force of law. These ordinances expire six weeks after Parliament reconvenes or sooner if both Houses disapprove. The Constitution declares that ordinances should only be issued when circumstances arise that require "immediate action." Because this term is not defined, governments have begun abusing the ordinance system to enact laws that could not pass both Houses of Parliament, according to some commentators. This appears to be more common with divided government; when the Prime Minister's party controls the lower house but not the upper house, ordinances can be used to avoid needing the approval of the opposition in the upper house. In recent years, around ten ordinances have been passed annually, though at the peak of their use, over 30 were passed in a single year. Ordinances can vary widely on their topic; recent examples of ordinances include items as varied as modifications to land owner rights, emergency responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and changes to banking regulations.

Federalism
The first article of the Constitution declares that India is a "Union of States." Under the Constitution, the States retain key powers for themselves and have a strong influence over the national government via the Rajya Sabha. However, the Constitution does provide key limits on their powers and gives final say in many cases to the national government.

Rajya Sabha
At the Union level, the States are represented in the Rajya Sabha or Council of States. The Fourth Schedule of the Constitution lays out the number of seats that each State controls in the Council of States, and they are based roughly on each State's population. The members of each state legislature elect and appoint these representatives in the Council of States. On most topics the Rajya Sabha is coequal with the lower house or Lok Sabha, and its consent is required for a bill to become a law. Additionally, as one of the Houses of Parliament, any amendment to the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in the Rajya Sabha to go into effect. These provisions allow the States significant impact on national politics through their representation in the "federal chamber."

State List
The Constitution provides the States with a long list of powers exclusive to their jurisdiction. Generally only State Legislatures are capable of passing laws implementing these powers; the Union government is prohibited from doing so. These powers are contained in the second list of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, known as the State List. The areas on the State List are wide ranging and include topics like public health and order and a variety of taxes. The State List grants the states control over the police, healthcare, agriculture, elections, and more

Powers can only be permanently removed from the State List via a constitutional amendment approved by a majority of the states. The Rajya Sabha, as the representative of the States, can temporarily remove an item from the State List so the Union parliament can legislate on it. This requires a two-thirds vote and lasts for a renewable one-year period.

Amendments
In addition to exerting influence over the amendment process via the Rajya Sabha, the States are sometimes involved in the amendment process. This special, entrenched process is triggered when an amendment to the Constitution specifically concerns the States by modifying the legislature or the powers reserved to the states in the Seventh Schedule. When this occurs, an amendment must be ratified by a majority of state legislatures for the amendment to go into effect.

Union and Concurrent Lists
While the State List mentioned above provides powers for the States, there are two other lists in the Seventh Schedule that generally weaken them. These are the Union and Concurrent lists. The Union List is the counterpart to the State List, containing the areas of exclusive jurisdiction of the Union government, where the states are prohibited from legislating. Items on the Union List include the national defense, international relations, immigration, banking, and interstate commerce.

The final list is the Concurrent List which contains the topics on which both the Union and State-level governments may legislate on. These topics include courts and criminal law, unions, social security, and education. In general, when the Union and State laws on a Concurrent List item conflict, the Union-level laws prevail. The only way for the State-level law to override the national one is with the consent of the President, acting on the advice of the Prime Minister.

Additionally, any powers not on any of the three lists are reserved for the Union government and not for the states.

Appointment of Governors
The Governor of each State is given the executive power of the respective State by the Constitution. These Governors are appointed directly by the President of the central government. Because the Prime Minister acts via the President, the Prime Minister is the one who chooses the Governors in practice. Once appointed, a Governor serves for a five year term or can be replaced by the President at any time, if asked to do so by the Prime Minister. Because the Union government can remove a Governor at any time, it is possible that Governors may act in a way the Union Government wants, to the detriment of their state, so that they can maintain their office. This has become a larger issue as the State Legislatures are often controlled by different parties than that of the Union Prime Minister, unlike the early years of the constitution. For example, Governors have used stalling tactics to delay giving their assent to legislation that the Union Government disapproves of.

In general the influence of the Union on State politics via the Governor is limited, however, by the fact that the Governor must listen to the advice of the Chief Minister of the State who needs to command a majority in the State Legislature. There are key areas where the Governor does not need to heed the advice of the Chief Minister. For example, the Governor can send a bill to President for consideration instead of signing it into law.

Creation of States
Perhaps the most direct power over the States is the Union's ability to unilaterally create new states out of territories or existing states and to modify and diminish the boundaries of existing states. To do so, Parliament must pass a simple law with no supermajority requirements. The States involved do not have a say on the final outcome but the State Legislature must be asked to comment. The most recent state to be created was Telangana in 2014. More recently, Ladakh was created as a new Union Territory after being split off from Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, and Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli were combined into a single Union Territory in 2020. The former was particularly controversial. Jammu and Kashmir was a full state, and the legislation creating Ladakh stripped the area of its status as a state and downgraded it to a Union Territory, allowing the Union Government to directly control it. This required no input from Jammu and Kashmir.

Federalism and the Courts
While the states have separate legislative and executive branches, they share the judiciary with the Union government. This is different from other federal court systems, such as the United States, where state courts mainly apply state law and federal courts mainly apply federal law. Under the Indian constitution, the High Courts of the States are directly constituted by the national constitution. The constitution also allows states to set up lower courts under and controlled by the state's High Court. Cases heard at or appealled to the High Courts can be furter appealed to the Supreme Court of India in some cases. All cases, whether dealing with federal or state laws, move up the same judicial hierarchy, creating a system sometimes termed integrated federalism.

International Law
The Constitution includes treaty making as part of the executive power given to the President. Because the President must act in accordance with the advice of the Council of Ministers, the Prime Minister is the chief party responsible for making international treaties in the Constitution. Because the legislative power rests with Parliament, the President's signature on an international agreement does not bring it into effect domestically or enable courts to enforce its provisions. Article 253 of the Constitution bestows this power on Parliament, enabling it to make laws necessary for implementing international agreements and treaties. These provisions indicate that the Constitution of India is dualist, that is treaty law only takes effect when a domestic law passed using the normal processes incorporates it into domestic law.

Recent Supreme Court decisions have begun to change this convention, incorporating aspects of international law without enabling legislation from parliament. For example in Gramophone Company of India Ltd. v Birendra Bahadur Pandey, the Court held that "the rules of international law are incorporated into national law and considered to be part of the national law, unless they are in conflict with an Act of Parliament." In essence, this implies that international law applies domestically unless parliament says it does not. This decision moves the Indian Constitution to a more hybrid regime, but not to a fully monist one.