Politics of India

Politics in India (Hindi: ) takes place within the framework of a constitution. India is a federal parliamentary democratic republic in which the President of India is head of state and the Prime Minister of India is the head of government. Nominally, executive power is exercised by the president and is independent of the legislature. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the Parliament of India, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. Federal and state elections generally take place within a multi-party system, although this is not enshrined in law. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, the highest national court being the Supreme Court of India. India is the world's largest democracy in terms of citizenry. India is as a nation has been labelled as a "sovereign socialist secular democratic republic" which is "egalitarian secular". Like the United States, India has had a federal form of government since it adopted its constitution. However, the central government in India has greater power in relation to its states, and its central government is patterned after the British parliamentary system. The central government has the power to dismiss state governments under specific constitutional clauses or in case no majority party or coalition is able to form a government. The central government can also impose direct federal rule known as president's rule (or central rule). Locally, the Panchayati Raj system has several administrative functions and authorities. For most of the years since independence, the federal government has been led by the Indian National Congress (INC).[1] The two largest political parties have been the INC and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Although the two parties have dominated Indian politics, regional parties also exist. From 1950 to 1990, barring two brief periods, the INC enjoyed a parliamentary majority. The INC was out of power between 1977 and 1980, when the Janata Party won the election due to public discontent with the promulgation of emergency by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975. In 1989, a Janata Dal-led National Front coalition, in alliance with the Left Front coalition, won the elections but managed to stay in power for only two years.[2] As the 1991 elections gave no political party a majority, the INC formed a minority government under Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and was able to complete its five-year term.[3] The years 19961998 were a period of turmoil in the federal government with several short-lived alliances holding sway. The BJP formed a government briefly in 1996, followed by the United Front coalition that excluded both the BJP and the INC. In 1998, the BJP formed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with several other parties and became the first non-Congress government to complete a full five-year term.[4] In the 2004 elections, the INC won the largest number of Lok Sabha seats and formed a government with a coalition called the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), supported by various parties.[5] In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the INC won with a majority of more than 200 seats and formed the government by creating a coalition with other parties which were willing to form alliance with it. Indian democracy has been suspended once.[6] Nevertheless, Indian politics is often described[by whom?] as chaotic. More than a fifth of parliament members face some criminal charges and around 40 of them are accused with serious criminal charges.

Political issues
Social issues

The lack of homogeneity in the Indian population causes division between different sections of the people based on religion, region, language, caste and race. This has led to the rise of political parties with agendas catering to one or a mix of these groups. Some parties openly profess their focus on a particular group; for example, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's focus on the Dravidian population, and the Shiv Sena's proMarathi agenda. Some other parties claim to be universal in nature, but tend to draw support from particular sections of the population. For example, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (translated as National People's Party) has a vote bank among the Yadav and Muslim population of Bihar and the All India Trinamool Congress does not have any significant support outside West Bengal. The Bharatiya Janata Party, the party with the second largest number of MPs in the 15th Lok Sabha, has a Hindu nationalist reputation. Such support from particular sections of the population affects the agenda and policies of such parties, and call into question their claims of being universal representatives. The Congress may be viewed as the most secular party with a national agenda. Many political parties are involved in caste-, religion- or language-based politics. The narrow focus and votebank politics of most parties, even in the central government and central legislature, sidelines national issues such as economic welfare and national security. Moreover, internal security is also threatened as incidences of political parties instigating and leading violence between two opposing groups of people is a frequent occurrence.
Economic issues

Economic issues like poverty, unemployment, development are main issues that influence politics. Garibi hatao (eradicate poverty) has been a slogan of the Indian National Congress for a long time. The well known Bharatiya Janata Party encourages a free market economy. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) vehemently supports left-wing politics like land-for-all, right to work and strongly opposes neo-liberal policies such as globalization, capitalism and privatization.
Law and order

Terrorism, Naxalism, religious violence and caste-related violence are important issues that affect the political environment of the Indian nation. Stringent anti-terror legislation such as TADA, POTA and MCOCA have received much political attention, both in favour and opposed. Law and order issues, such as action against organised crime are issues which do not affect the outcomes of elections. On the other hand, there is a criminalpolitician nexus. Many elected legislators have criminal cases against them. In July 2008, the Washington Times[unreliable source?] reported that nearly a fourth of the 540 Indian Parliament members faced criminal charges, "including human trafficking, immigration rackets, embezzlement, rape and even murder".

Women's Empowerment
UNDP focuses on gender equality and womens empowerment not only as human rights, but also because they are a pathway to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development. UNDP coordinates global and national efforts to integrate gender equality and womens empowerment into poverty reduction, democratic governance, crisis prevention and recovery, and environment and sustainable development. Through our global network, we work to ensure that women have a real voice in all governance institutions, from the judiciary to the civil service, as well as in the private sector and civil society, so they can participate equally with men in public dialogue and decision-making and influence the decisions that will determine the future of their families and countries. You might be listening to news, reading newspaper or magazine, you would have gone through incidents and accidents with women in India. While any other article on womens empowerment in India will take a look at our rich heritage and enlightened societies of the past where women were treated as equals, the concept of India itself evolved quite recently, relative to the sum of its parts histories. But the TRUTH is that in the modern India, the woman has always been a second grade citizen, no matter what its esteemed leaders have said or done. It is hard to fathom how slow moving the cultural exchange of the world is when you find out that there are several places across the country where harmful customs of the ancient world coexist with modern appliances and thought. However that may come as hardly any surprise to anyone who has lived in India the dichotomy of society is something that can only be explained by a refrain from an old Bollywood song: It happens only in India! Yes, it is only in India that glaring and brutal gang rapes occur frequently in a state that is headed by a woman Chief Minister. Gender discrimination is the least of worries for women in India, known otherwise as the fourth most dangerous country in the world for women. Other instances of violence against women has an astonishing and grim variety to it with acid throwing, domestic violence stemming out of dowry, rape, harassment and an assortment of others.