The Government of India (IAST: Bhārat Sarkār, legally the Union Government or Union of India and colloquially known as the Central Government) is the central executive authority of the Republic of India, a federal republic located in South Asia, consisting of 28 states and eight union territories. The government is led by the prime minister (currently Narendra Modi since 26 May 2014) who exercises the most executive power and selects all the other ministers. The country has been governed by a NDA-led government (a coalition of the BJP and its allies) since 2014. The prime minister and their senior ministers belong to the Union Council of Ministers—its executive decision-making committee being the cabinet.
The government, seated in New Delhi, has three primary branches: the legislative, the executive and the judiciary, whose powers are vested in a bicameral Parliament, a prime minister, and the Supreme Court respectively, with a president as head of state.
The Council of Ministers are responsible to the House in which they sit, they make statements in that House and take questions from fellow members of that House. For most senior ministers this is usually the directly elected Lok Sabha rather than the (mostly) indirectly elected Rajya Sabha. As is the case in most parliamentary systems, the government is dependent on Parliament to legislate, and general elections are held every five years to elect a new Lok Sabha. The most recent election was in 2024.
After an election, the president selects as prime minister the leader of the party or alliance most likely to command the confidence of the majority of the Lok Sabha. In the event that the prime minister is not a member of either House upon appointment, he/she is given six months to be elected to either House of Parliament.
