Government of India in the context of "Tata Institute of Fundamental Research"

Ladakh (English: /ləˈdɑːk/, Hindi: [ləd̪ːaːx]) is a region administered by India as a union territory and constitutes an eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region that has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947 and India and China since 1959. Ladakh is bordered by the Tibet Autonomous Region to the east, the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh to the south, both the Indian-administered union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan to the west, and the southwest corner of Xinjiang across the Karakoram Pass in the far north. It extends from the Siachen Glacier in the Karakoram range to the north to the main Great Himalayas to the south. The eastern end, consisting of the uninhabited Aksai Chin plains, is claimed by the Indian Government as part of Ladakh, but has been under Chinese control.

In the past, Ladakh gained importance from its strategic location at the crossroads of important trade routes, but as Chinese authorities closed the borders between Tibet Autonomous Region and Ladakh in the 1960s, international trade dwindled. Since 1974, the Government of India has successfully encouraged tourism in Ladakh. As Ladakh is strategically important, the Indian military maintains a strong presence in the region.

Modern Standard Hindi (आधुनिक मानक हिन्दी, Hunterian: Ādhunik Mānak Hindī), commonly referred to as Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of the Government of India, and is the lingua franca of most of the country. It is also an official language in the Pacific nation of Fiji.

Hindi is an official language in ten states (Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand), and six union territories (Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Delhi, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir) and an additional official language in the state of West Bengal. Hindi is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India.

The National Museum in New Delhi, also known as the National Museum of India, is one of the largest museums in India. Established in 1949, it holds a variety of articles ranging from the pre-historic era to modern works of art. It functions under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. The museum is situated on Janpath. The blueprint of the National Museum had been prepared by the Gwyer Committee set up by the Government of India in 1946. The museum has around 200,000 works of art, mostly Indian, but some of foreign origin, covering over 5,000 years.

It also houses the National Museum Institute of History of Art, Conservation and Museology on the first floor which was established in 1983 and has been a university since 1989, running master's and doctoral level courses in art history, conservation and museology.

New Delhi is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan (Presidential Palace), Sansad Bhavan (Parliament House), and the Supreme Court. New Delhi is a municipality within the NCT, administered by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), which covers mostly Lutyens' Delhi and a few adjacent areas. The municipal area is part of a larger administrative district, the New Delhi district.

Although colloquially Delhi and New Delhi are used interchangeably to refer to the National Capital Territory of Delhi, both are distinct entities, with the municipality and the New Delhi district forming a relatively small part within the megacity of Delhi. The National Capital Region is an even larger entity, comprising the entire NCT along with adjoining districts in the two neighbouring states forming a continuously built-up area with it, including Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida, Meerut, YEIDA City, Gurgaon, and Faridabad.

India has a parliamentary system as defined by its constitution, with power distributed between the union government and the states. India's democracy is the largest democracy in the world.

The President of India is the ceremonial head of state of the country and supreme commander-in-chief for all defense forces in India. However, it is the Prime Minister of India, who is the leader of the party or political alliance having a majority in the national elections to the Lok Sabha (Lower house of the Parliament). The Prime Minister is the leader of the legislative branch of the Government of India. The Prime Minister is the head of the Union Council of Ministers.

28°37′2″N 77°12′29″E / 28.61722°N 77.20806°E / 28.61722; 77.20806The Parliament of India (ISO: Bhāratīya Saṁsada) is the supreme legislative body of the Government of the Republic of India. It is a bicameral legislature composed of the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and the Lok Sabha (House of the People). The President of the Republic of India, in their role as head of the legislature, has full powers to summon and prorogue either house of Parliament or to dissolve the Lok Sabha, but they can exercise these powers only upon the advice of the Prime Minister of the Republic of India and the Union Council of Ministers.

Those elected or nominated (by the president) to either house of the Parliament are referred to as members of Parliament (MPs). The members of parliament in the Lok Sabha are directly elected by the voting of Indian citizens in single-member districts and the members of parliament in the Rajya Sabha are elected by the members of all state legislative assemblies by proportional representation. The Parliament has a sanctioned strength of 543 in the Lok Sabha and 245 in the Rajya Sabha including 12 nominees from the expertise of different fields of literature, art, science, and social service. The Parliament meets at Sansad Bhavan in New Delhi. The Parliament of India represents the largest democratic electorate in the world (the second being the European Parliament), with an electorate of 968 million eligible voters in 2024. On 28 May 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, unveiled and inaugurated the New Parliament Building (Sansad Bhavan), located adjacent to the previous one.

Pāli (/ˈpɑːli/, IAST Pāḷi) is a Middle Indo-Aryan language that is widely studied as the sacred language of Theravada Buddhism and the language of the Tipiṭaka. Pali was designated a classical language of India by the Government of India on 3 October 2024.

The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designated in one or other of the categories. For much of the period of British rule in the Indian subcontinent, they were known as the Depressed Classes.

In modern literature, many castes under the Scheduled Castes category are sometimes referred to as Dalit, meaning "broken" or "dispersed". The term was popularised by the Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar during the independence struggle. Ambedkar preferred the term Dalit over Gandhi's term Harijan, meaning "people of Hari" (lit. 'Man of God'). Similarly, the Scheduled Tribes are often referred to as Adivasi (earliest inhabitants), Vanvasi (inhabitants of forest) and Vanyajati (people of forest). However, the Government of India refrains from using these terms that carry controversial connotations. For example, 'Dalit', which literally means 'oppressed', has been historically associated with notions of uncleanness, carries implications of the concept of untouchability. Similarly, 'Adivasi', which means 'original inhabitants', carries implications of native and immigrant distinctions and also perpetuates the stereotypes of being civilized and uncivilized. Therefore, the constitutionally recognized terms "Scheduled Castes" (Anusuchit Jati) and "Scheduled Tribes" (Anusuchit Janjati) are preferred in official usage, as these designated terms are intended to address socio-economic disabilities, rather than to reimpose those social stigmas and issues. In September 2018, the government issued an advisory to all private satellite channels asking them to refrain from using the derogatory nomenclature 'Dalit', though rights groups have come out against any shift from 'Dalit' in popular usage.

The Act East policy is an effort by the Government of India to cultivate extensive economic and strategic relations with the nations of Southeast Asia to bolster its standing as a regional power and a counterweight to the strategic influence of the People's Republic of China.

Initiated in 1991 as the Look East policy during the government of Prime Minister Narsimha Rao (1991–1996), it marked a strategic shift in India’s perspective of the world. It was rigorously pursued by the successive administrations of Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998–2004) and Manmohan Singh (2004–2014).

India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, for a total of 36 subnational entities. The states and union territories in turn are each subdivided into a total of around 800 districts, which contain further administrative subdivisions.

Under the Indian Constitution and laws, the states of India are self-governing administrative divisions, each having a state government. The legal power to manage affairs in each state is shared or divided between the particular state government on one hand and the national union government on the other. The union territories are directly governed by the union government; no state level government (and thus no division of power) exists in these jurisdictions.

Among the states and union territories of India, a Union Territory (UT) is a region that is directly governed by the central government of India, as opposed to the states, which have their own state government systems. Unlike states, Union Territories do not have their own full-fledged government but are administered by a Lieutenant governor or Administrator appointed by the President of India.

Union Territories are created for various reasons, including geographical importance, strategic necessity or historical factors. These areas are under the control of the central government to ensure uniformity in governance across the country. Some Union Territories, such as Delhi (National Capital Territory) and Puducherry, have been granted special status and are allowed to have their own legislative assemblies, which can pass laws on certain matters, though the central government still retains significant authority.

Before it gained independence in 1947, India (also called the Indian Empire) was divided into two sets of territories, one under direct British rule (British India), and the other consisting of princely states under the suzerainty of the British Crown, with control over their internal affairs remaining to varying degrees in the hands of their hereditary rulers. The latter included 562 princely states which had different types of revenue-sharing arrangements with the British, often depending on their size, population and local conditions. In addition, there were several colonial enclaves controlled by France and Portugal. After independence, the political integration of these territories into an Indian Union was a declared objective of the Indian National Congress, and the Government of India pursued this over the next decade.

In 1920, Congress (party) under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi declared swaraj (self-rule) for Indians as its goal and asked the princes of India to establish responsible government. Jawaharlal Nehru played a major role in pushing Congress to confront the princely states and declared in 1929 that "only people who have the right to determine the future of the States must be the people of these States". In 1937, the Congress won in most parts of British India (not including the princely states) in the provincial elections, and started to intervene in the affairs of the states. In the same year, Gandhi played a major role in proposing a federation involving a union between British India and the princely states, with an Indian central government. In 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru observed that no princely state could prevail militarily against the army of independent India. In January 1947, Nehru said that independent India would not accept the divine right of kings. In May 1947, he declared that any princely state which refused to join the Constituent Assembly would be treated as an enemy state. Vallabhbhai Patel, Louis Mountbatten and V. P. Menon were more conciliatory towards the princes, and as the men charged with integrating the states, were successful in the task. Having secured their accession, they then proceeded, in a step-by-step process, to secure and extend the union government's authority over these states and transform their administrations until, by 1956, there was little difference between the territories that had been part of British India and those that had been princely states. Simultaneously, the Government of India, through a combination of military and diplomatic means, acquired de facto and de jure control over the remaining colonial enclaves, which too were integrated into India.

The insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, also known as the Kashmir insurgency, is an ongoing separatist militant insurgency against the Indian administration in Jammu and Kashmir, a territory constituting the southwestern portion of the larger geographical region of Kashmir, which has been the subject of a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947.

Jammu and Kashmir, long a breeding ground of separatist ambitions, has experienced the insurgency since 1989. S. Paul Kapur has argued that "[p]opular discontent in Kashmir resulted largely from chronic mismanagement and malfeasance on the part of the Indian central government... [and] was not a Pakistani creation. The Pakistanis actively capitalized on Kashmiri discontent, however, and played a crucial role in transforming spontaneous, decentralized opposition to Indian rule into a full-fledged insurgency." Some insurgent groups in Kashmir support complete independence, whereas others seek the region's accession to Pakistan.

The Indian Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of India. It consists of three professional uniformed services: the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, and the Indian Air Force. Additionally, the Indian Armed Forces are supported by the Central Armed Police Forces, the Indian Coast Guard, and the Special Frontier Force and various inter-service commands and institutions such as the Strategic Forces Command, the Andaman and Nicobar Command, and the Integrated Defence Staff. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces but the executive authority and responsibility for national security is vested in the Prime Minister of India and their chosen Cabinet Ministers. The Indian Armed Forces are under the management of the Ministry of Defence of the Government of India. With strength of over 1.4 million active personnel, it is the world's second-largest military force and has the world's largest volunteer army. It also has the fifth-largest defence budget in the world.

The Indian Armed Forces have been engaged in a number of major military operations, including: the Indo-Pakistani wars of 1947, 1965, and 1971, the Portuguese-Indian War, the Sino-Indian War, the Indo-China War of 1967, the Kargil War, the Siachen conflict, and the 2025 India-Pakistan conflict among others. India honours its armed forces and military personnel annually on Armed Forces Flag Day, 7 December. Armed with the nuclear triad, the Indian Armed Forces are steadily undergoing modernisation, with investments in areas such as futuristic soldier systems and ballistic missile defence systems.

Indian diaspora (ISO: Bhāratīya Pravāsī), officially Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and People of Indian Origin (PIOs), are people of Indian descent who reside or originate outside of India. According to the Government of India, Non-Resident Indians are citizens of India who currently are not living in India, while the term People of Indian Origin refers to people of Indian birth or ancestry who are citizens of countries other than India (with some exceptions). Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) is given to People of Indian Origin and to persons who are not People of Indian Origin but married to an Indian citizen or Person of Indian Origin. Persons with OCI status are known as Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs). The OCI status is a permanent visa for visiting India with a foreign passport.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs report updated on 26 November 2024, there are 35.4 million non-resident Indians (NRIs) and People of Indian Origins (PIOs) (including OCIs) residing outside India. The Indian diaspora comprise the world's largest overseas diaspora. Every year, 2.5 million (25 lakh) Indians immigrate overseas, making India the nation with the highest annual number of emigrants in the world.

The Hunterian transliteration system is the "national system of romanization in India" and the one officially adopted by the Government of India. Hunterian transliteration was sometimes also called the Jonesian transliteration system because it derived closely from a previous transliteration method developed by William Jones (1746–1794). Upon its establishment, the Sahitya Akademi (India's National Academy of Letters) also adopted the Hunterian method, with additional adaptations, as its standard method of maintaining its bibliography of Indian-language works.

Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (IPA: [d̪aːd̪ɾaː nəɡəɾ ɦəʋeːliː, d̪əmən d̪iːʋ]) is a union territory in India. The territory was constituted through the merger of the former territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Plans for the proposed merger were announced by the Government of India in July 2019; the necessary legislation was passed in the Parliament of India in December 2019 and came into effect on 26 January 2020. The territory is made up of four separate geographical entities: Dadra, Nagar Haveli, Daman, and the island of Diu. All four areas were formerly part of Portuguese India, with a joint capital at Panjim, Goa. They came under Indian rule in the mid-20th century after the Annexation of Goa and of the Free Dadra and Nagar Haveli. Goa, Daman and Diu were jointly administered until 1987, when Goa was granted statehood after the Konkani language agitation. The current capital is Daman and Silvassa is the largest city.

The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India lists the languages officially recognized by the Government of India. As of 2024, 22 languages have been classified under the schedule.

Indian English (IndE, IE) or English (India) is a group of English dialects spoken in the Republic of India and among the Indian diaspora and is native to India. English is used by the Government of India for communication, and is enshrined in the Constitution of India. English is also an official language in eight states and seven union territories of India, and the additional official language in five other states and one union territory. India has one of the world’s largest English-speaking communities. Furthermore, English is the sole official language of the Judiciary of India, unless the state governor or legislature mandates the use of a regional language, or if the President of India has given approval for the use of regional languages in courts.

Before the dissolution of the British Empire on the Indian subcontinent, the term Indian English broadly referred to South Asian English, also known as British Indian English.