Republic of India in the context of "Partition of India"

Emperor (or Empress) of India was a title used by British monarchs from 1 May 1876 (with the Royal Titles Act 1876) to 22 June 1948 to signify their sovereignty over the British Indian Empire as its imperial head of state. The image of the Emperor or Empress appeared on Indian currency, in government buildings, railway stations, courts, on statues, etc. Oaths of allegiance were made to the Emperor or Empress and the lawful successors by the governors-general, princes, governors, commissioners in India in events such as imperial durbars.

The title was abolished on 22 June 1948, with the Indian Independence Act 1947, under which George VI made a royal proclamation that the words "Emperor of India" were to be omitted in styles of address and from customary titles. This was almost a year after he became the titular head of the newly partitioned and independent dominions of India and Pakistan in 1947. These were abolished upon the establishment of the Republic of India in 1950 and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1956.

Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its right bank, Delhi shares borders with the state of Uttar Pradesh in the east and with the state of Haryana in the remaining directions. Delhi became a union territory on 1 November 1956 and the NCT in 1995. The NCT covers an area of 1,484 square kilometres (573 sq mi). According to the 2011 census, Delhi's city proper population was over 11 million, while the NCT's population was about 16.8 million.

The topography of the medieval fort Purana Qila on the banks of the river Yamuna matches the literary description of the citadel Indraprastha in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata; however, excavations in the area have revealed no signs of an ancient built environment.From the early 13th century until the mid-19th century, Delhi was the capital of two major empires, the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, which covered large parts of South Asia. All three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the city, the Qutub Minar, Humayun's Tomb, and the Red Fort, belong to this period. Delhi was the early centre of Sufism and Qawwali music. The names of Nizamuddin Auliya and Amir Khusrau are prominently associated with it. The Khariboli dialect of Delhi was part of a linguistic development that gave rise to the literature of Urdu and later Modern Standard Hindi. Major Urdu poets from Delhi include Mir Taqi Mir and Mirza Ghalib. Delhi was a notable centre of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. In 1911, New Delhi, a southern region within Delhi, became the capital of the British Indian Empire. During the Partition of India in 1947, Delhi was transformed from a Mughal city to a Punjabi one, losing two-thirds of its Muslim residents, in part due to the pressure brought to bear by arriving Hindu and Sikh refugees from western Punjab.After independence in 1947, New Delhi continued as the capital of the Dominion of India, and after 1950 of the Republic of India.

The Government of India (Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or the Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India. The government is led by the president of India (currently Droupadi Murmu since 25 July 2022) who as head of state holds formal executive power, and thus (following parliamentary elections) appoints, as head of government, the prime minister, as well as other ministers. The government has been formed by the National Democratic Alliance since 2014, as the largest coalition in the Lok Sabha. The prime minister and ministers are members of parliament; they also belong to the Union Council of Ministers, the peak decision-making committee of which is the Indian cabinet.

The government's formal seat is at Parliament House in New Delhi. It has three primary branches: the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. The Constitution of India vests legislative power in the bicameral Parliament of India, executive power (through the President) in the Union Council of Ministers, and judicial power in the Supreme Court of India, with the president as head of state. It is a derivation of the British Westminster system, and has a federal structure.

The Supreme Court of India is the supreme judicial authority and the highest court of the Republic of India. It is the final court of appeal for all civil and criminal cases in India. It also has the power of judicial review. The Supreme Court, which consists of the chief justice of India and a maximum of fellow 33 judges, has extensive powers in the form of original, appellate and advisory jurisdictions.

As the apex constitutional court, it takes up appeals primarily against verdicts of the High Courts of various states and tribunals. As an advisory court, it hears matters which are referred by the president of India. Under judicial review, the court invalidates both ordinary laws as well as constitutional amendments as per the basic structure doctrine that it developed in the 1960s and 1970s.

The president of India (ISO: Bhārata kē Rāṣṭrapati) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, and the supreme commander of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Murmu is the 15th and current president, having taken office on 25 July 2022.

The office of president was created when India's constitution came into force and it became a republic on 26 January 1950. The president is indirectly elected by an electoral college comprising both houses of the Parliament of India and the legislative assemblies of each of India's states and territories, who themselves are all directly elected by the citizens.

The prime minister of India (ISO: Bhārat kē Pradhānamantrī) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and his chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of the executive. The prime minister has to be a member of one of the houses of bicameral Parliament of India, alongside heading the respective house. The prime minister and the cabinet are at all times responsible to the Lok Sabha.

The sitting prime minister ranks third in the Order of Precedence of India and is appointed by the president of India; however, the prime minister has to enjoy the confidence of the majority of Lok Sabha members, who are directly elected every five years, lest the prime minister shall resign. The prime minister can be a member of the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the parliament. The prime minister controls the selection and dismissal of members of the Union Council of Ministers and allocation of posts to members within the government.

Varanasi (Hindi pronunciation: [ʋaːˈraːɳəsi], also Benares, Banaras Hindustani pronunciation: [bəˈnaːrəs]), or Kashi, is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. The city has a syncretic tradition of Islamic artisanship that underpins its religious tourism. Located in the middle-Ganges valley in the southeastern part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi lies on the left bank of the river. It is 692 kilometres (430 mi) to the southeast of India's capital New Delhi and 320 kilometres (200 mi) to the southeast of the state capital, Lucknow. It lies 121 kilometres (75 mi) downstream of Prayagraj, where the confluence with the Yamuna river is another major Hindu pilgrimage site.

Varanasi is one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities. Kashi, its ancient name, was associated with a kingdom of the same name in the first millenium BCE. The Lion capital of Ashoka at nearby Sarnath has been interpreted to be a commemoration of the Buddha's first sermon there in the fifth century BCE. In the 8th century, Adi Shankara established the worship of Shiva as an official sect of Varanasi. Tulsidas wrote his Awadhi language epic, the Ramcharitmanas, a Bhakti movement reworking of the Sanskrit Ramayana, in Varanasi. Several other major figures of the Bhakti movement were born in Varanasi, including Kabir and Ravidas. In the 16th century, Rajput nobles in the service of the Mughal emperor Akbar, sponsored work on Hindu temples in the city in an empire-wide architectural style. In 1740, Benares Estate, a zamindari estate, was established in the vicinity of the city in the Mughal Empire's semi-autonomous province of Awadh. Under the Treaty of Faizabad, the East India Company acquired Benares city in 1775. The city became a part of the Benares Division of British India's Ceded and Conquered Provinces in 1805, the North-Western Provinces in 1836, United Provinces in 1902, and of the Republic of India's state of Uttar Pradesh in 1950.