Supreme Court of India in the context of "Government of India"

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.

The politics and government of India work within the framework of the country's Constitution, which was adopted on November 26, 1949, by the Constituent Assembly. It came into effect on January 26, 1950. India is a parliamentary secular democratic republic, described as a “sovereign, socialist, secular democratic republic” in its constitution, in which the president of India is the head of state and first citizen of India and the Prime Minister of India is the head of government. It is based on the federal structure of government, although the word is not used in the Constitution itself. India follows the dual polity system, i.e. federal in nature, that consists of the central authority at the centre and states at the periphery. The Constitution defines the organizational powers and limitations of both central and state governments; it is well recognised, fluid (with the Preamble of the Constitution, fundamental rights, and principles of liberty, equality, justice, and fraternity, being rigid and to dictate further amendments to the Constitution) and considered supreme, i.e. the laws of the nation must conform to it. India is officially declared a secular and socialist state as per the Constitution.

There is a provision for a bicameral legislature consisting of an upper house, the Rajya Sabha (Council of States), which represents the states of the Indian federation, and a lower house, the Lok Sabha (House of the People), which represents the people of India as a whole. The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary, which is headed by the Supreme Court. The court's mandate is to protect the Constitution, to settle disputes between the central government and the states, to settle inter-state disputes, to nullify any central or state laws that go against the Constitution and to protect the fundamental rights of citizens, issuing writs for their enforcement in cases of violation.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 is an act of the parliament of India containing provisions to split the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories: Ladakh and the residuary Jammu and Kashmir, and becoming effective on 31 October 2019. A bill for the act was introduced by the Minister of Home Affairs, Amit Shah, in the Rajya Sabha on 5 August 2019 and was passed on the same day. It was then passed by the Lok Sabha on 6 August 2019 and received the president's assent on 9 August 2019.

The act consists of 103 clauses, extends 106 central laws to the union territories, repeals 153 state laws, and abolishes the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council, among other things. The introduction of the bill was preceded by a presidential order which indirectly amended Article 370 of the Indian constitution and revoked Jammu and Kashmir's special status. The act has also given powers to the central government to pass a number of executive orders in relation to both the union territories. These orders have resulted in the modification or repeal of over 400 state and central laws with respect to the union territories. The act was challenged in the Supreme Court through a number of petitions. On 11 December 2023, the court declared the act and the related orders to be valid and constitutional, ordering to restore statehood "as soon as possible". A 2023 ruling by the Supreme Court of India resolved its legal dispute.

Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the member of parliament (MP) for Varanasi. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindutva paramilitary volunteer organisation. He is the longest-serving prime minister outside the Indian National Congress.

Modi was born and raised in Vadnagar, Bombay State (present-day Gujarat), where he completed his secondary education. He was introduced to the RSS at the age of eight, becoming a full-time worker for the organisation in Gujarat in 1971. The RSS assigned him to the BJP in 1985, and he rose through the party hierarchy, becoming general secretary in 1998. In 2001, Modi was appointed chief minister of Gujarat and elected to the legislative assembly soon after. His administration is considered complicit in the 2002 Gujarat violence and has been criticised for its management of the crisis. According to official records, a little over 1,000 people were killed, three-quarters of whom were Muslim; independent sources estimated 2,000 deaths, mostly Muslim. A Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court of India in 2012 found no evidence to initiate prosecution proceedings against him, causing widespread anger and disbelief among the country's Muslim communities. While his policies as chief minister were credited for encouraging economic growth, his administration was criticised for failing to significantly improve health, poverty and education indices in the state.

The legal system of India consists of civil law, common law, customary law, religious law and corporate law within the legal framework inherited from the colonial era and various legislation first introduced by the British are still in effect in modified forms today. Since the drafting of the Indian Constitution, Indian laws also adhere to the United Nations guidelines on human rights law and the environmental law.Personal law is fairly complex, with each religion adhering to its own specific laws. In most states, registering of marriages and divorces is not compulsory. Separate laws govern Hindus including Sikhs, Jains and Buddhist, Muslims, Christians, Parsis, and followers of other religions. The exception to this rule is in the state of Goa, where a uniform civil code is in place, in which all religions have a common law regarding marriages, divorces, and adoption. On February 7, 2024, the Indian state of Uttarakhand also incorporated a uniform civil code. In the first major reformist judgment for the 2010s, the Supreme Court of India banned the Islamic practice of "Triple Talaq" (a husband divorcing his wife by pronouncing the word "Talaq" thrice). The landmark Supreme Court of India judgment was welcomed by women's rights activists across India.

As of August 2024, there are about 891 Central laws as per the online repository hosted by the Legislative Department, Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India. Further, there are many State laws for each state, which can also be accessed from the same repository.

The Sardar Sarovar Dam is a concrete gravity dam built on the Narmada River near the town of Kevadia, in Narmada District, in the Indian state of Gujarat. The dam was constructed to provide water and electricity to the Indian states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan.

India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, laid the foundation of the project on 5 April 1961. The project took form in 1979 as part of a development scheme funded by the World Bank through their International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, to increase irrigation and produce hydroelectricity, using a loan of US$200 million. The construction of the dam began in 1987, but the project was stalled by the Supreme Court of India in 1995, in the backdrop of Narmada Bachao Andolan, over concerns of displacement of people. In 2000–01, the project was revived but with a lower height of 111 meters under directions from the Supreme Court, which was later increased to 123 meters in 2006, and 139 meters in 2017. The Sardar Sarovar Dam is 1,210 meters long. The dam was inaugurated in 2017 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The water level in the Sardar Sarovar Dam eventually reached its highest capacity at 138.7 metres on 15 September 2019.

Sariska Tiger Reserve is a tiger reserve in Alwar district, Rajasthan, India. It stretches over an core tiger habitat area of 881 km (340 sq mi) and 322.23 km² of buffer area making 1203.34 km² total area of tiger reserve. It is comprising scrub-thorn arid forests, dry deciduous forests, grasslands, and rocky hills. This area was preserved for hunting, for the Alwar state and was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1958. It was given the status of a tiger reserve making it a part of India's Project Tiger in 1978. The wildlife sanctuary was declared a national park in 1982, with a total area of about 273.8 km (105.7 sq mi). It is the first reserve in the world with successfully relocated tigers. It is an important biodiversity area in the Northern Aravalli leopard and wildlife corridor.

The park is a part of the Aravalli Range and the Khathiar-Gir dry deciduous forests ecoregion. It is rich in mineral resources, such as copper. In spite of the Supreme Court's 1991 ban on mining in the area, marble mining continues to threaten the environment.