Agency overview | |
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Formed | 15 August 1947 |
Type | Highest executive body of the Government of India |
Jurisdiction | Republic of India |
Headquarters | New Delhi |
Agency executives |
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Child agencies |
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Website | english.www.gov.in |
The Union Council of Ministers [1] is the principal executive organ of the Government of India, which functions as the senior decision-making body of the executive branch. It is chaired by the prime minister and consists of the heads of each of the executive government ministries. Currently, the council is headed by prime minister Narendra Modi and consists of 29 members, including the prime minister. The council is subject to the Parliament of India.
A smaller executive body called the Union Cabinet is the supreme decision-making body in India; it is a subset of the Union Council of Ministers who hold important portfolios and ministries of the government. [2]
Pursuant to Article 75(3), the Council of Ministers is responsible collectively to the lower house of the Indian parliament, called the Lok Sabha (House of the People). [3] When a bill introduced by a minister in the Lok Sabha is not approved by it, the entire council of ministers is responsible and not the minister. The council of ministers upon losing the confidence of Lok Sabha shall resign to facilitate the formation of a new government.
A minister shall take any decision without being considered by the council of ministers per Article 78(c). All union cabinet members shall submit in writing to the President to propose a proclamation of emergency by the president in accordance with Article 352.
According to the Constitution of India, the total number of ministers in the council of ministers must not exceed 15% of the total number of members of the Lok Sabha. Ministers must be members of parliament. Any minister who is not a member of either of the houses of the parliament for six consecutive months is automatically stripped off his or her ministerial post. [3]
There are five categories of the council of ministers as given below, in descending order of rank:
Pursuant to Article 75, a minister who works at the pleasure of the president, is appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister. Since at least the turn of the millennia, evidence indicates that an MP's electoral performance enhances the likelihood of being granted a ministerial portfolio. [5]
Every state in India is governed by its council of ministers with rules and procedures similar to the union council of ministers per Articles 163, 164 and 167(c).
In March 2020, the Supreme Court of India used its powers for the first time to do "complete justice" under Article 142 of the Indian Constitution to remove a minister functioning in the state of Manipur. [8]
Council portfolios are as follows: [9] [10] [11]
The prime minister of India 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 their cabinet are at all times responsible to the Lok Sabha.
The president of India 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, as well as the supreme commander of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Murmu is the 15th and current president, having taken office from 25 July 2022.
The Parliament of India is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameral legislature composed of the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha. The President 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 and their Union Council of Ministers.
The Government of India, also known as the Central Government, is the national authority of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, consisting of 28 union states and eight union territories.
The Finnish Government is the executive branch and cabinet of Finland, which directs the politics of Finland and is the main source of legislation proposed to the Parliament. The Government has collective ministerial responsibility and represents Finland in the Council of the European Union. In the incumbent Orpo Cabinet, the Government comprises 19 ministers leading 12 ministries.
Sushma Swaraj was an Indian lawyer and politician, who served as the Minister of External Affairs of India in the first Narendra Modi government from 2014 to 2019. She was the second person to complete a 5-year term as the Minister of External Affairs, after Jawaharlal Nehru. A senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Swaraj was the second woman to hold the office of Minister of External Affairs, after Indira Gandhi. She was elected seven times as a Member of Parliament and three times as a Member of the Legislative Assembly. At the age of 25 in 1977, she became the youngest cabinet minister of the Indian state of Haryana. She also served as 5th Chief Minister of Delhi for a short duration in 1998 and became the first female Chief Minister of Delhi.
Thawar Chand Gehlot is an Indian politician who is the current and 13th Governor of Karnataka, being the first person serving as the Governor of Karnataka from Madhya Pradesh. He assumed office of the Governor of Karnataka on July 11, 2021. He also served as the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment in the Government of India from 2014 to 2021. He was also the Leader of the House in the upper house of Indian Parliament. He was a member of the Parliamentary Board and the Central Election Committee of the BJP.
Devaragunda Venkappa Sadananda Gowda is an Indian politician who served as the Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers of India in the Second Modi ministry from 14 November 2018 to 7 July 2021. He also served as the Minister of Statistics and Programme Implementation of India from 5 July 2016 to 24 May 2019 in the First Modi ministry. He is representing the Bangalore North constituency. He also held Ministry of Railways and other cabinet positions in the First Modi ministry. He also served as the 14th Chief Minister of Karnataka.
Manoj Sinha is an Indian politician serving as the 2nd and the current Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. He served as the Minister of State for Communications and Minister of State for Railways in the Government of India. Sinha was elected as Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, representing Ghazipur for three terms from the Bharatiya Janata Party. Sinha was in the race for the post of UP Chief Minister after 2017 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election.
Surendrajeet Singh Ahluwalia is an Indian politician of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and a senior Member of Parliament in his 32nd year as a Parliamentarian.
Prakash Keshav Javadekar is an Indian politician. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and served as the Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change from 30 May 2019 till 7 July 2021, precisely from 26 May 2014 till 5 July 2016.
Narendra Singh Tomar is an Indian politician and a member of the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly. He is the former Minister of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare. He has been Minister of Rural Development, Minister of Panchayati Raj, Minister of Mines and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs in the Government of India during different periods of the First and Second Modi ministry. He is a leader of Bharatiya Janata Party. He was also a member of Fifteenth Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014 from Morena; Sixteenth Lok Sabha from 2014 to 2019 from Gwalior and 17th Lok Sabha from 2019 to 2023 from Morena. In 2019, he changed his constituency and was re-elected to the Lok Sabha from Morena.
Giriraj Singh is an Indian politician and the Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Department in the 23rd Ministry of the Republic of India with a cabinet minister rank. He is the Member of Parliament from the Begusarai Loksabha constituency in the 17th Lok Sabha. He has also formerly served as Minister of Cooperative, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Resources Development in the Government of Bihar.
Harsh Vardhan is an Indian otorhinolaryngologist. He had served as the Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Minister of Science and Technology and Minister of Earth Sciences in the BJP-led NDA government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from 30 May 2019 to 7 July 2021. He represents Chandni Chowk in Delhi as a Member of Parliament in the 17th Lok Sabha. He was elected to the office of chairperson of executive board of the World Health Organization from May 22, 2020. Vardhan has been prominent in the Indian government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He later resigned from his cabinet post ahead of the cabinet reshuffle in July 2021.
Jagat Prakash "J.P." Nadda is an Indian lawyer and politician serving as the 11th national president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2020 and the member of the Rajya Sabha representing Gujarat since 2024. A key decision maker of the BJP, he is a close aide to Narendra Modi. He was the BJP's working president from 2019 to 2020. Nadda also served as the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India in the 1st Modi ministry from 2014 to 2019 and Parliamentary Board Secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party.
The First Ministry of Narendra Modi is the Council of Ministers headed by Narendra Modi that was formed after the 2014 general election which was held in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May in 2014. The results of the election were announced on 16 May 2014 and this led to the formation of the 16th Lok Sabha. The Council assumed office from 27 May 2014.
Mahendra Nath Pandey is an Indian politician currently serving as Minister of Heavy Industries he previously served as Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship of India and Member of Lok Sabha for Chandauli since 2014. He is a member of Bharatiya Janata Party and is the president of the party's Uttar Pradesh unit. He has also served as Union Minister of State for Ministry of Human Resource Development between 2016 and 2017. He is a member of Modi's second ministry. On 30 May 2019, he was appointed as Cabinet minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of India.
Pratima Bhoumik is an Indian politician who currently serves as the Minister of State in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in the Second Modi ministry since 7 July 2021. She is the first-ever resident from Tripura to become a minister in the union cabinet. In 2019, she was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Tripura West as a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party having defeated sitting MP and Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate Sankar Prasad Datta and Congress candidate Subal Bhowmick by a huge margin. She was also elected to the Tripura Legislative Assembly in 2023 from the Dhanpur Assembly constituency, but resigned from the position only a few days later to retain her Lok Sabha membership and ministerial berth. Since 2016, she has also been a State General Secretary of the BJP Tripura unit.
The Second Ministry of Narendra Modi is the Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi that was formed after the 2019 general election which was held in seven phases in 2019. The results of the election were announced on 23 May 2019 and this led to the formation of the 17th Lok Sabha. The swearing-in ceremony was arranged in the courtyards of Rashtrapati Bhavan at Raisina Hill. The heads of the states of BIMSTEC countries were invited as guests of honor for this ceremony.