2016-06-13Staff Report 2 Windhoek The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, who will be visiting Namibia this week, is the constitutional head of the executive who assumed office as the 13th president of India on July 25, 2012, according to the Indian High Commissioner to Namibia, Kumar Tuhin. Mukherjee will pay a state visit to Namibia from Wednesday until Friday at the invitation of President Hage Geingob. According to the Indian constitution a person who is a citizen of India, aged 35 years of age or above, qualifies for election as a member of the House of People and is eligible for election as president of India. He/she should not hold any office of profit under the Government of India or the Government of any State or under any local or other authority subject to the control of any of those governments. The president of India is elected by the members of an electoral college consisting of (a) the elected members of both the houses of parliament and (b) the elected members of the legislative assemblies of the states and the union territories. India, also known as Bharat, is a union of states. It is a socialist, secular and democratic republic with a parliamentary system of government. The republic is governed in terms of the constitution of India which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949 and came into force on January 26, 1950. Dr B. R. Ambedkar, who was independent India's first law minister, was the principal architect of the constitution of India. Ambedkar was a brilliant student, who earned doctorates in economics from both Columbia University and the London School of Economics and he was a reputed scholar in law, economics and political science India has the longest written constitution of any country in the world. The constitution provides for a parliamentary form of government which is federal in structure with certain unitary features. As per article 79 of the constitution of India, the council of the parliament of the union consists of the president and two houses known as the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) and the House of the People (Lok Sabha). Article 74(1) of the constitution provides that there shall be a Council of Ministers with the prime minister as its head to aid and advise the president, who shall exercise his/her functions in accordance to the advice. The real executive power is thus vested in the Council of Ministers with the prime minister as its head. India is the largest democracy in the world. At the time of last parliamentary elections in 2014, there were 834 million registered voters, out of which 66.44% exercised their vote. More than 6.6 million polling staff were deployed to conduct smooth elections. 2016-06-13Staff Report 2
