Ch 5Legislature — Class 11 Political Science, concept-first.

This chapter looks at the legislature — the elected law-making body of a democracy — and asks why it matters so much even in a system that already has an elected executive.

You have already studied how elections work and how representatives are chosen. Once elected, those representatives do not simply hand over power to the executive — they come together to form the legi…

Lawmaking is only one job among many that a legislature performs. The legislature is really the centre of a country's entire democratic political process — it is where walkouts happen, where protests…

"Parliament" is the name given to India's national legislature; the legislature of a State is called the State legislature.

Each House of Parliament rests on a different basis of representation. The Rajya Sabha represents the States of India, and unlike the Lok Sabha it is not directly elected by the people.

The Lok Sabha, like every State Legislative Assembly, is directly elected by the people. For this purpose the entire country (or, for a State Assembly, the entire State) is divided into territorial co…

What exactly does Parliament do, beyond making laws? Do the two Houses share identical functions, or are there real differences in what each is empowered to do? Parliament's work spreads across severa…

Once Parliament's overall functions are clear, the next question is how those functions are actually split — or shared — between the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

The Rajya Sabha exists, at its core, as an institutional mechanism to give the States a voice — its purpose is to protect the interests and powers of the States within the Union.

Making laws is the most basic function of any legislature, and Parliament follows a fairly elaborate, sometimes technical, procedure to do it — part of it laid down directly in the Constitution, and p…

In a parliamentary system, the executive is drawn from whichever party, or coalition of parties, commands a majority in the Lok Sabha.

Parliament ensures the executive is held accountable at every stage of governance — when policy is being made, while a law or policy is being implemented, and after implementation.

A defining feature of how a modern legislature actually works is the appointment of committees for various legislative purposes.

Parliament, as already noted, functions above all as a debating forum — it is through debate that Parliament carries out virtually every one of its important functions.

Watch a live telecast of Parliament in session and one thing becomes obvious almost immediately: it is a genuine rainbow of colours, drawn from every region of the country, with members speaking in di…