Parliament of India

The Parliament of India is the highest legislative body of India. It is a bicameral legislature composed of the President of India and the two houses : the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and the Lok Sabha (House of the People). Democratic countries have their own parliaments with different names.

The word “Parliament” comes from the french verb “Parler” which means “to speak/talk”.

In India, the President, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha constitute the Parliament. While the tenure of the Lok Sabha is 5 years unless dissolved earlier, the tenure of members of Rajya Sabha is for 6 years.

The President in his role as head of legislature has full powers to summon and postpone either house of Parliament or to dissolve Lok Sabha.

The president can exercise these powers only upon the advice of the Prime Minister and his Union Council of Ministers.

The Parliament has a sanctioned strength of 543 in Lok Sabha and 245 in Rajya Sabha including the 12 nominees from the expertise of different fields of science, culture, art and history.

The Parliament meets at Sansad Bhavan in New Delhi.

The members of Lok Sabha are directly elected by the people while members of Rajya Sabha are indirectly elected by members of State Legislative Assemblies.

Unlike Lok Sabha, it is a permanent body and one-third of its members retire every two years. It is also called the Council of States.

As India has Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha as the two houses of parliament, similarly other countries too have different houses of parliament.

Here is the list of countries with their parliaments names.

Countries and their Parliaments