NCERT Summary: What is Government ? | NCERT Video Summary: Class 6 to Class 12 (English) - UPSC PDF Download

Government

• Government is the group of people with the authority to govern a country or state.

Work of a Government

• It make decisions and get things done. 
• The government also takes action on many social issues.
• It does other important things such as running postal and railway services.
• Protecting the boundaries of the country and maintaining peaceful relations with other countries.
• It is responsible for ensuring that all its citizens have enough to eat and have good health facilities.
• Protecting the boundaries of the country and maintaining peaceful relations with other countries.
• It is responsible for ensuring that all its citizens have enough to eat and have good health facilities.
• It is the government that mainly organizes aid and assistance for the affected people during tsunami and earthquake.
• If there is a dispute or if someone has committed a crime you find people in a court, a part of the government.

How various tasks are performed by the Government

• Governments do this on behalf of their people by exercising  leadership,  taking decisions and implementing these among all the people living in their territory.

Levels of a Government

• Local Level: Governments in village, town or locality. 
• State Level: Governments that covers an entire state like Haryana or Assam.

Laws and the government

• The government makes laws and everyone who lives in the country has to follow these.
• Without these laws the government's power to make decisions is not of much use. 

Types of Government

Monarchy

• This is form of government in which king or queen has the power to make decisions and run the government.
• The monarch have a small group of people to discuss matters with, but the final decision-making power remains with the monarch. 

Democracy and Democratic government

• Democracy is rule by the people.
  • The basic idea is that people rule themselves by participating in the making of these rules.

Representatives Democracies

• It is type of democracy in which people do not participate directly but, instead, choose their representatives through an election process. 

Voting Rights

• In their earliest forms governments allowed only men who owned property and were educated, to vote. 

Universal adult franchise 

• A government cannot call itself democratic unless it allows what is known as universal adult franchise.
• This means that all adults in the country are allowed to vote.