4.9.2

Chapter 9 Section 2 Page 205 - Page 209 Parker King, Claira Durham, Hillary Zhang

Objective: Students will understand the political challenges that India currently faces.

3) Do you think that the government is stable according to this picture?
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Hillary's link to multicultural problems This link is an essay written by someone explaining the problems the Indian government faces with its multicultural country. The writer's purpose is to explain how India is dealing with their multicultural issues. This source is very useful in understanding how difficult it is for India due to them having many different cultures in one country. It also is very helpful to those who are learning about India's problems that they face today. Multicultural problems are one of the main problems in India. With India having many small sub-cultures, problems arise with cultural clashes.

[|Claira's link on government] This link leads to a useful learning tool that is published by the business college at Michigan State University. This source is reliable because it comes from a well known and credible publisher, it has links to it's sources, and it is partially funded by the U.S. Department of education. The site provides basic information on the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of the Indian government. The page explains this crucial information in a simple concise way. It provides other information like a small overview and international relations with other countries. Because the page is geared toward business students, it also has small facts about Indian employers and traveling to India. The facts allowed me to make important connections pertaining to India's history and current events. The information provided is critical for understanding the basics of the Indian government and political system.

[|Parker's link to the top 10 political challenges] This link is to a website "Fragile States" which was created by a professor/ lecturer of governance and development at John Hopkins University. He is an published author, has founded four companies and fluently speaks multiple Asian languages.The source is reliable for this reason. It's purpose is to highlight the top ten political and social factors the influence India's government today in a negative way. As well as highlighting those top ten reasons, he also covers some basic information on India to give the reader background. This information is great for assessing the 10 problems and forming constructive inferences as to what they truly mean. The resulting inferences can be then applied to modern Indian situations directly and make for great content for this assignment. All in all, This source is reliable and helpful to my group's effort in this assignment.

media type="youtube" key="vrPbmqaWzfk" width="420" height="315" This video clip was made by Tanya Bhandari. She is an Indian native who speaks Hindi. She has made presentations for UNICEF and Teach for India. This clip goes over three main bodies of the Indian government: the Vidhan Sabha, the Rajya Sabha, and the Lok Sabha. It also goes over who gets to vote for members of parliament, who votes for the president, who appoints the prime minister and the cabinet of India. The clip addresses voters in India. Students should understand the three mail bodies of the Indian government as well as know who votes on the president and who appoints the prime minister. This clip gives a plethora of good details of the Indian government but presents them in a way that is clear and easy to understand.

Big Idea Answer

A1: Personally, no, I do not feel it is unbalanced. Although the president holds such an ability to dissolve a state government, I feel this can be justified when maintaining stability internally for the sake of the people. Additionally, he doesn't really hold much more power than that. The majority of the power is given to the Parliament, which is balanced out by multiple political parties and a form of government called a coalition in which the parties become the checks and balances to each other.

A2: Although India's government has done away with the lowest of castes, the Untouchables, they are still disrespected by all those that used to be above them. Habits are hard to shake. Because of this, Social stability between the remaining castes is shaky at best and caste throws up massive dividers between India's people.

A3: No, It most likely wasn't a coincidence that three consecutive leaders from the same family appeared leading India. I'm sure it was assumed by the voters the blood (which Indians believe connects traits between generations) of Nehru would be transmitted to his children and their children. The Indian people wanted another Nehru for he had been the man who created an industrial, casteless and secular India. This was, however, not the case with his successors.