Types of Government

(the descriptions of various countries is based on their government system in early 2002; some of these have definitely changed since then)

Descriptions of governments can be based on:

Economy - what provides the goods and services that are bought, sold, and used?

 

Capitalism (Russia)	Socialism (Norway)	Communism (Cuba)
In a capitalist or free-market economy, people  own their own businesses and property and must buy services for private use, such as healthcare.	Socialist governments own many of the larger industries and provide education, health and welfare services while allowing citizens some economic choices	In a communist country, the government owns all businesses and farms and provides its people's healthcare, education and welfare.

Politics - how is the government run?

 

Dictatorship (Iraq)	Totalitarian (China)	Theocracy (Iran)	Monarchy (Jordan)	Parliamentary (Israel)	Republic (USA)	Anarchy (Afghanistan?)
Rule by a single leader who has not been elected and may use force to keep control. In a military dictatorship, the army is in control. Usually, there is little or no attention to public opinion or individual rights.	Rule by a single political party.  People are forced to do what the government tells them and may also be prevented from leaving the country.	A form of government where the rulers claim to be ruling on behalf of a set of religious ideas, or as direct agents of a deity.	A monarchy has a king or queen, who sometimes has absolute power. Power is passed along through the family	A parliamentary system is led by representatives of the people. Each is chosen as a member of a political party and remains in power as long as his/her party does	A republic is led by representatives of the voters. Each is individually chosen for a set period of time.	Anarchy is a situation where there is no government.  This can happen after a civil war in a country, when a government has been destroyed and rival groups are fighting to take its place.

Authority - who picks the government?

 

Revolutionary (USA, France, USSR etc)	Totalitarian (North Korea)	Oligarchy/Plutocracy (Pakistan)	Democracy (India)
The existing structure is overthrown by a completely new group. The new group can be very small - such as the military - or very large - as in a popular revolution. After a period of time, this 'becomes' one of the other type of government (unless there is another coup or uprising).	Rule by a single political party.  Votes for alternative candidates and parties are simply not allowed. Citizens are allowed and 'encouraged' to vote, but only for the government's chosen candidates.	A form of government which consists of rule by an elite group who rule in their own interests, especially the accumulation of wealth and privilege. Only certain members of society have a valid voice in the government. This can reflect (but is not limited to) economic interests, a particular religious tradition (theocracy), or familial rule (monarchy).	In a democracy, the government is elected by the people. Everyone who is eligible to vote - which is a majority of the population - has a chance to have their say over who runs the country.

---

REMEMBER: nearly every country in the world is ruled by a system that combines 2 or more of these (for example, the USA is not a true capitalist society, since the government actually provides some services for its citizens). Additionally, one person's opinion of the type of government may differ from another's (many argue that the USA is actually a plutocracy rather than a democracy).

Funny,Interesting,True Facts

• Children laugh about 400 times a day, while adults laugh on average only 15 times a day.
• Children's sense of smell is better than adults'.
• Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear trousers.
• The chances of you dying on the way to get your lottery tickets is greater than your chances of winning.
• You are about 1 centimeter taller in the morning than in the evening!
• The can opener was invented 48 years after the can.
• Cherophobia is a fear of fun.
• Bill Gates' house was designed using a Macintosh computer. 
• TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. 
• While it took the radio 38 years, and the television a short 13 years, it took the World Wide Web only 4 years to reach 50 million users.
• "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
• The domain name www.youtube.com was registered on February 14, 2005
• Hewlett Packard(HP) was started at a garage in Palo Alto in 1939.    
• If you opened up the case of the original Macintosh, you will find 47 signatures. One for each member of Apple's Macintosh divison as of 1982.
• On an average work day, a typist's fingers travel 12.6 miles.
• The Dvorak keyboard is more efficient than QWERTY. 20 times faster, in fact.   
• The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache on a standard playing card!
• Your brain is 80% water.(even mine :))
• Sound travels about 4 times faster in water than in air.
• The only letter not appearing on the Periodic Table is the letter "J".(Chemistry man)    
• The earth is approx. 6,588,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
• The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth.
• The storage capacity of human brain exceeds 4 Terrabytes.
• The banana tree cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.
• Out of all the senses, smell is most closely linked to memory.
• No matter how cold it gets, gasoline(petrol) will not freeze.
• If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.
• The water of the Antarctica is so cold that nothing can rot there.
• The warmest temperature ever recorded on Antarctica was 3 degrees F.
• An earthquake on Dec. 16, 1811 caused parts of the Mississippi River to flow backwards.
• If Antarctica's ice sheets melted, the worlds oceans would rise by 60 to 65 metres (200 - 210ft) - everywhere(so try to stop global warming guys  )
• The Amazon rainforest produces more than 20% the world's oxygen supply.(plant more trees)
• The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start, excluding the North and South infront of AmericA.(who would have named all these ? wired)
• Even Antarctica has an area code. It's 672.        
• Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.
• There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia, and only some 20 million people.
• China is the source of 70% of the worlds pirated goods.
• In France, there's a place called Y.
• There is a city called Rome on every continent.
• WAS IT A CAR OR A CAT I SAW.. 'WASITACARORACATISAW'.. This is the only English sentence which even if we read in reverse, it'll give the same sentence.
• "Goodbye" came from "God bye" which came from "God be with you."
• The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet!
• There are around 41,806 different spoken languages in the world today.
• There was no punctuation until the 15th century.
• The word Tips is actually an acronym standing for 'To Insure Prompt Service'.
• The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable"!
• The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad!
• The longest word in the English language with no vowels is Rhythms!
• The longest word in the English language is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses!
• The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
• To have your picture taken by the very first camera you would have had to sit still for 8 hours!
• The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
• The first hard drive available for the Apple II had a capacity of only 5 megabytes.
• The first alarm clock could only ring at 4 a.m.
• Originally, BMW was an airplane engine manufacturer.
• Technically speaking, crystal glass is actually a Liquid that flows very slowly.
• The Bible is the most-shoplifted book in the world.
• In a century's time Islam had converted one-third of the world.
• It would take more than 150 years to drive a car to the sun.
• Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
• The earth travels through space at 660,000 miles per hour.         
• All of the Earth's continents are wider at the north than in the south - and nobody knows why.                   

Why LOKPAL is important?

Source: http://indiaagainstcorruption.org/

The Jan Lokpal Bill (Citizen's ombudsman Bill) is a draft anti-corruption bill drawn up by prominent civil society activists seeking the appointment of a Jan Lokpal, an independent body that would investigate corruption cases, complete the investigation within a year and envisages trial in the case getting over in the next one year.

Drafted by Justice Santosh Hegde (former Supreme Court Judge and former Lokayukta of Karnataka), Prashant Bhushan (Supreme Court Lawyer) and Arvind Kejriwal (RTI activist), the draft Bill envisages a system where a corrupt person found guilty would go to jail within two years of the complaint being made and his ill-gotten wealth being confiscated. It also seeks power to the Jan Lokpal to prosecute politicians and bureaucrats without government permission.

Retired IPS officer Kiran Bedi and other known people like Swami Agnivesh, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Anna Hazare and Mallika Sarabhai are also part of the movement, called India Against Corruption. Its website describes the movement as "an expression of collective anger of people of India against corruption. We have all come together to force/request/persuade/pressurize the Government to enact the Jan Lokpal Bill. We feel that if this Bill were enacted it would create an effective deterrence against corruption."

Anna Hazare, anti-corruption crusader, went on a fast-unto-death in April, demanding that this Bill, drafted by the civil society, be adopted. Four days into his fast, the government agreed to set up a joint committee with an equal number of members from the government and civil society side to draft the Lokpal Bill together. The two sides met several times but could not agree on fundamental elements like including the PM under the purview of the Lokpal. Eventually, both sides drafted their own version of the Bill.

The government has introduced its version in Parliament in this session. Team Anna is up in arms and calls the government version the "Joke Pal Bill." Anna Hazare declared that he would begin another fast in Delhi on August 16. Hours before he was to begin his hunger strike, the Delhi Police detained and later arrested him. There are widespread protests all over the country against his arrest.        

The website of the India Against Corruption movement calls the Lokpal Bill of the government an "eyewash" and has on it a critique of that government Bill.

A look at the salient features of Jan Lokpal Bill:

1. An institution called LOKPAL at the centre and LOKAYUKTA in each state will be set up

2. Like Supreme Court and Election Commission, they will be completely independent of the governments. No minister or bureaucrat will be able to influence their investigations.

3. Cases against corrupt people will not linger on for years anymore: Investigations in any case will have to be completed in one year. Trial should be completed in next one year so that the corrupt politician, officer or judge is sent to jail within two years.

4. The loss that a corrupt person caused to the government will be recovered at the time of conviction.

5. How will it help a common citizen: If any work of any citizen is not done in prescribed time in any government office, Lokpal will impose financial penalty on guilty officers, which will be given as compensation to the complainant.

6. So, you could approach Lokpal if your ration card or passport or voter card is not being made or if police is not registering your case or any other work is not being done in prescribed time. Lokpal will have to get it done in a month's time. You could also report any case of corruption to Lokpal like ration being siphoned off, poor quality roads been constructed or panchayat funds being siphoned off. Lokpal will have to complete its investigations in a year, trial will be over in next one year and the guilty will go to jail within two years.

7. But won't the government appoint corrupt and weak people as Lokpal members? That won't be possible because its members will be selected by judges, citizens and constitutional authorities and not by politicians, through a completely transparent and participatory process.

8. What if some officer in Lokpal becomes corrupt? The entire functioning of Lokpal/ Lokayukta will be completely transparent. Any complaint against any officer of Lokpal shall be investigated and the officer dismissed within two months.

9. What will happen to existing anti-corruption agencies? CVC, departmental vigilance and anti-corruption branch of CBI will be merged into Lokpal. Lokpal will have complete powers and machinery to independently investigate and prosecute any officer, judge or politician.

10. It will be the duty of the Lokpal to provide protection to those who are being victimized for raising their voice against corruption.

Rubber neck . Great

Award winning ad