The President of India is a constitutional institution and the head of state of the Republic of India. The office was formally created when the Constitution of India came into force on January 26, 1950, making India a republic and replacing the offices of the Monarch and the Governor-General. The first incumbent was Rajendra Prasad.
The office is established by Article 52 of the Constitution. The President is indirectly elected for a five-year term (Article 56) by an electoral college, as specified in Article 54, which includes the elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the Legislative Assemblies of the States and the Union Territories of Delhi and Puducherry. The election is conducted using the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (Article 55). The President is the nominal head of the executive and the supreme commander of the Indian Armed Forces (Article 53). The primary duty, as per Article 60, is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and the law.
The President connects directly to the Union Executive and the Parliament of India (Article 79). While all executive actions are taken in the President's name, the powers are, in practice, exercised on the advice of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers. The President appoints the Prime Minister, Governors, and Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts. A recent change occurred in 2019 when the President's power to nominate two members of the Anglo-Indian community to the Lok Sabha (Article 331) was removed. The current President, Droupadi Murmu, is the 15th President, having taken office on July 25, 2022.