There is an encyclopedia in the Information Center, Colonialism: an international, social, cultural, and political encyclopedia, with chronologies, lists, and documentation. There is also a good Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism in the Information Center with two useful Appendices, one listing all the former colonies and their languages, and one giving a chronology. There is also a similar list on Wikipedia, which is pretty good if you just want a simple list broken down by region.

The best place to start is the Digital National Security Archive. You'll find many documents on this topic under Catro Assassination Plots and Operation Mongoose. It's difficult to find a specific document without reading it, because the materials are not full text searchable. Stanford has the archive in microfiche format. Finally, you might look at the CIA Inspector General's 1967 Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro.

You're right that the phrase "executive order" is not used in the California (or U.S.) Constitution. The power derives from the sections of the Constitution that define executive power. In the case of California, this is Article V, Section 1: "The supreme executive power of this State is vested in the Governor." Because of this general authority, the Governor can issue orders regarding the actions of the various subdivisions of the executive branch of government. Historically, the Governor can issue orders as allowed by statutes passed by the legislature which allow executive discretion over particular matters. So the power for any particular executive order resides in various statutes, not in any one place. Therefore, to know the power for a particular executive order, you would need to research that order, to find the statutory basis for it.

If you look at a number of current executive orders of the Governor, you will see each one (usually in the preamble before the actual order) gives the legal basis for issuing the order. Therefore, each order has its own specific legal justification--there's no general basis other than the power of the executive as defined by the Constitution. Looking at the particular orders, you'll see that the Governor is issuing directives to various parts of the executive branch regarding some issue as defined by a particular statute.

Constitutionally, the Governor can't issue orders regarding actions of either the legislature or the judiciary, unless this is specifically allowed by the Constitution. This is covered by the so-called "separation of powers" clause, Article 3, Section 3.

The Indian Parliament Home Page has the debates of both the Lok Sabha (House of the People) and the Rajya Sabha (Council of States), starting from 2004.

You can also look at India's main newspapers, Times of India and The Hindu for news on legislative actions. Stanford users can access the full text of both papers, as well as news from the BBC and Indian newswires, using LexisNexis.

A search for "Lok Sabha" in Searchworks and Melvyl (the UC library catalog) yields results as well. Stanford has series 4, v.1-2 (1967), v.30-32(1969), and v.45-47(1970), and UC Berkeley has 1952-2002 in its regional library. You can request the debates from Berkeley via interlibrary loan.