|
Location: Southern Asia, bordering
the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Burma and Pakistan
Geographic coordinates: 20 00 N, 77
00 E
Captial: New Delhi
Area:
total: 3,287,590 sq km
land: 2,973,190 sq km
water: 314,400 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly more
than one-third the size of the US
Population: 1,029,991,145
Religions: Hindu 81.3%, Muslim 12%,
Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other groups including Buddhist, Jain,
Parsi 2.5%
Land boundaries: 14,103 km
Border Countries: Bangladesh 4,053
km, Bhutan 605 km, Burma 1,463 km, China 3,380 km, Nepal 1,690 km,
Pakistan 2,912 km
Climate: varies from tropical monsoon
in south to temperate in north
Terrain: upland plain (Deccan Plateau)
in south, flat to rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts in west,
Himalayas in north
Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian
25%, Mongoloid and other 3%
Languages: English enjoys associate
status but is the most important language for national, political,
and commercial communication, Hindi the national language and primary
tongue of 30% of the people, Bengali (official), Telugu (official),
Marathi (official), Tamil (official), Urdu (official), Gujarati
(official), Malayalam (official), Kannada (official), Oriya (official),
Punjabi (official), Assamese (official), Kashmiri (official), Sindhi
(official), Sanskrit (official), Hindustani (a popular variant of
Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India)
note: 24 languages each spoken by a million or more persons; numerous
other languages and dialects, for the most part mutually unintelligible
Infant mortality rate: 63.19 deaths/1,000
live births (2001 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: 62.86 years
Exports: world's largest producer
of licit opium for the pharmaceutical trade; textile goods, gems
and jewelry, engineering goods, chemicals, leather manufactures
Currency: Indian rupees (46.54 per
US dollar)
Chief of state: President Kicheril
Raman Narayanan
Head of government: Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee
Elections: president elected by an
electoral college consisting of elected members of both houses of
Parliament and the legislatures of the states for a five-year term;
prime minister elected by parliamentary members of the majority
party following legislative elections
Legislative branch: bicameral Parliament
or Sansad consists of the Council of States or Rajya Sabha (a body
consisting of not more than 250 members, up to 12 of which are appointed
by the president, the remainder are chosen by the elected members
of the state and territorial assemblies; members serve six-year
terms) and the People's Assembly or Lok Sabha (545 seats; 543 elected
by popular vote, 2 appointed by the president; members serve five-year
terms)
Brief History: The Indus Valley civilization,
one of the oldest in the world, goes back at least 5,000 years.
Aryan tribes from the northwest invaded about 1500 B.C.; their merger
with the earlier inhabitants created classical Indian culture. Arab
incursions starting in the 8th century and Turkish in 12th were
followed by European traders beginning in the late 15th century.
By the 19th century, Britain had assumed political control of virtually
all Indian lands. Nonviolent resistance to British colonialism under
Mohandas GANDHI and Jawaharlal NEHRU led to independence in 1947.
The subcontinent was divided into the secular state of India and
the smaller Muslim state of Pakistan. A third war between the two
countries in 1971 resulted in East Pakistan becoming the separate
nation of Bangladesh. India and Pakistan have been engaged in an
ongoing dispute over Kashmir.
Links for more information on India:
From
the State Department
From Ed-U.com
From
the BBC
|
