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India, officially the Republic of India (
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
: ), is a country in
South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...
. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous
democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
in the world. Bounded by the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
on the south, the
Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel ...
on the southwest, and the
Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line between ...
on the southeast, it shares land borders with
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
to the west;
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
, and
Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
to the north; and
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
and
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
and the
Maldives Maldives (, ; dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ, translit=Dhivehi Raajje, ), officially the Republic of Maldives ( dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖޭގެ ޖުމްހޫރިއްޔާ, translit=Dhivehi Raajjeyge Jumhooriyyaa, label=none, ), is an archipelag ...
; its
Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...
share a maritime border with
Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
, Myanmar, and
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
.
Modern humans Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...
arrived on the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73–55 ka.", "Modern human beings—''Homo sapiens''—originated in Africa. Then, intermittently, sometime between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago, tiny groups of them began to enter the north-west of the Indian subcontinent. It seems likely that initially they came by way of the coast. ... it is virtually certain that there were ''Homo sapiens'' in the subcontinent 55,000 years ago, even though the earliest fossils that have been found of them date to only about 30,000 years before the present.", "Scholars estimate that the first successful expansion of the ''Homo sapiens'' range beyond Africa and across the Arabian Peninsula occurred from as early as 80,000 years ago to as late as 40,000 years ago, although there may have been prior unsuccessful emigrations. Some of their descendants extended the human range ever further in each generation, spreading into each habitable land they encountered. One human channel was along the warm and productive coastal lands of the Persian Gulf and northern Indian Ocean. Eventually, various bands entered India between 75,000 years ago and 35,000 years ago." Their long occupation, initially in varying forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human
genetic diversity Genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species, it ranges widely from the number of species to differences within species and can be attributed to the span of survival for a species. It is dis ...
. Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the
Indus The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...
river basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the ...
9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the
Indus Valley Civilisation The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900&n ...
of the third millennium BCE.(a) ;
(b)
By , an archaic form of
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
, an
Indo-European language The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
, had
diffused Molecular diffusion, often simply called diffusion, is the thermal motion of all (liquid or gas) particles at temperatures above absolute zero. The rate of this movement is a function of temperature, viscosity of the fluid and the size (mass) of ...
into India from the northwest.(a)
(b)
(c) , "In Punjab, a dry region with grasslands watered by five rivers (hence ‘panch’ and ‘ab’) draining the western Himalayas, one prehistoric culture left no material remains, but some of its ritual texts were preserved orally over the millennia. The culture is called Aryan, and evidence in its texts indicates that it spread slowly south-east, following the course of the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers. Its elite called itself Arya (pure) and distinguished themselves sharply from others. Aryans led kin groups organized as nomadic horse-herding tribes. Their ritual texts are called Vedas, composed in Sanskrit.
Vedic Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preser ...
is recorded only in hymns that were part of Vedic rituals to Aryan gods. To be Aryan apparently meant to belong to the elite among pastoral tribes. Texts that record Aryan culture are not precisely datable, but they seem to begin around 1200 BCE with four collections of Vedic hymns (Rg, Sama, Yajur, and Artharva)."
(d) , "Although the collapse of the Indus valley civilization is no longer believed to have been due to an ‘Aryan invasion’ it is widely thought that, at roughly the same time, or perhaps a few centuries later, new Indo-Aryan-speaking people and influences began to enter the subcontinent from the north-west. Detailed evidence is lacking. Nevertheless, a predecessor of the language that would eventually be called Sanskrit was probably introduced into the north-west sometime between 3,900 and 3,000 years ago. This language was related to one then spoken in eastern Iran; and both of these languages belonged to the Indo-European language family. ... It seems likely that various small-scale migrations were involved in the gradual introduction of the predecessor language and associated cultural characteristics. However, there may not have been a tight relationship between movements of people on the one hand, and changes in language and culture on the other. Moreover, the process whereby a dynamic new force gradually arose—a people with a distinct ideology who eventually seem to have referred to themselves as ‘Arya’—was certainly two-way. That is, it involved a blending of new features which came from outside with other features—probably including some surviving Harappan influences—that were already present. Anyhow, it would be quite a few centuries before Sanskrit was written down. And the hymns and stories of the Arya people—especially the Vedas and the later Mahabharata and Ramayana epics—are poor guides as to historical events. Of course, the emerging Arya were to have a huge impact on the history of the subcontinent. Nevertheless, little is known about their early presence.";
(e) , "The expansion of Aryan culture is supposed to have begun around 1500 BCE. It should not be thought that this Aryan emergence (though it implies some migration) necessarily meant either a sudden invasion of new peoples, or a complete break with earlier traditions. It comprises a set of cultural ideas and practices, upheld by a Sanskrit-speaking elite, or Aryans. The features of this society are recorded in the Vedas."
Its evidence today is found in the hymns of the ''
Rigveda The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one Sh ...
''. Preserved by a resolutely vigilant
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...
, the ''Rigveda'' records the dawning of
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
in India.(a) ;
(b) ;
(c)
(d)
The
Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...
of India were supplanted in the northern and western regions. By , stratification and exclusion by
caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...
had emerged within Hinduism, and
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
and
Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current ...
had arisen, proclaiming
social order The term social order can be used in two senses: In the first sense, it refers to a particular system of social structures and institutions. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social order ...
s unlinked to heredity. Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and
Gupta Empire The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period is considered as the Gol ...
s based in the Ganges Basin.(a) ;
(b) ;
(c) ;
(d) .
Their collective
era An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Compa ...
was suffused with wide-ranging creativity,(a) ;
(b)
but also marked by the declining status of women,(a) ;
(b) ;
(c)
and the incorporation of
untouchability Untouchability is a form of social institution that legitimises and enforces practices that are discriminatory, humiliating, exclusionary and exploitative against people belonging to certain social groups. Although comparable forms of discrimin ...
into an organised system of belief. In
South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territo ...
, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian-languages scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
. In the early medieval era,
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
,
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
,
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
, and
Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religions, Iranian religion and one of the world's History of religion, oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian peoples, Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a Dualism in cosmology, du ...
became established on India's southern and western coasts.(a) ;
(b) ;
(c)
Muslim armies from
Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
intermittently overran India's northern plains,(a) ;
(b)
eventually founding the
Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).
, and drawing northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam.(a) ;
(b)
In the 15th century, the
Vijayanagara Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also called the Karnata Kingdom, was a Hinduism, Hindu empire based in the region of South India, which consisted the modern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and some parts of Telangana an ...
created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture in south India. In the
Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...
,
Sikhism Sikhism (), also known as Sikhi ( pa, ਸਿੱਖੀ ', , from pa, ਸਿੱਖ, lit=disciple', 'seeker', or 'learner, translit=Sikh, label=none),''Sikhism'' (commonly known as ''Sikhī'') originated from the word ''Sikh'', which comes fro ...
emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion. The
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
, in 1526, ushered in two centuries of relative peace, leaving a legacy of luminous architecture. Gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company followed, turning India into a colonial economy, but also consolidating its
sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...
.(a)
(b)
British Crown rule began in 1858. The rights promised to Indians were granted slowly, but technological changes were introduced, and modern ideas of education and the public life took root. A pioneering and influential nationalist movement emerged, which was noted for nonviolent resistance and became the major factor in ending British rule. In 1947 the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two independent
dominions The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire. "Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, Dominion of New Zealand, New Zealand, Dominion of Newfoundland, Newfoundland, Un ...
,: "The partition of South Asia that produced India and West and East Pakistan resulted from years of bitter negotiations and recriminations ... The departing British also decreed that the hundreds of princes, who ruled one-third of the subcontinent and a quarter of its population, became legally independent, their status to be settled later. Geographical location, personal and popular sentiment, and substantial pressure and incentives from the new governments led almost all princes eventually to merge their domains into either Pakistan or India. ... Each new government asserted its exclusive sovereignty within its borders, realigning all territories, animals, plants, minerals, and all other natural and human-made resources as either Pakistani or Indian property, to be used for its national development... Simultaneously, the central civil and military services and judiciary split roughly along religious 'communal' lines, even as they divided movable government assets according to a negotiated formula: 22.7 percent for Pakistan and 77.3 percent for India." a Hindu-majority
Dominion of India The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India,* Quote: “The first collective use (of the word "dominion") occurred at the Colonial Conference (April to May 1907) when the title was conferred upon Canada and Australia. New Zealand and N ...
and a Muslim-majority
Dominion of Pakistan Between 14 August 1947 and 23 March 1956, Pakistan was an independent federal dominion in the Commonwealth of Nations, created by the passing of the Indian Independence Act 1947 by the British parliament, which also created the Dominion of I ...
, amid large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration. India has been a
federal republic A federal republic is a federation of states with a republican form of government. At its core, the literal meaning of the word republic when used to reference a form of government means: "a country that is governed by elected representatives ...
since 1950, governed through a democratic
parliamentary system A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...
. It is a pluralistic,
multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
and multi-ethnic society. India's population grew from 361 million in 1951 to 1.4  billion in 2022. During the same time, its nominal
per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...
increased from US$64 annually to US$1,498, and its literacy rate from 16.6% to 74%. From being a comparatively destitute country in 1951, India has become a fast-growing major economy and a hub for information technology services, with an expanding middle class. It has a space programme which includes several planned or completed extraterrestrial missions. Indian movies, music, and spiritual teachings play an increasing role in global culture. India has substantially reduced its rate of poverty, though at the cost of increasing economic inequality. India is a nuclear-weapon state, which ranks high in
military expenditure A military budget (or military expenditure), also known as a defense budget, is the amount of financial resources dedicated by a state to raising and maintaining an armed forces or other methods essential for defense purposes. Financing milit ...
. It has disputes over
Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...
with its neighbours, Pakistan and China, unresolved since the mid-20th century.(a) ;
(b) ;
(c)
Among the socio-economic challenges India faces are gender inequality, child malnutrition, and rising levels of
air pollution Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...
. India's land is megadiverse, with four
biodiversity hotspots A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation. Norman Myers wrote about the concept in two articles in ''The Environmentalist'' in 1988 and 1990, after which the co ...
. Its forest cover comprises 21.7% of its area. India's wildlife, which has traditionally been viewed with tolerance in India's culture, is supported among these forests, and elsewhere, in protected habitats.


Etymology

According to the ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' (third edition 2009), the name "India" is derived from the
Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later periods ...
''India'', a reference to
South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...
and an uncertain region to its east; and in turn derived successively from: Hellenistic Greek ''India'' ('' Ἰνδία'');
ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
''Indos'' ('' Ἰνδός'');
Old Persian Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native ...
'' Hindush'', an eastern province of the
Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
; and ultimately its
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
, the
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
''Sindhu'', or "river," specifically the
Indus River The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...
and, by implication, its well-settled southern basin. The
ancient Greeks Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cultu ...
referred to the Indians as ''Indoi'' ('), which translates as "The people of the Indus". The term ''
Bharat Bharat, or Bharath, may refer to: * Bharat (term), the name for India in various Indian languages ** Bharata Khanda, the Sanskrit name for the Indian subcontinent (or South Asia) * Bharata, the name of several legendary figures or groups: ** Bhara ...
'' (; ), mentioned in both
Indian epic poetry Indian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent, traditionally called ''Kavya'' (or ''Kāvya''; Sanskrit: काव्य, IAST: ''kāvyá''). The ''Ramayana'' and the ''Mahabharata'', which were originally composed in ...
and the
Constitution of India The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...
, is used in its variations by many Indian languages. A modern rendering of the historical name ''Bharatavarsha'', which applied originally to
North India North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...
, ''Bharat'' gained increased currency from the mid-19th century as a native name for India. ''
Hindustan ''Hindūstān'' ( , from '' Hindū'' and ''-stān''), also sometimes spelt as Hindōstān ( ''Indo-land''), along with its shortened form ''Hind'' (), is the Persian-language name for the Indian subcontinent that later became commonly used by ...
'' () is a
Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Per ...
name for India, introduced during the
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
and used widely since. Its meaning has varied, referring to a region encompassing present-day northern India and
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
or to India in its near entirety.


History


Ancient India

By 55,000 years ago, the first modern humans, or ''
Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
'', had arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa, where they had earlier evolved. The earliest known modern human remains in South Asia date to about 30,000 years ago. After , evidence for domestication of food crops and animals, construction of permanent structures, and storage of agricultural surplus appeared in
Mehrgarh Mehrgarh (; ur, ) is a Neolithic archaeological site (dated ) situated on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan in Pakistan. It is located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus River and between the modern-day Pakistani cities of Quetta, Ka ...
and other sites in what is now
Balochistan, Pakistan Balochistan (; bal, بلۏچستان; ) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southwestern region of the country, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land area but is the least populated one. It shares land ...
. These gradually developed into the
Indus Valley Civilisation The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900&n ...
, the first urban culture in South Asia, which flourished during in what is now Pakistan and western India. Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro,
Harappa Harappa (; Urdu/ pnb, ) is an archaeological site in Punjab, Pakistan, about west of Sahiwal. The Bronze Age Harappan civilisation, now more often called the Indus Valley Civilisation, is named after the site, which takes its name from a mode ...
,
Dholavira Dholavira ( gu, ધોળાવીરા) is an archaeological site at Khadirbet in Bhachau Taluka of Kutch District, in the state of Gujarat in western India, which has taken its name from a modern-day village south of it. This village is f ...
, and
Kalibangan Kalibangān is a town located at on the left or southern banks of the Ghaggar (Ghaggar-Hakra River) in Tehsil Pilibangān, between Suratgarh and Hanumangarh in Hanumangarh District, Rajasthan, India 205 km. from Bikaner. It is also identifi ...
, and relying on varied forms of subsistence, the civilisation engaged robustly in crafts production and wide-ranging trade. During the period , many regions of the subcontinent transitioned from the
Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and  ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...
cultures to the
Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
ones. The
Vedas upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
, the oldest scriptures associated with
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
, were composed during this period, and historians have analysed these to posit a
Vedic culture upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
in the
Punjab region Punjab (; Punjabi Language, Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also Romanization, romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the I ...
and the upper
Gangetic Plain The Indo-Gangetic Plain, also known as the North Indian River Plain, is a fertile plain encompassing northern regions of the Indian subcontinent, including most of northern and eastern India, around half of Pakistan, virtually all of Bangla ...
. Most historians also consider this period to have encompassed several waves of
Indo-Aryan migration The Indo-Aryan migrations were the migrations into the Indian subcontinent of Indo-Aryan peoples, an ethnolinguistic group that spoke Indo-Aryan languages, the predominant languages of today's North India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lank ...
into the subcontinent from the north-west. The
caste system Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...
, which created a hierarchy of priests, warriors, and free peasants, but which excluded indigenous peoples by labelling their occupations impure, arose during this period. On the
Deccan Plateau The large Deccan Plateau in southern India is located between the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, and is loosely defined as the peninsular region between these ranges that is south of the Narmada river. To the north, it is bounded by the ...
, archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom stage of political organisation. In
South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territo ...
, a progression to sedentary life is indicated by the large number of
megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...
ic monuments dating from this period, as well as by nearby traces of
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
,
irrigation tanks In Sri Lanka and India an irrigation tank or tank is an artificial reservoir of any size. They are part of a historic tradition of harvesting and preserving rainwater in the region. Often an embankment such as a mud bank was constructed across a sl ...
, and craft traditions. In the late Vedic period, around the 6th century BCE, the small states and chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the north-western regions had consolidated into 16 major oligarchies and monarchies that were known as the ''
mahajanapadas The Mahājanapadas ( sa, great realm, from ''maha'', "great", and '' janapada'' "foothold of a people") were sixteen kingdoms or oligarchic republics that existed in ancient India from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE during the second urban ...
''. The emerging urbanisation gave rise to non-Vedic religious movements, two of which became independent religions.
Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current ...
came into prominence during the life of its exemplar,
Mahavira Mahavira (Sanskrit: महावीर) also known as Vardhaman, was the 24th ''tirthankara'' (supreme preacher) of Jainism. He was the spiritual successor of the 23rd ''tirthankara'' Parshvanatha. Mahavira was born in the early part of the 6t ...
.
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
, based on the teachings of
Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...
, attracted followers from all social classes excepting the middle class; chronicling the life of the Buddha was central to the beginnings of recorded history in India. In an age of increasing urban wealth, both religions held up renunciation as an ideal, and both established long-lasting monastic traditions. Politically, by the 3rd century BCE, the kingdom of
Magadha Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was ruled ...
had annexed or reduced other states to emerge as the
Mauryan Empire The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until 1 ...
. The empire was once thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent except the far south, but its core regions are now thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas. The Mauryan kings are known as much for their empire-building and determined management of public life as for Ashoka's renunciation of militarism and far-flung advocacy of the Buddhist ''
dhamma Dharma (; sa, धर्म, dharma, ; pi, dhamma, italic=yes) is a key concept with multiple meanings in Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and others. Although there is no direct single-word translation for ''d ...
''. The
Sangam literature The Sangam literature (Tamil: சங்க இலக்கியம், ''caṅka ilakkiyam'';) historically known as 'the poetry of the noble ones' (Tamil: சான்றோர் செய்யுள், ''Cāṉṟōr ceyyuḷ'') connotes ...
of the
Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of Pudu ...
reveals that, between and , the southern peninsula was ruled by the Cheras, the
Cholas The Chola dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of the world. The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated to the 3rd century BCE d ...
, and the Pandyas, dynasties that traded extensively with the Roman Empire and with
West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
and
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
. In North India, Hinduism asserted patriarchal control within the family, leading to increased subordination of women. By the 4th and 5th centuries, the
Gupta Empire The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period is considered as the Gol ...
had created a complex system of administration and taxation in the greater Ganges Plain; this system became a model for later Indian kingdoms. Under the Guptas, a renewed Hinduism based on devotion, rather than the management of ritual, began to assert itself. This renewal was reflected in a flowering of
sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
and
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
, which found patrons among an urban elite. Classical Sanskrit literature flowered as well, and
Indian science The history of science and technology in the Indian subcontinent begins with the prehistoric human activity of the Indus Valley Civilization to the early Indian states and empires. Prehistory By 5500 BCE a number of sites similar to Mehrgarh ...
,
astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...
,
medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
, and
mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
made significant advances.


Medieval India

The Indian early medieval age, from , is defined by regional kingdoms and cultural diversity. When Harsha of Kannauj, who ruled much of the Indo-Gangetic Plain from , attempted to expand southwards, he was defeated by the
Chalukya The Chalukya dynasty () was a Classical Indian dynasty that ruled large parts of southern and central India between the 6th and the 12th centuries. During this period, they ruled as three related yet individual dynasties. The earliest dynas ...
ruler of the Deccan. When his successor attempted to expand eastwards, he was defeated by the
Pala Pala may refer to: Places Chad *Pala, Chad, the capital of the region of Mayo-Kebbi Ouest Estonia * Pala, Kose Parish, village in Kose Parish, Harju County * Pala, Kuusalu Parish, village in Kuusalu Parish, Harju County *Pala, Järva County, vi ...
king of
Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
. When the Chalukyas attempted to expand southwards, they were defeated by the
Pallavas The Pallava dynasty existed from 275 CE to 897 CE, ruling a significant portion of South India, the Deccan, also known as Tondaimandalam. The dynasty rose to prominence after the downfall of the Satavahanas, Satavahana dynasty, with whom they ...
from farther south, who in turn were opposed by the Pandyas and the
Cholas The Chola dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of the world. The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated to the 3rd century BCE d ...
from still farther south. No ruler of this period was able to create an empire and consistently control lands much beyond their core region. During this time, pastoral peoples, whose land had been cleared to make way for the growing agricultural economy, were accommodated within caste society, as were new non-traditional ruling classes. The caste system consequently began to show regional differences. In the 6th and 7th centuries, the first devotional hymns were created in the Tamil language. They were imitated all over India and led to both the resurgence of Hinduism and the development of all modern languages of the subcontinent. Indian royalty, big and small, and the temples they patronised drew citizens in great numbers to the capital cities, which became economic hubs as well. Temple towns of various sizes began to appear everywhere as India underwent another urbanisation. By the 8th and 9th centuries, the effects were felt in South-East Asia, as South Indian culture and political systems were exported to lands that became part of modern-day
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
,
Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
,
Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...
,
Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...
,
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...
,
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
,
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
,
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
, and
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. Indian merchants, scholars, and sometimes armies were involved in this transmission; South-East Asians took the initiative as well, with many sojourning in Indian seminaries and translating Buddhist and Hindu texts into their languages. After the 10th century, Muslim Central Asian nomadic clans, using swift-horse cavalry and raising vast armies united by ethnicity and religion, repeatedly overran South Asia's north-western plains, leading eventually to the establishment of the Islamic
Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).
in 1206. The sultanate was to control much of North India and to make many forays into South India. Although at first disruptive for the Indian elites, the sultanate largely left its vast non-Muslim subject population to its own laws and customs. By repeatedly repulsing Mongol raiders in the 13th century, the sultanate saved India from the devastation visited on West and Central Asia, setting the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing soldiers, learned men, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from that region into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Indo-Islamic culture in the north. The sultanate's raiding and weakening of the regional kingdoms of South India paved the way for the indigenous
Vijayanagara Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also called the Karnata Kingdom, was a Hinduism, Hindu empire based in the region of South India, which consisted the modern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and some parts of Telangana an ...
. Embracing a strong Shaivite tradition and building upon the military technology of the sultanate, the empire came to control much of peninsular India, and was to influence South Indian society for long afterwards.


Early modern India

In the early 16th century, northern India, then under mainly Muslim rulers, fell again to the superior mobility and firepower of a new generation of Central Asian warriors. The resulting
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
did not stamp out the local societies it came to rule. Instead, it balanced and pacified them through new administrative practices and diverse and inclusive ruling elites, leading to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule. Eschewing tribal bonds and Islamic identity, especially under
Akbar Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...
, the Mughals united their far-flung realms through loyalty, expressed through a Persianised culture, to an emperor who had near-divine status. The Mughal state's economic policies, deriving most revenues from agriculture and mandating that taxes be paid in the well-regulated silver currency, caused peasants and artisans to enter larger markets. The relative peace maintained by the empire during much of the 17th century was a factor in India's economic expansion, resulting in greater patronage of
painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
, literary forms, textiles, and
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
. Newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the
Rajputs Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...
, and the
Sikhs Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism (Sikhi), a monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ...
, gained military and governing ambitions during Mughal rule, which, through collaboration or adversity, gave them both recognition and military experience. Expanding commerce during Mughal rule gave rise to new Indian commercial and political elites along the coasts of southern and eastern India. As the empire disintegrated, many among these elites were able to seek and control their own affairs. By the early 18th century, with the lines between commercial and political dominance being increasingly blurred, a number of European trading companies, including the English
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
, had established coastal outposts. The East India Company's control of the seas, greater resources, and more advanced military training and technology led it to increasingly assert its military strength and caused it to become attractive to a portion of the Indian elite; these factors were crucial in allowing the company to gain control over the
Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
region by 1765 and sideline the other European companies. Its further access to the riches of Bengal and the subsequent increased strength and size of its army enabled it to annexe or subdue most of India by the 1820s. India was then no longer exporting manufactured goods as it long had, but was instead supplying the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
with raw materials. Many historians consider this to be the onset of India's colonial period. By this time, with its economic power severely curtailed by the British parliament and having effectively been made an arm of British administration, the East India Company began more consciously to enter non-economic arenas, including education, social reform and culture.


Modern India

Historians consider India's modern age to have begun sometime between 1848 and 1885. The appointment in 1848 of
Lord Dalhousie James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie (22 April 1812 – 19 December 1860), also known as Lord Dalhousie, styled Lord Ramsay until 1838 and known as The Earl of Dalhousie between 1838 and 1849, was a Scottish statesman and co ...
as Governor General of the East India Company set the stage for changes essential to a modern state. These included the consolidation and demarcation of sovereignty, the surveillance of the population, and the education of citizens. Technological changes—among them, railways, canals, and the telegraph—were introduced not long after their introduction in
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. However, disaffection with the company also grew during this time and set off the
Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...
. Fed by diverse resentments and perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, and summary treatment of some rich landowners and princes, the rebellion rocked many regions of northern and central India and shook the foundations of Company rule. Although the rebellion was suppressed by 1858, it led to the dissolution of the East India Company and the direct administration of India by the British government. Proclaiming a
unitary state A unitary state is a sovereign state governed as a single entity in which the central government is the supreme authority. The central government may create (or abolish) administrative divisions (sub-national units). Such units exercise only th ...
and a gradual but limited British-style parliamentary system, the new rulers also protected princes and landed gentry as a feudal safeguard against future unrest. In the decades following, public life gradually emerged all over India, leading eventually to the founding of the
Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...
in 1885. The rush of technology and the commercialisation of agriculture in the second half of the 19th century was marked by economic setbacks and many small farmers became dependent on the whims of far-away markets. There was an increase in the number of large-scale
famines A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompani ...
, and, despite the risks of infrastructure development borne by Indian taxpayers, little industrial employment was generated for Indians. There were also salutary effects: commercial cropping, especially in the newly canalled Punjab, led to increased food production for internal consumption. The railway network provided critical famine relief, notably reduced the cost of moving goods, and helped nascent Indian-owned industry. After World War I, in which approximately one million Indians served, a new period began. It was marked by British reforms but also repressive legislation, by more strident Indian calls for self-rule, and by the beginnings of a nonviolent movement of non-co-operation, of which
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, Anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure ...
would become the leader and enduring symbol. During the 1930s, slow legislative reform was enacted by the British; the Indian National Congress won victories in the resulting elections. The next decade was beset with crises: Indian participation in World War II, the Congress's final push for non-co-operation, and an upsurge of Muslim nationalism. All were capped by the advent of independence in 1947, but tempered by the
partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...
into two states: India and Pakistan. Vital to India's self-image as an independent nation was its constitution, completed in 1950, which put in place a secular and democratic republic. Per the London Declaration, India retained its membership of the
Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...
, becoming the first republic within it. Economic liberalisation, which began in the 1990s, has created a large urban middle class, transformed India into one of the world's fastest-growing economies, and increased its geopolitical clout. Indian films, music, and spiritual teachings play an increasing role in global culture. Yet, India is also shaped by seemingly unyielding poverty, both rural and urban; by religious and caste-related violence; by Maoist-inspired Naxalite insurgencies; and by separatism in Jammu and Kashmir and in Northeast India. It has unresolved territorial disputes with
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and with
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
. India's sustained democratic freedoms are unique among the world's newer nations; however, in spite of its recent economic successes, freedom from want for its disadvantaged population remains a goal yet to be achieved.


Geography

India accounts for the bulk of the Indian subcontinent, lying atop the Indian tectonic plate, a part of the
Indo-Australian Plate The Indo-Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes the continent of Australia and the surrounding ocean and extends northwest to include the Indian subcontinent and the adjacent waters. It was formed by the fusion of the Indian an ...
. India's defining geological processes began 75 million years ago when the Indian Plate, then part of the southern supercontinent
Gondwana Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages ...
, began a north-eastward
drift Drift or Drifts may refer to: Geography * Drift or ford (crossing) of a river * Drift, Kentucky, unincorporated community in the United States * In Cornwall, England: ** Drift, Cornwall, village ** Drift Reservoir, associated with the village ...
caused by seafloor spreading to its south-west, and later, south and south-east. Simultaneously, the vast Tethyan
oceanic crust Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramafic cumu ...
, to its northeast, began to subduct under the
Eurasian Plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...
. These dual processes, driven by convection in the Earth's
mantle A mantle is a piece of clothing, a type of cloak. Several other meanings are derived from that. Mantle may refer to: *Mantle (clothing), a cloak-like garment worn mainly by women as fashionable outerwear **Mantle (vesture), an Eastern Orthodox ve ...
, both created the Indian Ocean and caused the Indian continental crust eventually to under-thrust Eurasia and to uplift the
Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...
. Immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast crescent-shaped
trough Trough may refer to: In science * Trough (geology), a long depression less steep than a trench * Trough (meteorology), an elongated region of low atmospheric pressure * Trough (physics), the lowest point on a wave * Trough level (medicine), the l ...
that rapidly filled with river-borne sediment and now constitutes the
Indo-Gangetic Plain The Indo-Gangetic Plain, also known as the North Indian River Plain, is a fertile plain encompassing northern regions of the Indian subcontinent, including most of northern and eastern India, around half of Pakistan, virtually all of Bangla ...
. The original Indian plate makes its first appearance above the sediment in the ancient
Aravalli range The Aravalli Range (also spelled ''Aravali'') is a mountain range in Northern-Western India, running approximately in a south-west direction, starting near Delhi, passing through southern Haryana, Rajasthan, and ending in Ahmedabad Gujarat. ...
, which extends from the Delhi Ridge in a southwesterly direction. To the west lies the
Thar Desert The Thar Desert, also known as the Great Indian Desert, is an arid region in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent, Subcontinent that covers an area of and forms a natural boundary between India and Pakistan. It is the world's Li ...
, the eastern spread of which is checked by the Aravallis., " The Aravalli range boldy defines the eastern limit of the arid and semi-arid zone. Probably the more humid conditions that prevail near the Aravallis prevented the extension of aridity towards the east and the Ganges Valley. It is noteworthy that, wherever there are gaps in this range, sand has advanced to the east of it.", " The topography of the Indian Desert is dominated by the Aravalli Ranges on its eastern border, which consist largely of tightly folded and highly metamorphosed Archaean rocks.", " East of the lower Indus lay the inhospitable Rann of Kutch and Thar Desert. East of the upper Indus lay the more promising but narrow corridor between the Himalayan foothills on the north and the Thar Desert and Aravalli Mountains on the south. At the strategic choke point, just before reaching the fertile, well-watered Gangetic plain, sat Delhi. On this site, where life giving streams running off the most northern spur of the rocky Aravalli ridge flowed into the Jumna river, and where the war-horse and war-elephant trade intersected, a series of dynasties built fortified capitals." The remaining Indian Plate survives as
peninsular India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territo ...
, the oldest and geologically most stable part of India. It extends as far north as the
Satpura The Satpura Range is a range of hills in central India. The range rises in eastern Gujarat running east through the border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and ends in Chhattisgarh. The range parallels the Vindhya Range to the north, and th ...
and
Vindhya The Vindhya Range (also known as Vindhyachal) () is a complex, discontinuous chain of mountain ridges, hill ranges, highlands and plateau escarpments in west-central India. Technically, the Vindhyas do not form a single mountain range in the ...
ranges in central India. These parallel chains run from the Arabian Sea coast in Gujarat in the west to the coal-rich
Chota Nagpur Plateau The Chota Nagpur Plateau is a plateau in eastern India, which covers much of Jharkhand state as well as adjacent parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar. The Indo-Gangetic plain lies to the north and east of the plateau, and the bas ...
in Jharkhand in the east. To the south, the remaining peninsular landmass, the
Deccan Plateau The large Deccan Plateau in southern India is located between the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, and is loosely defined as the peninsular region between these ranges that is south of the Narmada river. To the north, it is bounded by the ...
, is flanked on the west and east by coastal ranges known as the Western and
Eastern Ghats The Eastern Ghats are a discontinuous range of mountains along India's eastern coast. The Eastern Ghats pass through Odisha, Andhra Pradesh to Tamil Nadu in the south passing some parts of Karnataka as well as Telangana. They are eroded and cut ...
; the plateau contains the country's oldest rock formations, some over one billion years old. Constituted in such fashion, India lies to the north of the equator between 6° 44′ and 35° 30′ north latitude and 68° 7′ and 97° 25′ east longitude. India's coastline measures in length; of this distance, belong to peninsular India and to the Andaman, Nicobar, and Lakshadweep island chains. According to the Indian naval hydrographic charts, the mainland coastline consists of the following: 43% sandy beaches; 11% rocky shores, including cliffs; and 46%
mudflat Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal fl ...
s or marshy shores. Major Himalayan-origin rivers that substantially flow through India include the
Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...
and the
Brahmaputra The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Tibet, northeast India, and Bangladesh. It is also known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan, the Siang/Dihang River in Arunachali, Luit in Assamese, and Jamuna River in Bangla. It ...
, both of which drain into the
Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line between ...
.{{sfn, Dikshit , Schwartzberg, p=15 Important tributaries of the Ganges include the
Yamuna The Yamuna (Hindustani language, Hindustani: ), also spelt Jumna, is the second-largest tributary river of the Ganges by discharge and the longest tributary in List of major rivers of India, India. Originating from the Yamunotri Glacier at a ...
and the
Kosi KOSI (101.1 FM) is a commercial radio station in Denver, Colorado. KOSI is owned by Salt Lake City–based Bonneville International and airs an adult contemporary music format. Its studios and offices are located on East Orchard Road in Greenwo ...
; the latter's extremely low gradient, caused by long-term silt deposition, leads to severe floods and course changes.{{sfn, Duff, 1993, p = 353{{sfn, Basu, Xavier, 2017,
78
} Major peninsular rivers, whose steeper gradients prevent their waters from flooding, include the
Godavari The Godavari ( IAST: ''Godāvarī'' od̪aːʋəɾiː is India's second longest river after the Ganga river and drains into the third largest basin in India, covering about 10% of India's total geographical area. Its source is in Trimbakesh ...
, the
Mahanadi The Mahanadi is a major river in East Central India. It drains an area of around and has a total length of . Mahanadi is also known for the Hirakud Dam. The river flows through the states of Chhattisgarh and Odisha and finally merged with Bay o ...
, the
Kaveri The Kaveri (also known as Cauvery, the anglicized name) is one of the major Indian rivers flowing through the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The Kaveri river rises at Talakaveri in the Brahmagiri range in the Western Ghats, Kodagu dis ...
, and the
Krishna Krishna (; sa, कृष्ण ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is one ...
, which also drain into the Bay of Bengal;{{sfn, Dikshit , Schwartzberg, p=16 and the Narmada and the
Tapti The Tapti River (or Tapi) is a river in central India located to the south of the Narmada river that flows westwards before draining into the Arabian Sea. The river has a length of around and flows through the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat ...
, which drain into the
Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel ...
.{{sfn, Dikshit , Schwartzberg, p=17 Coastal features include the marshy
Rann of Kutch The Rann of Kutch (alternately spelled as Kuchchh) is a large area of salt marshes that span the border between India and Pakistan. It is located in Gujarat (primarily the Kutch district), India, and in Sindh, Pakistan. It is divided into t ...
of western India and the alluvial Sundarbans delta of eastern India; the latter is shared with Bangladesh.{{sfn, Dikshit , Schwartzberg, p=12 India has two
archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...
s: the
Lakshadweep Lakshadweep (), also known as Laccadives (), is a union territory of India. It is an archipelago of 36 islands in the Arabian sea, located off the Malabar Coast. The name ''Lakshadweep'' means "one lakh islands" in Sanskrit, though the Lac ...
, coral atolls off India's south-western coast; and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a volcanic chain in the
Andaman Sea The Andaman Sea (historically also known as the Burma Sea) is a marginal sea of the northeastern Indian Ocean bounded by the coastlines of Myanmar and Thailand along the Gulf of Martaban and west side of the Malay Peninsula, and separated from ...
.{{sfn, Dikshit , Schwartzberg, p=13 Indian climate is strongly influenced by the Himalayas and the Thar Desert, both of which drive the economically and culturally pivotal summer and winter
monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...
s.{{sfn, Chang, 1967, pp = 391–394 The Himalayas prevent cold Central Asian katabatic winds from blowing in, keeping the bulk of the Indian subcontinent warmer than most locations at similar latitudes.{{sfn, Posey, 1994, p = 118{{sfn, Wolpert, 2003, p = 4 The Thar Desert plays a crucial role in attracting the moisture-laden south-west summer monsoon winds that, between June and October, provide the majority of India's rainfall.{{sfn, Chang, 1967, pp = 391–394 Four major climatic groupings predominate in India: tropical wet,
tropical dry The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest is a habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature and is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive ...
, subtropical humid, and montane.{{sfn, Heitzman, Worden, 1996, p=97 Temperatures in India have risen by {{convert, 0.7, C-change, 1, abbr=on between 1901 and 2018.
Climate change in India Climate change in India is having profound effects on India, which is ranked fourth among the list of countries most affected by climate change in 2015. India emits about 3 gigatonnes (Gigatonne, Gt) Carbon dioxide equivalent, CO2eq of greenhouse ...
is often thought to be the cause. The retreat of Himalayan glaciers has adversely affected the
flow rate Flow rate may refer to: * Flow measurement, a quantification of bulk fluid movement * Mass flow rate, the mass of a substance which passes per unit of time * Volumetric flow rate, the volume of fluid which passes per unit time ** Discharge (hydrol ...
of the major Himalayan rivers, including the
Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...
and the
Brahmaputra The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Tibet, northeast India, and Bangladesh. It is also known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan, the Siang/Dihang River in Arunachali, Luit in Assamese, and Jamuna River in Bangla. It ...
.{{cite web, last1=Sethi, first1=Nitin, title=Global warming: Mumbai to face the heat, url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/global-warming-mumbai-to-face-the-heat/articleshow/1556662.cms, date=3 February 2007, access-date=11 March 2021, website=
The Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...
According to some current projections, the number and severity of droughts in India will have markedly increased by the end of the present century.


Biodiversity

{{Main, Forestry in India, Wildlife of India India is a megadiverse country, a term employed for 17 countries which display high
biological diversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') lev ...
and contain many species exclusively indigenous, or
endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
, to them. India is a
habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...
for 8.6% of all
mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...
species, 13.7% of
bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
species, 7.9% of
reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...
species, 6% of
amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...
species, 12.2% of
fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...
species, and 6.0% of all
flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...
species.{{citation , last=Puri, first=S. K., title=Biodiversity Profile of India , website=ces.iisc.ernet.in, url=https://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/cesmg/indiabio.html, access-date=20 June 2007 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111121153614/https://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/cesmg/indiabio.html , archive-date=21 November 2011, url-status=dead Fully a third of Indian plant species are endemic.{{sfn, Basak, 1983, p = 24 India also contains four of the world's 34 biodiversity hotspots, or regions that display significant habitat loss in the presence of high endemism.{{efn, A biodiversity hotspot is a
biogeographical Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, i ...
region which has more than 1,500
vascular plant Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...
species, but less than 30% of its primary habitat.{{citation, last1=Venkataraman, first1=Krishnamoorthy, last2=Sivaperuman , first2=Chandrakasan, editor=Sivaperuman, Chandrakasan , editor2=Venkataraman, Krishnamoorthy , title=Indian Hotspots: Vertebrate Faunal Diversity, Conservation and Management, year=2018, publisher= Springer, isbn=978-981-10-6605-4, page=5, chapter=Biodiversity Hotspots in India, chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8kFKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 According to official statistics, India's forest cover is {{convert, 713789, km2, sqmi, abbr=on, which is 21.71% of the country's total land area.{{cite web, url=https://fsi.nic.in/forest-report-2021-details, title=India State of Forest Report, 2021, publisher=Forest Survey of India,
National Informatics Centre The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is an Indian government department under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The NIC provides infrastructure, IT Consultancy, IT Services including but not limited to architecti ...
, access-date=17 January 2022
It can be subdivided further into broad categories of ''canopy density'', or the proportion of the area of a forest covered by its
tree canopy In biology, the canopy is the aboveground portion of a plant cropping or crop, formed by the collection of individual plant crowns. In forest ecology, canopy also refers to the upper layer or habitat zone, formed by mature tree crowns an ...
.{{citation, last=Jha, first=Raghbendra , year=2018, title=Facets of India's Economy and Her Society Volume II: Current State and Future Prospects , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9n9SDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA198, publisher= Springer , isbn=978-1-349-95342-4, page=198 ''Very dense forest'', whose ''canopy density'' is greater than 70%, occupies 3.02% of India's land area.{{cite web, url=https://www.frienvis.nic.in/Database/Forest-Cover-in-States-UTs-2019_2478.aspx, title=Forest Cover in States/UTs in India in 2019, publisher= Forest Research Institute via
National Informatics Centre The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is an Indian government department under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The NIC provides infrastructure, IT Consultancy, IT Services including but not limited to architecti ...
, access-date=16 October 2021
It predominates in the
tropical moist forest Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, discon ...
of the
Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between th ...
, the Western Ghats, and
Northeast India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...
.{{sfn, Tritsch, 2001, p={{page needed, date=April 2022 ''Moderately dense forest'', whose canopy density is between 40% and 70%, occupies 9.39% of India's land area. It predominates in the temperate coniferous forest of the
Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...
s, the moist deciduous ''
sal Sal, SAL, or S.A.L. may refer to: Personal name * Sal (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or nickname Places * Sal, Cape Verde, an island and municipality * Sal, Iran, a village in East Azerbaijan Province * Ca ...
'' forest of eastern India, and the dry deciduous
teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panicl ...
forest of central and southern India.{{sfn, Tritsch, 2001, p={{page needed, date=April 2022 ''Open forest'', whose canopy density is between 10% and 40%, occupies 9.26% of India's land area. India has two natural zones of thorn forest, one in the
Deccan Plateau The large Deccan Plateau in southern India is located between the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, and is loosely defined as the peninsular region between these ranges that is south of the Narmada river. To the north, it is bounded by the ...
, immediately east of the Western Ghats, and the other in the western part of the Indo-Gangetic plain, now turned into rich agricultural land by irrigation, its features no longer visible.{{sfn, Tritsch, 2001, p=14, ps=India has two natural zones of thorn forest, one in the rain shadow area of the Deccan Plateau east of the Western Ghats, and the other in the western part of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Growth is limited only by moisture availability in these areas, so with irrigation the fertile alluvial soil of Punjab and Haryana has been turned into India's prime agricultural area. Much of the thorn forest covering the plains probably had savannah-like features now no longer visible. Among the Indian subcontinent's notable indigenous trees are the astringent ''
Azadirachta indica ''Azadirachta indica'', commonly known as neem, nimtree or Indian lilac, is a tree in the mahogany family Meliaceae. It is one of two species in the genus ''Azadirachta'', and is native to the Indian subcontinent and most of the countries in Afri ...
'', or ''neem'', which is widely used in rural Indian
herbal medicine Herbal medicine (also herbalism) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. With worldwide research into pharmacology, some herbal medicines have been translated into modern remed ...
,{{citation, last=Goyal, first=Anupam, title=The WTO and International Environmental Law: Towards Conciliation, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UTGQAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA295, year=2006, publisher=
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, isbn=978-0-19-567710-2, page=295 Quote: "The Indian government successfully argued that the medicinal ''neem'' tree is part of traditional Indian knowledge. (page 295)"
and the luxuriant ''
Ficus religiosa ''Ficus religiosa'' or sacred fig is a species of Ficus, fig native to the Indian subcontinent and Indochina that belongs to Moraceae, the fig or mulberry family. It is also known as the bodhi tree, pippala tree, peepul tree, peepal tree, pipa ...
'', or ''peepul'',{{citation, last=Hughes, first=Julie E., title=Animal Kingdoms, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RL8qWNmpkc0C&pg=PT106, year=2013, publisher=
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...
, isbn=978-0-674-07480-4, page=106, quote=At same time, the leafy pipal trees and comparative abundance that marked the Mewari landscape fostered refinements unattainable in other lands.
which is displayed on the ancient seals of Mohenjo-daro,{{citation, last1=Ameri, first1=Marta, last2=Costello, first2=Sarah Kielt, last3=Jamison, first3=Gregg; Scott, Sarah Jarmer, title=Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World: Case Studies from the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean, and South Asia, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SklVDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA156, year=2018, publisher=
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...
, isbn=978-1-108-17351-3, pages=156–157 Quote: "The last of the centaurs has the long, wavy, horizontal horns of a markhor, a human face, a heavy-set body that appears bovine, and a goat tail ... This figure is often depicted by itself, but it is also consistently represented in scenes that seem to reflect the adoration of a figure in a pipal tree or arbour and which may be termed ritual. These include fully detailed scenes like that visible in the large 'divine adoration' seal from Mohenjo-daro."
and under which
the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...
is recorded in the
Pali canon The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school. During th ...
to have sought enlightenment.{{citation, author=Paul Gwynne, title=World Religions in Practice: A Comparative Introduction, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tdsRKc_knZoC&pg=RA5-PT195, year=2011 , publisher=
John Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in p ...
, isbn=978-1-4443-6005-9, page=358, quote=The tree under which Sakyamuni became the Buddha is a peepal tree (''
Ficus religiosa ''Ficus religiosa'' or sacred fig is a species of Ficus, fig native to the Indian subcontinent and Indochina that belongs to Moraceae, the fig or mulberry family. It is also known as the bodhi tree, pippala tree, peepul tree, peepal tree, pipa ...
'').
Many Indian species have descended from those of
Gondwana Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages ...
, the southern supercontinent from which India separated more than 100 million years ago.{{sfn, Crame, Owen, 2002, p = 142 India's subsequent collision with Eurasia set off a mass exchange of species. However,
volcanism Volcanism, vulcanism or volcanicity is the phenomenon of eruption of molten rock (magma) onto the surface of the Earth or a solid-surface planet or moon, where lava, pyroclastics, and volcanic gases erupt through a break in the surface called ...
and climatic changes later caused the extinction of many endemic Indian forms.{{sfn, Karanth, 2006 Still later, mammals entered India from Asia through two
zoogeographical Zoogeography is the branch of the science of biogeography that is concerned with geographic distribution (present and past) of animal species. As a multifaceted field of study, zoogeography incorporates methods of molecular biology, genetics, mor ...
passes flanking the Himalayas.{{sfn, Tritsch, 2001, p={{page needed, date=April 2022 This had the effect of lowering endemism among India's mammals, which stands at 12.6%, contrasting with 45.8% among reptiles and 55.8% among amphibians. Among endemics are the vulnerable hooded leaf monkey{{cite web, first=Johann , last=Fischer , author-link=Johann Baptist Fischer, title=Semnopithecus johnii, publisher= ITIS, access-date=27 August 2018 , url=https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=944270#null , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180829072131/https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=944270#null, archive-date=29 August 2018, url-status=live and the threatened{{cite journal , author1=S.D. Biju , author2=Sushil Dutta , author3=M.S. Ravichandran Karthikeyan Vasudevan , author4=S.P. Vijayakumar , author5=Chelmala Srinivasulu , author6=Gajanan Dasaramji Bhuddhe , title=Duttaphrynus beddomii , journal=
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...
, publisher=
IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
, volume=2004 , page=e.T54584A86543952 , year=2004 , doi=10.2305/IUCN.UK.2004.RLTS.T54584A11155448.en
Beddome's toad of the Western Ghats. India contains 172
IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
-designated threatened animal species, or 2.9% of endangered forms.{{sfn, Mace, 1994, p = 4 These include the endangered
Bengal tiger The Bengal tiger is a population of the ''Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies. It ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is considered to belong to the world's charismatic megafauna. The tiger is estimated to have been present in ...
and the Ganges river dolphin. Critically endangered species include: the
gharial The gharial (''Gavialis gangeticus''), also known as gavial or fish-eating crocodile, is a crocodilian in the family Gavialidae and among the longest of all living crocodilians. Mature females are long, and males . Adult males have a distinct b ...
, a
crocodilian Crocodilia (or Crocodylia, both ) is an order of mostly large, predatory, semiaquatic reptiles, known as crocodilians. They first appeared 95 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period ( Cenomanian stage) and are the closest living ...
; the great Indian bustard; and the
Indian white-rumped vulture The white-rumped vulture (''Gyps bengalensis'') is an Old World vulture native to South and Southeast Asia. It has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2000, as the population severely declined. White-rumped vultures d ...
, which has become nearly extinct by having ingested the carrion of diclofenac-treated cattle.{{citation, last1=Lovette, first1=Irby J., last2=Fitzpatrick, first2=John W., title=Handbook of Bird Biology, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OGyQDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA599, year=2016, publisher=
John Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in p ...
, isbn=978-1-118-29105-4, page=599
Before they were extensively utilized for agriculture and cleared for human settlement, the thorn forests of Punjab were mingled at intervals with open grasslands that were grazed by large herds of blackbuck preyed on by the
Asiatic cheetah The Asiatic cheetah (''Acinonyx jubatus venaticus'') is a critically endangered cheetah subspecies currently only surviving in Iran. It once occurred from the Arabian Peninsula and the Near East to the Caspian region, Transcaucasus, Kyzylkum D ...
; the blackbuck, no longer extant in Punjab, is now severely endangered in India, and the cheetah is extinct.{{sfn, Tritsch, 2001, p=17, ps=Before it was so heavily settled and intensively exploited, the Punjab was dominated by thorn forest interspersed by rolling grasslands which were grazed on by millions of Blackbuck, accompanied by their dominant predator, the Cheetah. Always keen hunters, the Moghul princes kept tame cheetahs which were used to chase and bring down the Blackbuck. Today the Cheetah is extinct in India and the severely endangered Blackbuck no longer exists in the Punjab. The pervasive and ecologically devastating human encroachment of recent decades has critically endangered Indian wildlife. In response, the system of
national parks A national park is a natural park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual ...
and protected areas, first established in 1935, was expanded substantially. In 1972, India enacted the Wildlife Protection Act{{sfn, Ministry of Environment and Forests 1972 and
Project Tiger Project Tiger is a tiger conservation programme launched in April 1973 by the Government of India during Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's tenure. The project aims at ensuring a viable population of the Bengal tiger in its natural habitats, protecti ...
to safeguard crucial wilderness; the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in 1980 and amendments added in 1988.{{sfn, Department of Environment and Forests, 1988 India hosts more than five hundred wildlife sanctuaries and thirteen{{Nbspbiosphere reserves,{{sfn, Ministry of Environment and Forests four of which are part of the
World Network of Biosphere Reserves The UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) covers internationally designated protected areas, known as biosphere reserves, which are meant to demonstrate a balanced relationship between people and nature (e.g. encourage sustainable dev ...
; twenty-five wetlands are registered under the
Ramsar Convention The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands. It i ...
.{{sfn, Secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands


Politics and government


Politics

{{Main, Politics of India {{multiple image , perrow = 1 , total_width = 220 , image_style = border:none; , align = right , image1 = Rajagopal speaking to 25,000 people, Janadesh 2007, India.jpg , caption1 =
Social movement A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may ...
s have long been a part of
democracy in India Politics of India works within the framework of the country's Constitution. India is a parliamentary democratic secular republic in which the president of India is the head of state & first citizen of India and the prime minister of India is t ...
. The picture shows a section of 25,000
landless Landlessness is the quality or state of being without land, without access to land, or without having private ownership of land. Although overlapping considerably, landlessness is not a necessary condition of poverty. In modern capitalist societies, ...
people in the state of
Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...
listening to
Rajagopal P. V. Rajagopal P. V. is an Indian Gandhian activist, a former Vice Chairman of the New Delhi Gandhi Peace Foundation, and the president and founding member oEkta Parishad In 1972, Rajagopal started working alongside Gandhian stalwarts J.P. Narayan a ...
before their {{cvt, 350, km march,
Janadesh 2007 Janadesh is the name of a national campaign on land rights in India launched by the movement Ekta Parishad. The word "Janadesh" means "The Verdict of the People" in Hindi. The campaign was launched in 2005 and culminated in 2007, in the form of a ...
, from
Gwalior Gwalior() is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; it lies in northern part of Madhya Pradesh and is one of the Counter-magnet cities. Located south of Delhi, the capital city of India, from Agra and from Bhopal, the s ...
to
New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...
to publicise their demand for further
land reform in India Land reform refers to efforts to reform the ownership and regulation of land in India. Or, those lands which are redistributed by the government from landholders to landless people for agriculture or special purpose is known as Land Reform. Goals ...
.{{citation, last=Johnston, first=Hank, title=Social Movements, Nonviolent Resistance, and the State, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hSiFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT83, year=2019, publisher=
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
, isbn=978-0-429-88566-2, page=83
, direction = , alt1 = India is the world's most populous
democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
.{{sfn, United Nations Population Division A
parliamentary republic A parliamentary republic is a republic that operates under a parliamentary system of government where the executive branch (the government) derives its legitimacy from and is accountable to the legislature (the parliament). There are a number ...
with a multi-party system,{{sfn, Burnell, Calvert, 1999, p = 125 it has eight{{Nbsprecognised national parties, including the
Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...
and the
Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...
(BJP), and more than 40{{Nbsp regional parties.{{sfn, Election Commission of India The Congress is considered
centre-left Centre-left politics lean to the left on the left–right political spectrum but are closer to the centre than other left-wing politics. Those on the centre-left believe in working within the established systems to improve social justice. The c ...
in Indian
political culture Political culture describes how culture impacts politics. Every political system is embedded in a particular political culture. Definition Gabriel Almond defines it as "the particular pattern of orientations toward political actions in which ...
, and the BJP
right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authorit ...
.{{sfn, Malik, Singh, 1992, pp=318–336{{sfn, Banerjee, 2005, p=3118 For most of the period between 1950—when India first became a republic—and the late 1980s, the Congress held a majority in the parliament. Since then, however, it has increasingly shared the political stage with the BJP,{{sfn, Sarkar, 2007, p=84 as well as with powerful regional parties which have often forced the creation of multi-party
coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...
s at the centre.{{sfn, Chander, 2004, p=117 In the Republic of India's first three general elections, in 1951, 1957, and 1962, the
Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
-led Congress won easy victories. On Nehru's death in 1964,
Lal Bahadur Shastri Lal Bahadur Shastri (; 2 October 1904 – 11 January 1966) was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the 2nd Prime Minister of India from 1964 to 1966 and 6th Home Minister of India from 1961 to 1963. He promoted the White Re ...
briefly became prime minister; he was succeeded, after his own unexpected death in 1966, by Nehru's daughter
Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 ...
, who went on to lead the Congress to election victories in 1967 and 1971. Following public discontent with the
state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...
she declared in 1975, the Congress was voted out of power in 1977; the then-new
Janata Party The Janata Party ( JP, lit. ''People's Party'') was a political party that was founded as an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the Emergency that was imposed between 1975 and 1977 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Indian Nati ...
, which had opposed the emergency, was voted in. Its government lasted just over two years. Voted back into power in 1980, the Congress saw a change in leadership in 1984, when Indira Gandhi was assassinated; she was succeeded by her son
Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to beco ...
, who won an easy victory in the general elections later that year. The Congress was voted out again in 1989 when a National Front coalition, led by the newly formed
Janata Dal Janata Dal (“People’s Party”) was an List of political parties in India, Indian political party which was formed through the merger of Janata Party factions, the Lok Dal, Indian National Congress (Jagjivan), and the Jan Morcha united on 11 ...
in alliance with the Left Front, won the elections; that government too proved relatively short-lived, lasting just under two years.{{sfn, Bhambhri, 1992, pp=118, 143 Elections were held again in 1991; no party won an absolute majority. The Congress, as the largest single party, was able to form a
minority government A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and Cabinet (government), cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or Coalition government, coalition of parties do ...
led by
P. V. Narasimha Rao Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was an Indian lawyer, statesman and politician who served as the 9th prime minister of India from 1991 to 1996. He is known for introducing various liberal reforms to Indi ...
. {{multiple image, perrow=1, total_width=220, image_style = border:none;, align =left , image1=Barack Obama at Parliament of India in New Delhi addressing Joint session of both houses 2010.jpg, caption1=At the
Parliament of India The Parliament of India (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameralism, bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the R ...
in New Delhi, US president
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
is shown here addressing the
members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
of both houses, the lower,
Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...
, and the upper,
Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...
, in a joint session, 8 November 2010. A two-year period of political turmoil followed the general election of 1996. Several short-lived alliances shared power at the centre. The BJP formed a government briefly in 1996; it was followed by two comparatively long-lasting
United Front A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political a ...
coalitions, which depended on external support. In 1998, the BJP was able to form a successful coalition, the
National Democratic Alliance National Democratic Alliance (NDA) () is a Centre-right politics, centre-right to Right-wing politics, right-wing and Conservatism, conservative Indian big tent political alliance led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It was foun ...
(NDA). Led by
Atal Bihari Vajpayee Atal Bihari Vajpayee (; 25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian politician who served three terms as the 10th prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months fr ...
, the NDA became the first non-Congress,
coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...
to complete a five-year term.{{sfn, Dunleavy, Diwakar, Dunleavy, 2007 Again in the
2004 Indian general election General elections were held in India in four phases between 20 April and 10 May 2004. Over 670 million people were eligible to vote, electing 543 members of the 14th Lok Sabha. Seven states also held assembly elections to elect state governm ...
s, no party won an absolute majority, but the Congress emerged as the largest single party, forming another successful coalition: the
United Progressive Alliance United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is a centre-left political alliance of predominantly left-leaning political parties in India. It was formed after the 2004 general election with support from left-leaning political parties when no single party ...
(UPA). It had the support of left-leaning parties and MPs who opposed the BJP. The UPA returned to power in the 2009 general election with increased numbers, and it no longer required external support from India's communist parties.{{sfn, Kulke, Rothermund, 2004, p = 384 That year,
Manmohan Singh Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indir ...
became the first prime minister since
Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
in
1957 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th y ...
and
1962 Events January * January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand. * January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism. * January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wors ...
to be re-elected to a consecutive five-year term.{{sfn, Business Standard, 2009 In the 2014 general election, the BJP became the first political party since 1984 to win a majority and govern without the support of other parties. The incumbent prime minister is
Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...
, a former
chief minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...
of
Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
. On 22 July 2022,
Droupadi Murmu Droupadi Murmu (, born 20 June 1958) is an Indian politician who has been serving as the 15th president of India since 25 July 2022. She is the first person belonging to the tribal community and also the second woman after Pratibha Patil to hol ...
was elected India's 15th president and took the oath of office on 25 July 2022.


Government

{{Main, Government of India, Constitution of India {{multiple image, perrow=1, total_width=220, image_style = border:none;, align = left , image1=Rashtrapati Bhavan Wide New Delhi India.jpg, caption1=
Rashtrapati Bhavan The Rashtrapati Bhavan (, rāsh-truh-puh-ti bha-vun; ; originally Viceroy's House and later Government House) is the official residence of the President of India at the western end of Rajpath, Raisina Hill, New Delhi, India. Rashtrapati Bh ...
, the official residence of the
President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Murmu ...
, was designed by British architects
Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memori ...
and Herbert Baker for the
Viceroy of India The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 19 ...
, and constructed between 1911 and 1931 during the
British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...
.{{citation, last=Bremner, first=G. A. , title=Architecture and Urbanism in the British Empire, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mjRADQAAQBAJ&pg=PA117, year=2016, publisher=
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, isbn=978-0-19-102232-6, page=117
India is a
federation A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...
with a
parliamentary system A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...
governed under the
Constitution of India The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...
—the country's supreme legal document. It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, in which " majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law". Federalism in India defines the power distribution between the union and the states. The Constitution of India, which came into effect on 26 January 1950,{{sfn, Pylee, 2003a, p = 4 originally stated India to be a "
sovereign ''Sovereign'' is a title which can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin , meaning 'above'. The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or ...
, democratic
republic A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...
;" this characterisation was amended in 1971 to "a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic".{{sfn, Dutt, 1998, p = 421 India's form of government, traditionally described as "quasi-federal" with a strong centre and weak states,{{sfn, Wheare, 1980, p = 28 has grown increasingly federal since the late 1990s as a result of political, economic, and social changes.{{sfn, Echeverri-Gent, 2002, pp = 19–20{{sfn, Sinha, 2004, p = 25 {{Infobox place symbols , region_type = National , title = National symbols{{sfn, National Informatics Centre, 2005 , flag = Tiranga (Tricolour) , emblem = Sarnath Lion Capital , anthem = ''
Jana Gana Mana "" (Sanskrit: जन गण मन) is the national anthem of the Republic of India. It was originally composed as '' Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata'' in Bengali by polymath Rabindranath Tagore. The first stanza of the song ''Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata' ...
'' , song="
Vande Mataram ''Vande Mataram'' (Sanskrit: वन्दे मातरम् IAST: , also spelt ''Bande Mataram''; বন্দে মাতরম্, ''Bônde Mātôrôm''; ) is a poem written in sanskritised Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in the ...
" , language = None{{cite news, last=Khan, first=Saeed, title=There's no national language in India: Gujarat High Court, url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Theres-no-national-language-in-India-Gujarat-High-Court/articleshow/5496231.cms, access-date=5 May 2014, newspaper=
The Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...
, date=25 January 2010, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140318040319/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Theres-no-national-language-in-India-Gujarat-High-Court/articleshow/5496231.cms, archive-date=18 March 2014
{{cite news, url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Learning-with-the-Times-India-doesnt-have-any-national-language/articleshow/5234047.cms, title=Learning with the Times: India doesn't have any 'national language', newspaper=
The Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...
, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010085454/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Learning-with-the-Times-India-doesnt-have-any-national-language/articleshow/5234047.cms, archive-date=10 October 2017, date=16 November 2009
{{Cite news, url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/hindi-not-a-national-language-court/article94695.ece, title=Hindi, not a national language: Court, newspaper=
Press Trust of India The Press Trust of India Ltd., commonly known as PTI, is the largest news agency in India. It is headquartered in New Delhi and is a nonprofit cooperative among more than 500 Indian newspapers. It has over 500 full-time employees , including abo ...
via
The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...
, access-date=23 December 2014, date=25 January 2010, location=Ahmedabad, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140704084339/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/hindi-not-a-national-language-court/article94695.ece, archive-date=4 July 2014
, currency =
The Indian rupee sign (₹) is the currency symbol for the Indian rupee (ISO 4217: INR), the official currency of India. Designed by D. Udaya Kumar, it was presented to the public by the Government of India on 15 July 2010, following its select ...
(
Indian rupee The Indian rupee ( symbol: ₹; code: INR) is the official currency in the republic of India. The rupee is subdivided into 100 ''paise'' (singular: ''paisa''), though as of 2022, coins of denomination of 1 rupee are the lowest value in use wh ...
) , calendar =
Saka The Saka ( Old Persian: ; Kharoṣṭhī: ; Ancient Egyptian: , ; , old , mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit ( Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples who hist ...
, animal = {{plainlist, *
Bengal tiger The Bengal tiger is a population of the ''Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies. It ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is considered to belong to the world's charismatic megafauna. The tiger is estimated to have been present in ...
* River dolphin * Indian peafowl , flower =
Lotus Lotus may refer to: Plants *Lotus (plant), various botanical taxa commonly known as lotus, particularly: ** ''Lotus'' (genus), a genus of terrestrial plants in the family Fabaceae **Lotus flower, a symbolically important aquatic Asian plant also ...
, fruit =
Mango A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree ''Mangifera indica''. It is believed to have originated in the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. ''M. indica'' has been cultivated in South a ...
, tree = Banyan , river =
Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...
The
Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...
comprises three branches: *
Executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dire ...
: The
President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Murmu ...
is the ceremonial
head of state A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and l ...
,{{sfn, Sharma, 2007, p = 31 who is elected indirectly for a five-year term by an electoral college comprising members of national and state legislatures.{{sfn, Sharma, 2007, p = 138{{sfn, Gledhill, 1970, p = 112 The
Prime Minister of India The prime minister of India (IAST: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and their chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of the ...
is the
head of government The head of government is the highest or the second-highest official in the executive branch of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presides over a cabinet, a gro ...
and exercises most executive power.{{sfn, Sharma, 1950 Appointed by the president,{{sfn, Sharma, 2007, p = 162 the prime minister is by convention supported by the
party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature f ...
or
political alliance A political group is a group consisting of political parties or legislators of aligned ideologies. A technical group is similar to a political group, but with members of differing ideologies. International terms Equivalent terms are used differ ...
having a majority of seats in the lower house of parliament.{{sfn, Sharma, 1950 The executive of the Indian government consists of the president, the
vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...
, and the Union Council of Ministers—with the
cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...
being its executive committee—headed by the prime minister. Any minister holding a portfolio must be a member of one of the houses of parliament.{{sfn, Sharma, 2007, p = 31 In the Indian parliamentary system, the executive is subordinate to the legislature; the prime minister and their council are directly responsible to the lower house of the parliament.
Civil servants The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
act as permanent executives and all decisions of the
executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dire ...
are implemented by them.{{sfn, Mathew, 2003, p = 524 *
Legislature A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its p ...
: The legislature of India is the
bicameral Bicameralism is a type of legislature, one divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single grou ...
parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
. Operating under a Westminster-style parliamentary system, it comprises an upper house called the
Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...
(Council of States) and a lower house called the
Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...
(House of the People).{{sfn, Gledhill, 1970, p = 127 The Rajya Sabha is a permanent body of 245{{Nbspmembers who serve staggered six-year terms.{{sfn, Sharma, 2007, p = 161 Most are elected indirectly by the state and union territorial legislatures in numbers proportional to their state's share of the national population.{{sfn, Sharma, 2007, p = 162 All but two of the Lok Sabha's 545{{Nbspmembers are elected directly by popular vote; they represent single-member constituencies for five-year{{Nbspterms.{{sfn, Sharma, 2007, p = 143 Two seats of parliament, reserved for
Anglo-Indians Anglo-Indian people fall into two different groups: those with mixed Indian and British ancestry, and people of British descent born or residing in India. The latter sense is now mainly historical, but confusions can arise. The ''Oxford English ...
in the article 331, have been scrapped. *
Judiciary The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...
: India has a three-tier{{Nbspunitary independent judiciary{{sfn, Neuborne, 2003, p = 478 comprising the
supreme court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
, headed by the
Chief Justice of India The chief justice of India (IAST: ) is the chief judge of the Supreme Court of India as well as the highest-ranking officer of the Indian Judiciary. The Constitution of India grants power to the president of India to appoint, in consultation w ...
, 25{{Nbsp
high courts High may refer to: Science and technology * Height * High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area * High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory * High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift to ...
, and a large number of trial courts.{{sfn, Neuborne, 2003, p = 478 The supreme court has
original jurisdiction In common law legal systems original jurisdiction of a court is the power to hear a case for the first time, as opposed to appellate jurisdiction, when a higher court has the power to review a lower court's decision. India In India, the Sup ...
over cases involving fundamental rights and over disputes between states and the centre and has
appellate jurisdiction A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...
over the high courts.{{sfn, Sharma, 2007, pp = 238, 255 It has the power to both strike down union or state laws which contravene the constitution,{{sfn, Sripati, 1998, pp = 423–424 and invalidate any government action it deems unconstitutional.{{sfn, Pylee, 2003b, p = 314 {{clear


Administrative divisions

{{Main, Administrative divisions of India {{See also, Political integration of India India is a federal union comprising 28 States and union territories of India, states and 8 Union territory, union territories.{{sfn, Library of Congress, 2004 All states, as well as the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry and the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi, have elected legislatures and governments following the Westminster system of governance. The remaining five union territories are directly ruled by the central government through appointed administrators. In 1956, under the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Reorganisation Act, states were reorganised on a linguistic basis.{{sfn, Sharma, 2007, p = 49 There are over a quarter of a million local government bodies at city, town, block, district and village levels. {{Indian states and territories image map, image-width=330


States

{{columns-list , colwidth=18em, # Andhra Pradesh # Arunachal Pradesh # Assam # Bihar # Chhattisgarh # Goa #
Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
# Haryana # Himachal Pradesh # Jharkhand # Karnataka # Kerala #
Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...
# Maharashtra # Manipur # Meghalaya # Mizoram # Nagaland # Odisha # Punjab, India, Punjab # Rajasthan # Sikkim # Tamil Nadu # Telangana # Tripura # Uttar Pradesh # Uttarakhand # West Bengal


Union territories

{{columns-list , colwidth=18em, {{ordered list , type=upper-alpha ,
Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...
, Chandigarh , Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu , Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir , Ladakh ,
Lakshadweep Lakshadweep (), also known as Laccadives (), is a union territory of India. It is an archipelago of 36 islands in the Arabian sea, located off the Malabar Coast. The name ''Lakshadweep'' means "one lakh islands" in Sanskrit, though the Lac ...
, Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi , Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry {{clear


Foreign, economic and strategic relations

{{Main, Foreign relations of India, Indian Armed Forces {{multiple image, perrow=1, total_width=220 , image_style = border:none; , align = left , image1=Jawaharlal Nehru, Nasser and Tito at the Conference of Non-Aligned Nations held in Belgrade.jpg, caption1=During the 1950s and 60s, India played a pivotal role in the Non-Aligned Movement.{{cite book, last=Dinkel, first=Jürgen, title=The Non-Aligned Movement: Genesis, Organization and Politics (1927–1992), url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YqOODwAAQBAJ, date=3 December 2018, publisher=Brill Publishers, BRILL, isbn=978-90-04-33613-1, pages=92–93 From left to right: Gamal Abdel Nasser of United Arab Republic (now Egypt), Josip Broz Tito of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia and
Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
in Belgrade, September 1961. In the 1950s, India strongly supported decolonisation in Africa and Asia and India and the Non-Aligned Movement, played a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement.{{sfn, Rothermund, 2000, pp = 48, 227 After initially cordial relations with neighbouring China, India went to Sino-Indian War, war with China in 1962, and was widely thought to have been humiliated.(a) {{citation, last=Guyot-Rechard, first=Berenice , title=Shadow States: India, China and the Himalayas, 1910–1962, publisher=Cambridge University Press, page=235, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FbktDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA235, year=2017, isbn=978-1-107-17679-9, quote= By invading NEFA, the PRC did not just aim to force a humiliated India to recognise its possession of the Aksai Chin. It also hoped to get, once and for all, the upper hand in their shadowing competition.
(b) {{citation, last=Chubb, first=Andrew, chapter=The Sino-Indian Border Crisis: Chinese Perceptions of Indian Nationalism, title=Crisis, editor1-last=Golley, editor1-first=Jane, editor2-last=Jaivan, editor2-first=Linda, editor3-last=Strange, editor3-first=Sharon, publisher=Australian National University Press, year=2021, pages=231–232, isbn=978-1-76046-439-4, chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D1crEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA230, quote=The ensuing cycle of escalation culminated in the 1962 Sino-Indian border war in which Mao Zedong's troops overran almost the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh in the eastern sector before unilaterally withdrawing, as if to underline the insult; most of the war's several thousand casualties were Indian. The PLA's decisive victories in the 1962 war not only humiliated the Indian Army, they also entrenched a status quo in Ladakh that was highly unfavourable for India, in which China controls almost all of the disputed territory. A nationalistic press and commentariat have kept 1962 vivid in India's popular consciousness.
(c) {{citation, last=Lintner, first=Bertil, title=China's India War: Collision Course on the Roof of the World, publisher=Oxford University Press, year=2018, isbn=978-0-19-909163-8, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-L9DDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT106, quote=And that became a reality after the victory over India in 1962. Two years later, Nehru died, humiliated by the Chinese, a broken man. Brigadier Dalvi noted this in his account of the 1962 War and its aftermath, ‘Without a Nehru India ceased to be the moral leader of the non-aligned world. Whereas prior to 1962 she wielded immense power and influence despite her poverty and lack of military power, after the Chinese attack she was "cut to size" in the words of one unfriendly critic of Nehru.'
(d) {{citation, last=Medcalf, first=Rory, title=Indo-Pacific Empire: China, America and the contest for the world's pivotal, publisher=Manchester University Press, year=2020, isbn=978-1-5261-5077-6 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RCjXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT81, quote=From an Indian perspective, the China-India war of 1962 was a shocking betrayal of the principles of cooperation and coexistence: a surprise attack that humiliated India and personally broke Nehru.
(e) {{citation, last=Ganguly, first=Sumit, title=The Crisis in Kashmir: Portents of War, Hope of Peace, publisher=Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, year=1997, page=44 , isbn=978-0-521-65566-8 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fi66mjIqR1IC&pg=PA44, quote=In October 1962 India suffered the most humiliating military debacle in its post-independence history, at the hands of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). The outcome of this conflict had far-reaching consequences for Indian foreign and defence policies. The harsh defeat that the Chinese PLA had inflicted on the Indian Army called into question some of the most deeply held precepts of Nehru's foreign and defence policies.
(f) {{citation, last=Raghavan, first=Srinath, chapter=A Missed Opportunity? The Nehru-Zhou Enlai Summit of 1960, title=India and the Cold War, editor-last=Bhagavan, editor-first=Manu, publisher=University of North Carolina Press , page=121, year=2019, isbn=978-1-4696-5117-0, chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h-yoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA121, quote=The 'forward policy' adopted by India to prevent the Chinese from occupying territory claimed by them was undertaken in the mistaken belief that Beijing would be cautious in dealing with India owing to Moscow's stance on the dispute and its growing proximity to India. These misjudgments would eventually culminate in India's humiliating defeat in the war of October–November 1962.
India has had Indo-Pakistani relations, tense relations with neighbouring Pakistan; the two nations have gone to war four times: in Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, 1947, Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, 1965, Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, 1971, and Kargil War, 1999. Three of these wars were fought over the Kashmir conflict, disputed territory of Kashmir, while the fourth, the 1971 war, followed from India's support for the Bangladesh Liberation War, independence of Bangladesh.{{sfn, Gilbert, 2002, pp = 486–487 In the late 1980s, the Indian military twice intervened abroad at the invitation of the host country: a Indian Peace Keeping Force, peace-keeping operation in
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
between 1987 and 1990; and an armed intervention to prevent a 1988 Maldives coup d'état, 1988 coup d'état attempt in the Maldives. After the 1965 war with Pakistan, India began to pursue close military and economic India-Soviet Union relations, ties with the Soviet Union; by the late 1960s, the Soviet Union was its largest arms supplier.{{sfn, Sharma, 1999, p=56 Aside from ongoing its India–Russia relations, special relationship with Russia, India has wide-ranging India–Israel relations, defence relations with Israel and France–India relations, France. In recent years, it has played key roles in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the World Trade Organization. The nation has provided 100,000 Indian Armed Forces, military and Law enforcement in India, police personnel to serve in 35 United Nations peacekeeping, UN peacekeeping operations across four continents. It participates in the East Asia Summit, the G8+5, and other multilateral forums.{{sfn, Alford, 2008 India has close economic ties with countries in South America, Asia, and Africa; it pursues a Look East policy (India), "Look East" policy that seeks to strengthen partnerships with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN nations, India–Japan relations, Japan, and India–South Korea relations, South Korea that revolve around many issues, but especially those involving economic investment and regional security.{{sfn, Ghosh, 2009, pp = 282–289{{sfn, Sisodia, Naidu, 2005, pp = 1–8 {{multiple image, perrow = 1, total_width = 220, upright = , align = right , image_style = border:none; , image1 = Indian Air Force contingent as a part of the Bastille Day Parade of France, in Paris on July 14, 2009.jpg , caption1 = The Indian Air Force contingent marching at the 221st Bastille Day military parade in Paris, on 14 July 2009. The parade at which India was the foreign guest was led by India's oldest regiment, the Maratha Light Infantry, founded in 1768.{{citation, last=Muir, first=Hugh, title=Diary, work=The Guardian, date=13 July 2009, url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jul/14/bbc-peter-salmon-trevor-mcdonald, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141019165743/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jul/14/bbc-peter-salmon-trevor-mcdonald, archive-date=19 October 2014, quote="Members of the Indian armed forces have the plum job of leading off the great morning parade for Bastille Day. Only after units and bands from India's navy and air force have followed the Maratha Light Infantry will the parade be entirely given over to ... France's armed services.", access-date=17 October 2021, url-status=dead China's 596 (nuclear test), nuclear test of 1964, as well as its repeated threats to intervene in support of Pakistan in the 1965 war, convinced India to develop nuclear weapons.{{sfn, Perkovich, 2001, pp = 60–86, 106–125 India conducted its Smiling Buddha, first nuclear weapons test in 1974 and carried out Pokhran-II, additional underground testing in 1998. Despite criticism and military sanctions, India has signed neither the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty nor the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, considering both to be flawed and discriminatory.{{sfn, Kumar, 2010 India maintains a "no first use" nuclear policy and is developing a nuclear triad capability as a part of its "Minimum Credible Deterrence" doctrine.{{sfn, Nair, 2007{{sfn, Pandit, 2009 It is developing a Indian Ballistic Missile Defense Program, ballistic missile defence shield and, a HAL AMCA, fifth-generation fighter jet.{{sfn, Pandit, 2015 Other indigenous military projects involve the design and implementation of Vikrant class aircraft carrier, ''Vikrant''-class aircraft carriers and Arihant class submarine, ''Arihant''-class nuclear submarines.{{cite news, date=5 October 2011, title=India, Russia Review Defence Ties, work=
The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...
, url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2514142.ece, access-date=8 October 2011, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111007183650/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2514142.ece , archive-date=7 October 2011 , url-status=dead
Since the end of the Cold War, India has increased its economic, strategic, and military co-operation with the India–United States relations, United States and the India–European Union relations, European Union.{{sfn, European Union 2008 In 2008, a U.S.–India Civil Nuclear Agreement, civilian nuclear agreement was signed between India and the United States. Although India possessed nuclear weapons at the time and was not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it received waivers from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, ending earlier restrictions on India's nuclear technology and commerce. As a consequence, India became the sixth de facto nuclear weapons state.{{sfn, The Times of India 2008 India subsequently signed co-operation agreements involving Nuclear power in India, civilian nuclear energy with Russia,{{sfn, British Broadcasting Corporation 2009 France,{{sfn, Rediff 2008 a the India–United Kingdom relations, United Kingdom,{{sfn, Reuters, 2010 and Canada–India relations, Canada.{{sfn, Curry, 2010 {{multiple image, perrow=1, total_width=220 , image_style = border:none; , align = left , , image1=Modi Nieto Mexico June 2016.jpg, caption1=Prime Minister
Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...
of India (left, background) in talks with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico during a visit to Mexico, 2016 The President of India is the supreme commander of the nation's armed forces; with 1.45 million active troops, they compose the List of countries by number of troops, world's second-largest military. It comprises the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, the Indian Air Force, and the Indian Coast Guard.{{sfn, Central Intelligence Agency The official Indian List of countries by military expenditures, defence budget for 2011 was US$36.03 billion, or 1.83% of GDP.{{sfn, Behera, 2011 Defence expenditure was pegged at US$70.12 billion for fiscal year 2022–23 and, increased 9.8% than previous fiscal year.{{sfn, Pandit, 2022 India is the world's second largest arms importer; between 2016 and 2020, it accounted for 9.5% of the total global arms imports.{{sfn, Pandit, 2021 Much of the military expenditure was focused on defence against Pakistan and countering growing Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean.{{sfn, Miglani, 2011 In May 2017, the Indian Space Research Organisation launched the South Asia Satellite, a gift from India to its neighbouring SAARC countries.{{cite news , url=https://www.deccanherald.com/content/452938/isro-saarc-satellite-communication-vehicle.html , title=Isro-Saarc satellite to be a communication vehicle , work=Deccan Herald , agency=DH News Service , date=12 January 2015 , access-date=22 April 2015 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150628084201/https://www.deccanherald.com/content/452938/isro-saarc-satellite-communication-vehicle.html , archive-date=28 June 2015 , url-status=live In October 2018, India signed a US$5.43 billion (over {{INR, link=yes400 billion) agreement with Russia to procure four S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile defence systems, Russia's most advanced long-range missile defence system.


Economy

{{Main, Economy of India {{multiple image, direction= vertical, width= 220 , align = right , image_style = border:none; , image1 = Plowing the land in India - modern and traditional.jpg , caption1 = A farmer in northwestern Karnataka ploughs his field with a tractor even as another in a field beyond does the same with a pair of oxen. In 2019, 43% of India's total workforce was employed in agriculture.{{citation , title=Employment in agriculture (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate) , url=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=false&view=map , year=2019 , access-date=26 March 2022 , website=The World Bank , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190822193854/https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS%3Fmost_recent_value_desc%3Dfalse%26view%3Dmap , archive-date=22 August 2019 , url-status=live , image3 = Women at work, Gujarat (cropped).jpg , caption3 = Women tend to a recently planted rice field in Junagadh district in Gujarat. 55% of India's female workforce was employed in agriculture in 2019.{{citation , title=Employment in agriculture, female (% of female employment) (modeled ILO estimate) , url=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.FE.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=false&view=map , year=2019 , access-date=26 March 2022 , website=The World Bank , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190822193855/https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.FE.ZS%3Fmost_recent_value_desc%3Dfalse%26view%3Dmap , archive-date=22 August 2019 , url-status=live , image2 = ILRI, Stevie Mann - Villager and calf share milk from cow in Rajasthan, India.jpg , caption2 = India is the world's largest producer of milk, with the largest population of cattle. In 2018, nearly 80% of India's milk was sourced from small farms with herd size between one and two, the milk harvested by hand milking.{{citation, work=Business Line, last=Kapoor, first=Rana, title=Growth in organised dairy sector, a boost for rural livelihood, url=https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/growth-in-organised-dairy-sector-a-boost-for-rural-livelihood/article7810689.ece#, date=27 October 2015, access-date=26 August 2019, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190720215652/https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/growth-in-organised-dairy-sector-a-boost-for-rural-livelihood/article7810689.ece, archive-date=20 July 2019, url-status=live, quote="Nearly 80 per cent of India's milk production is contributed by small and marginal farmers, with an average herd size of one to two milching animals." According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Indian economy in 2021 was nominally worth $3.18 trillion; it was the List of countries by GDP (nominal), sixth-largest economy by market exchange rates, and is around $10.2 trillion, the List of countries by GDP (PPP), third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP).{{cite web , url=https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2022/October/weo-report?c=512,914,612,171,614,311,213,911,314,193,122,912,313,419,513,316,913,124,339,638,514,218,963,616,223,516,918,748,618,624,522,622,156,626,628,228,924,233,632,636,634,238,662,960,423,935,128,611,321,243,248,469,253,642,643,939,734,644,819,172,132,646,648,915,134,652,174,328,258,656,654,336,263,268,532,944,176,534,536,429,433,178,436,136,343,158,439,916,664,826,542,967,443,917,544,941,446,666,668,672,946,137,546,674,676,548,556,678,181,867,682,684,273,868,921,948,943,686,688,518,728,836,558,138,196,278,692,694,962,142,449,564,565,283,853,288,293,566,964,182,359,453,968,922,714,862,135,716,456,722,942,718,724,576,936,961,813,726,199,733,184,524,361,362,364,732,366,144,146,463,528,923,738,578,537,742,866,369,744,186,925,869,746,926,466,112,111,298,927,846,299,582,487,474,754,698,&s=NGDPD,PPPGDP,&sy=2018&ey=2023&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1, title=World Economic Outlook Database: October 2022 , date=October 2022 , website=IMF.org , publisher=International Monetary Fund, access-date=21 November 2022 With its average annual GDP growth rate of 5.8% over the past two decades, and reaching 6.1% during 2011–2012,{{sfn, International Monetary Fund 2011a, p = 2 India is one of the List of countries by real GDP growth rate, world's fastest-growing economies.{{sfn, Nayak, Goldar, Agrawal, 2010, p = xxv However, the country ranks 139th in the world in List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita, nominal GDP per capita and 118th in List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita, GDP per capita at PPP.{{sfn, International Monetary Fund Until 1991, all Indian governments followed protectionism, protectionist policies that were influenced by socialist economics. Widespread Licence Raj, state intervention and regulation largely walled the economy off from the outside world. An acute 1991 India economic crisis, balance of payments crisis in 1991 forced the nation to Economic liberalisation in India, liberalise its economy;{{sfn, Wolpert, 2003, p = xiv since then it has moved slowly towards a free-market system{{sfn, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2007{{sfn, Gargan, 1992 by emphasising both foreign trade and direct investment inflows.{{sfn, Alamgir, 2008, pp = 23, 97 India has been a member of World Trade Organization since 1 January 1995.{{sfn, World Trade Organization 1995 The 522-million-worker Labour in India, Indian labour force is the List of countries by labour force, world's second-largest, {{As of, 2017, lc=y.{{sfn, Central Intelligence Agency The service sector makes up 55.6% of GDP, the industrial sector 26.3% and the agricultural sector 18.1%. India's Remittance, foreign exchange remittances of US$100 billion in 2022, highest in the world, were contributed to its economy by 32 million Indians working in foreign countries. Major agricultural products include: rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, and potatoes.{{sfn, Library of Congress, 2004 Major industries include: textiles, telecommunications, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, food processing, steel, transport equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, and software.{{sfn, Library of Congress, 2004 In 2006, the share of external trade in India's GDP stood at 24%, up from 6% in 1985.{{sfn, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2007 In 2008, India's share of world trade was 1.68%; In 2021, India was the world's List of countries by imports, ninth-largest importer and the List of countries by exports, sixteenth-largest exporter. Major exports include: petroleum products, textile goods, jewellery, software, engineering goods, chemicals, and manufactured leather goods.{{sfn, Library of Congress, 2004 Major imports include: crude oil, machinery, gems, fertiliser, and chemicals.{{sfn, Library of Congress, 2004 Between 2001 and 2011, the contribution of petrochemical and engineering goods to total exports grew from 14% to 42%.{{sfn, Economist 2011 India was the world's second largest textile exporter after
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
in the 2013 calendar year.{{sfn, Economic Times 2014 Averaging an economic growth rate of 7.5% for several years prior to 2007,{{sfn, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2007 India has more than doubled its hourly wage rates during the first decade of the 21st century.{{sfn, Bonner, 2010 Some 431 million Indians have left poverty since 1985; India's middle classes are projected to number around 580 million by 2030.{{sfn, Farrell, Beinhocker, 2007 Though ranking 51st in Global Competitiveness Report, global competitiveness, {{As of, 2010, lc=y, India ranks 17th in financial market sophistication, 24th in the banking sector, 44th in business sophistication, and 39th in innovation, ahead of several advanced economies.{{sfn, Schwab, 2010 With seven of the world's top 15 information technology outsourcing companies based in India, {{As of, 2009, lc=y, the country is viewed as the second-most favourable outsourcing destination after the United States.{{sfn, Sheth, 2009 India is ranked 40th in the Global Innovation Index in 2022. India's consumer market, the world's List of largest consumer markets, eleventh-largest, is expected to become fifth-largest by 2030.{{sfn, Farrell, Beinhocker, 2007 Driven by growth, India's nominal GDP per capita increased steadily from US$308 in 1991, when economic liberalisation began, to US$1,380 in 2010, to an estimated US$1,730 in 2016. It is expected to grow to US$2,313 by 2022. However, it has remained lower than those of other Asian developing countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and is expected to remain so in the near future. {{multiple image, perrow = 1, total_width = 500 , align = left , image_style = border:none; , image1 = Bangalore Panorama edit1.jpg , caption1 = A panorama of Bangalore, the centre of India's software development economy. In the 1980s, when the first multinational corporations began to set up centres in India, they chose Bangalore because of the large pool of skilled graduates in the area, in turn due to the many science and engineering colleges in the surrounding region.{{citation, last1=Scott, first1=Allen J., last2=Garofoli, first2=Gioacchino, title=Development on the Ground: Clusters, Networks and Regions in Emerging Economies, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GUCUAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA208, year=2007, publisher=
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
, isbn=978-1-135-98422-9, page=208
According to a 2011 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report, India's GDP at purchasing power parity could overtake that of the United States by 2045.{{sfn, Hawksworth, Tiwari, 2011 During the next four decades, Indian GDP is expected to grow at an annualised average of 8%, making it potentially the world's fastest-growing major economy until 2050.{{sfn, Hawksworth, Tiwari, 2011 The report highlights key growth factors: a young and rapidly growing working-age population; growth in the manufacturing sector because of rising education and engineering skill levels; and sustained growth of the consumer market driven by a rapidly growing middle-class.{{sfn, Hawksworth, Tiwari, 2011 The World Bank cautions that, for India to achieve its economic potential, it must continue to focus on public sector reform, Transport in India, transport infrastructure, agricultural and rural development, removal of labour regulations, Education in India, education, Energy policy of India, energy security, and Healthcare in India, public health and nutrition. According to the Worldwide Cost of Living Report 2017 released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) which was created by comparing more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services, four of the cheapest cities were in India: Bangalore (3rd), Mumbai (5th), Chennai (5th) and
New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...
(8th).{{sfn, Economist 2017


Industries

{{multiple image, perrow=1, total_width=220, image_style = border:none;, align = right , image1=Cherry Resort inside Temi Tea Garden, Namchi, Sikkim.jpg, caption1=A tea garden in Sikkim. India, the world's second largest-producer of tea, is a nation of one billion tea drinkers, who consume 70% of India's tea output. India's Telecommunications in India, telecommunication industry is the List of mobile network operators, second-largest in the world with over 1.2 billion subscribers. It contributes 6.5% to India's GDP. After the third quarter of 2017, India surpassed the US to become the second largest smartphone market in the world after China. The Automotive industry in India, Indian automotive industry, the world's second-fastest growing, increased domestic sales by 26% during 2009–2010,{{sfn, Business Line 2010 and exports by 36% during 2008–2009.{{sfn, Express India 2009 At the end of 2011, the Information technology in India, Indian IT industry employed 2.8 million professionals, generated revenues close to US$100 billion equalling 7.5% of Indian GDP, and contributed 26% of India's merchandise exports.{{sfn, Nasscom 2011–2012 The pharmaceutical industry in India emerged as a global player. As of 2021, with 3000 pharmaceutical companies and 10,500 manufacturing units India is the world's third-largest pharmaceutical producer, largest producer of generic medicines and supply up to 50%—60% of global vaccines demand, these all contribute up to {{USD24.44 billions in exports and India's local pharmacutical market is estimated up to {{USD42 billion.{{cite news, url=https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/health/indian-pharma-a-strategic-sector-from-make-in-india-to-make-and-develop-in-india/2331377/, title=Indian Pharma: a strategic sector from 'Make in India' to 'Make and Develop in India', work=The Financial Express (India), date=16 September 2021, access-date=18 October 2021{{cite web, url=https://www.ibef.org/industry/pharmaceutical-india.aspx, title=Indian Pharmaceutical Industry, work=India Brand Equity Foundation, date=12 October 2021, access-date=18 October 2021 India is among the top 12 biotech destinations in the world.{{sfn, Yep, 2011 The Indian biotech industry grew by 15.1% in 2012–2013, increasing its revenues from {{INR204.4 billion (
Indian rupee The Indian rupee ( symbol: ₹; code: INR) is the official currency in the republic of India. The rupee is subdivided into 100 ''paise'' (singular: ''paisa''), though as of 2022, coins of denomination of 1 rupee are the lowest value in use wh ...
s) to {{INR235.24 billion (US$3.94 billion at June 2013 exchange rates).


Energy

{{Main, Energy in India, Energy policy of India India's capacity to generate electrical power is 300 gigawatts, of which 42 gigawatts is Renewable energy in India, renewable.{{cite web, title=India's Total Power Generation Capacity Crosses 300 GW Mark, url=https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/indias-total-power-generation-capacity-crosses-300-gw-mark-1438906, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170616181350/https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/indias-total-power-generation-capacity-crosses-300-gw-mark-1438906, archive-date=16 June 2017, date=1 August 2016, access-date=17 October 2021, publisher=NDTV India, NDTV Coal in India, The country's usage of coal is a major cause of Climate change in India#Greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas emissions by India but its Renewable energy in India, renewable energy is competing strongly. India emits about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This equates to about 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year, which is half the world average.{{cite web, last=USAID, date=September 2018, title=Greenhouse Gas Emissions in India , url=https://www.climatelinks.org/sites/default/files/asset/document/India%20GHG%20Emissions%20Factsheet%20FINAL.pdf , access-date=10 June 2021, website={{cite web, last=UN Environment Programme , year=2019 , title=Emissions Gap Report 2019, url=https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2019, access-date=10 June 2021, website=UNEP – UN Environment Programme Increasing Electrification, access to electricity and clean cooking with liquefied petroleum gas have been priorities for energy in India.


Socio-economic challenges

{{multiple image , perrow = 1 , total_width = 220 , align = left , image_style = border:none; , image1 = Female health workers in India (34332433890).jpg , caption1= Health workers about to begin another day of immunisation against infectious diseases in 2006. Eight years later, and three years after India's last case of polio, the World Health Organization declared India to be polio-free.{{citation, last1=Chan, first1=Margaret , title=Address at the 'India celebrates triumph over polio' event, location=New Delhi, India, publisher=World Health Organization, date=11 February 2014, url=https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-celebrates-polio-free-india, access-date=17 October 2021 , direction = , alt1 = Despite economic growth during recent decades, India continues to face socio-economic challenges. In 2006, India contained the poverty in India, largest number of people living below the World Bank's international poverty line of US$1.25 per day. The proportion decreased from 60% in 1981 to 42% in 2005. Under the World Bank's later revised poverty line, it was 21% in 2011.{{efn, In 2015, the World Bank raised its international poverty line to $1.90 per day.{{cite web, title=Poverty headcount ratio at $1.90 a day (2011 PPP) (% of population), url=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?locations=IN, publisher=World Bank, access-date=26 February 2017, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215021227/https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?locations=IN, archive-date=15 February 2017 30.7% of India's children under the age of five are underweight. According to a Food and Agriculture Organization report in 2015, 15% of the population is undernourished. The Mid-Day Meal Scheme attempts to lower these rates.{{sfn, Drèze, Goyal, 2008, p = 46 A 2018 Walk Free Foundation report estimated that nearly 8 million people in India were living in different forms of modern slavery, such as bonded labour, child labour, human trafficking, and forced begging, among others.{{cite web , last=Pandit , first=Ambika , title=modern slavery in india: 8 million people live in 'modern slavery' in India, says report; govt junks claim – India News , website=The Times of India , date=2018-07-20 , url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/8-million-people-live-in-modern-slavery-in-india-says-report-govt-junks-claim/articleshow/65060986.cms , access-date=2022-05-28 According to the 2011 census, there were 10.1 million child labourers in the country, a decline of 2.6 million from 12.6 million in 2001. Since 1991, List of Indian states by GDP, economic inequality between India's states has consistently grown: the per-capita Net domestic product, net state domestic product of the richest states in 2007 was 3.2 times that of the poorest.{{sfn, Pal, Ghosh, 2007 Corruption in India is perceived to have decreased. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, India ranked 78th out of 180 countries in 2018 with a score of 41 out of 100, an improvement from 85th in 2014.


Demographics, languages, and religion

{{Main, Demographics of India, Languages of India, Religion in India {{See also, South Asian ethnic groups {{multiple image, perrow = 1, total_width = 180 , align = right , title = India by language , image1 = South Asian Language Families.png, caption1 = The language families of South Asia With 1,210,193,422 residents reported in the 2011 Census of India, 2011 provisional census report,{{sfn, Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India, p=160 India is the world's second-most populous country. Its population grew by 17.64% from 2001 to 2011,{{sfn, Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India, p=165 compared to 21.54% growth in the previous decade (1991–2001).{{sfn, Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India, p=165 The human sex ratio, according to the 2011 census, is 940 females per 1,000 males.{{sfn, Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India, p=160 The median age was 28.7 {{as of, 2020, lc=on.{{sfn, Central Intelligence Agency The first post-colonial census, conducted in 1951, counted 361 million people. Medical advances made in the last 50 years as well as increased agricultural productivity brought about by the "Green Revolution in India, Green Revolution" have caused India's population to grow rapidly.{{sfn, Rorabacher, 2010, pp = 35–39 The average life expectancy in India is at 70 years—71.5 years for women, 68.7 years for men.{{sfn, Central Intelligence Agency There are around 93 physicians per 100,000 people. Migration from rural to urban areas has been an important dynamic in India's recent history. The number of people living in urban areas grew by 31.2% between 1991 and 2001.{{sfn, Garg, 2005 Yet, in 2001, over 70% still lived in rural areas.{{sfn, Dyson, Visaria, 2005, pp = 115–129{{sfn, Ratna, 2007, pp = 271–272 The level of urbanisation increased further from 27.81% in the 2001 Census to 31.16% in the 2011 Census. The slowing down of the overall population growth rate was due to the sharp decline in the growth rate in rural areas since 1991.{{sfn, Chandramouli, 2011 According to the 2011 census, there are 53 List of million-plus urban agglomerations in India, million-plus urban agglomerations in India; among them Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, in decreasing order by population.{{cite web , url=https://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/paper2/data_files/India2/Table_3_PR_UA_Citiees_1Lakh_and_Above.pdf , title=Urban Agglomerations/Cities having population 1 lakh and above , publisher=Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India , access-date=12 May 2014 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131017153124/https://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/paper2/data_files/India2/Table_3_PR_UA_Citiees_1Lakh_and_Above.pdf , archive-date=17 October 2013 The literacy rate in 2011 was 74.04%: 65.46% among females and 82.14% among males.{{sfn, Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India, p=163 The rural-urban literacy gap, which was 21.2 percentage points in 2001, dropped to 16.1 percentage points in 2011. The improvement in the rural literacy rate is twice that of urban areas.{{sfn, Chandramouli, 2011 Kerala is the most literate state with 93.91% literacy; while Bihar the least with 63.82%.{{sfn, Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India, p=163 {{multiple image, perrow=1, total_width=220, image_style = border:none;, align = left , image1=Interior of San Thome Basilica.jpg, caption1=The interior of San Thome Basilica, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Christianity is believed to have been introduced to India by the late 2nd century by Christianity in India#Early Christianity in India, Syriac-speaking Christians. Among speakers of the languages of India, Indian languages, 74% speak Indo-Aryan languages, the easternmost branch of the Indo-European languages; 24% speak
Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...
, indigenous to
South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...
and spoken widely before the spread of Indo-Aryan languages and 2% speak Austroasiatic languages or the Sino-Tibetan languages. India has no national language.{{sfn, Dharwadker, 2010, pp = 168–194, 186
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
, with the largest number of speakers, is the official language of the government.{{sfn, Ottenheimer, 2008, p = 303{{sfn, Mallikarjun, 2004 English language, English is used extensively in business and administration and has the status of a "subsidiary official language";{{sfn, Ministry of Home Affairs 1960 it is important in Education in India, education, especially as a medium of higher education. Each state and union territory has one or more official languages, and the constitution recognises in particular 22 "scheduled languages". The 2011 census reported the religion in India with the largest number of followers was Hinduism in India, Hinduism (79.80% of the population), followed by Islam in India, Islam (14.23%); the remaining were Christianity in India, Christianity (2.30%), Sikhism in India, Sikhism (1.72%),
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
(0.70%), Statistics of Jainism, Jainism (0.36%) and others{{efn, name=remaining religions (0.9%).{{cite web, url=https://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-01/DDW00C-01%20MDDS.XLS , title=C −1 Population by religious community – 2011 , publisher=Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner , access-date=25 August 2015 , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150825155850/https://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-01/DDW00C-01%20MDDS.XLS , archive-date=25 August 2015 India has the List of countries by Muslim population#List, third-largest Muslim population—the largest for a non-Muslim majority country.


Culture

{{Main, Culture of India {{multiple image, perrow=1, total_width=220, image_style = border:none;, align = right , image1=Sikh pilgrim at the Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib) in Amritsar, India.jpg, caption1=A Sikh pilgrim at the Harmandir Sahib, or Golden Temple, in Amritsar, Punjab Indian cultural history spans more than {{nowrap, 4,500 years.{{sfn, Kuiper, 2010, p = 15 During the Vedic period ({{Circa, {{BCE, 1700, {{BCE, 500 ), the foundations of Hindu philosophy, Hindu mythology, mythology, Hindu theology, theology and Hindu texts, literature were laid, and many beliefs and practices which still exist today, such as ''Dharma, dhárma'', ''Karma, kárma'', ''yoga, yóga'', and ''moksha, mokṣa'', were established.{{sfn, Kuiper, 2010, p = 86 India is notable for its Indian religions, religious diversity, with
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
,
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
,
Sikhism Sikhism (), also known as Sikhi ( pa, ਸਿੱਖੀ ', , from pa, ਸਿੱਖ, lit=disciple', 'seeker', or 'learner, translit=Sikh, label=none),''Sikhism'' (commonly known as ''Sikhī'') originated from the word ''Sikh'', which comes fro ...
,
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
,
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
, and
Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current ...
among the nation's major religions.{{sfn, Heehs, 2002, pp = 2–5 The predominant religion, Hinduism, has been shaped by various historical schools of thought, including those of the ''Upanishads'',{{sfn, Deutsch, 1969, pp = 3, 78 the ''Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Yoga Sutras'', the Bhakti, ''Bhakti'' movement,{{sfn, Heehs, 2002, pp = 2–5 and by Buddhist philosophy.{{sfn, Nakamura, 1999


Visual art

{{Main, Indian art India has a very ancient tradition of art, which has exchanged many influences with the rest of Eurasia, especially in the first millennium, when Buddhist art spread with Indian religions to Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East and South-East Asia, the last also greatly influenced by Hindu art. Thousands of Indus Valley civilisation#Seals, seals from the Indus Valley Civilization of the third millennium BCE have been found, usually carved with animals, but a few with human figures. The "Pashupati" seal, excavated in Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, in 1928–29, is the best known.{{Sfn, Craven, 1997, pp=14–16{{Sfn, Harle, 1994, pp=17–18 After this there is a long period with virtually nothing surviving.{{Sfn, Harle, 1994, pp=17–18{{Sfn, Rowland, 1970, pp=46–47 Almost all surviving ancient Indian art thereafter is in various forms of religious Indian sculpture, sculpture in durable materials, or coins. There was probably originally far more in wood, which is lost. In north India Mauryan art is the first imperial movement.{{Sfn, Craven, 1997, pp=35–46{{Sfn, Rowland, 1970, pp=67–70{{Sfn, Harle, 1994, pp=22–24 In the first millennium CE, Buddhist art spread with Indian religions to Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East and South-East Asia, the last also greatly influenced by Hindu art.{{Sfn, Rowland, 1970, pp=185–198, 252, 385–466 Over the following centuries a distinctly Indian style of sculpting the human figure developed, with less interest in articulating precise anatomy than ancient Greek sculpture but showing smoothly-flowing forms expressing ''prana'' ("breath" or life-force).{{Sfn, Craven, 1997, pp=22, 88{{Sfn, Rowland, 1970, pp=35, 99–100 This is often complicated by the need to give figures multiple arms or heads, or represent different genders on the left and right of figures, as with the Ardhanarishvara form of Shiva and Parvati.{{Sfn, Craven, 1997, pp=18–19{{Sfn, Blurton, 1993, p=151 Most of the earliest large sculpture is Buddhist, either excavated from Buddhist stupas such as Sanchi, Sarnath and Amaravati Stupa, Amaravati,{{Sfn, Harle, 1994, pp=32–38 or is rock-cut reliefs at sites such as Ajanta Caves, Ajanta, Karla Caves, Karla and Ellora. Hindu and Jain sites appear rather later.{{Sfn, Harle, 1994, pp=43–55{{Sfn, Rowland, 1970, pp=113–119 In spite of this complex mixture of religious traditions, generally, the prevailing artistic style at any time and place has been shared by the major religious groups, and sculptors probably usually served all communities.{{Sfn, Blurton, 1993, pp=10–11 Gupta art, at its peak {{circa, {{CE, 300, {{CE, 500 , is often regarded as a classical period whose influence lingered for many centuries after; it saw a new dominance of Hindu sculpture, as at the Elephanta Caves.{{Sfn, Craven, 1997, pp=111–121{{Sfn, Michell, 2000, pp=44–70 Across the north, this became rather stiff and formulaic after {{circa, {{CE, 800 , though rich with finely carved detail in the surrounds of statues.{{Sfn, Harle, 1994, pp=212–216 But in the South, under the Pallava dynasty, Pallava and Chola dynasty, Chola dynasties, sculpture in both stone and bronze had a Chola art and architecture#Sculpture and bronzes, sustained period of great achievement; the large bronzes with Shiva as Nataraja have become an iconic symbol of India.{{Sfn, Craven, 1997, pp=152–160{{Sfn, Blurton, 1993, pp=225–227 Ancient painting has only survived at a few sites, of which the crowded scenes of court life in the Ajanta Caves are by far the most important, but it was evidently highly developed, and is mentioned as a courtly accomplishment in Gupta times.{{Sfn, Harle, 1994, pp=356–361{{Sfn, Rowland, 1970, pp=242–251 Painted manuscripts of religious texts survive from Eastern India about the 10th century onwards, most of the earliest being Buddhist and later Jain. No doubt the style of these was used in larger paintings.{{Sfn, Harle, 1994, pp=361–370 The Persian-derived Deccan painting, starting just before the Mughal miniature, between them give the first large body of secular painting, with an emphasis on portraits, and the recording of princely pleasures and wars.{{Sfn, Craven, 1997, pp=202–208{{Sfn, Harle, 1994, pp=372–382, 400–406 The style spread to Hindu courts, especially Rajput painting, among the Rajputs, and developed a variety of styles, with the smaller courts often the most innovative, with figures such as Nihâl Chand and Nainsukh.{{Sfn, Craven, 1997, pp=222–243{{Sfn, Harle, 1994, pp=384–397, 407–420 As a market developed among European residents, it was supplied by Company painting by Indian artists with considerable Western influence.{{Sfn, Craven, 1997, p=243{{Sfn, Michell, 2000, p=210 In the 19th century, cheap Kalighat paintings of gods and everyday life, done on paper, were urban folk art from Calcutta, which later saw the Bengal School of Art, reflecting the art colleges founded by the British, the first movement in modern Indian painting.{{Sfn, Michell, 2000, pp=210–211{{Sfn, Blurton, 1993, p=211 File:Bhutesvara Yakshis Mathura reliefs 2nd century CE front.jpg, Bhutesvara Yakshis, Buddhist reliefs from Mathura, {{CE, 2nd century File:MET DT5237 (cropped).jpg, Gupta art, Gupta terracotta relief, Krishna Killing the Keshi (demon), Horse Demon Keshi, 5th century File:Elephanta Caves (27804449706) (cropped).jpg, Elephanta Caves, triple-bust (sculpture), bust (''trimurti'') of Shiva, {{convert, 18, ft, m tall, {{circa, 550 File:Shiva as Lord of the Dance (Nataraja).jpg, Chola art and architecture#Sculpture and bronzes, Chola bronze of Shiva as Nataraja ("Lord of Dance"), Tamil Nadu, 10th or 11th century. File:Jahangir Receives Prince Khurram at Ajmer on His Return from the Mewar Campaign.jpg, ''Jahangir Receives Shah Jahan, Prince Khurram at Ajmer on His Return from the Mewar Campaign'', Balchand, {{circa, 1635 File:Unknown, Kangra, India - Krishna Fluting to the Milkmaids - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Krishna Fluting to the Milkmaids'', Kangra painting, 1775–1785


Architecture

{{Main, Architecture of India {{multiple image, perrow=1, total_width=250, image_style = border:none;, align = left , image1=Aks The Reflection Taj Mahal.jpg, caption1=The Taj Mahal from across the Yamuna river showing two outlying red sandstone buildings, a mosque on the right (west) and a ''jawab'' (response) thought to have been built for architectural balance. Much of Architecture of India, Indian architecture, including the Taj Mahal, other works of Mughal architecture, Indo-Islamic Mughal architecture, and Dravidian architecture, South Indian architecture, blends ancient local traditions with imported styles.{{sfn, Kuiper, 2010, pp = 296–329 Indian vernacular architecture, Vernacular architecture is also regional in its flavours. ''Vastu shastra'', literally "science of construction" or "architecture" and ascribed to Mamuni Mayan,{{sfn, Silverman, 2007, p = 20 explores how the laws of nature affect human dwellings;{{sfn, Kumar, 2000, p=5 it employs precise geometry and directional alignments to reflect perceived cosmic constructs.{{sfn, Roberts, 2004, p=73 As applied in Hindu temple architecture, it is influenced by the ''Shilpa Shastras'', a series of foundational texts whose basic mythological form is the ''Vastu-Purusha mandala'', a square that embodied the "Absolute (philosophy), absolute".{{sfn, Lang, Moleski, 2010, pp = 151–152 The Taj Mahal, built in Agra between 1631 and 1648 by orders of Mughal emperors, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, has been described in the UNESCO World Heritage List as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage".{{sfn, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture, developed by the British in the late 19th century, drew on Indo-Islamic architecture.{{sfn, Chopra, 2011, p = 46


Literature

{{Main, Indian literature The earliest literature in India, composed between {{BCE, 1500 and {{CE, 1200, was in the
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
language.{{sfn, Hoiberg, Ramchandani, 2000 Major works of Sanskrit literature include the ''
Rigveda The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one Sh ...
'' ({{circa, {{BCE, 1500, {{BCE, 1200 ), the Indian epic poetry, epics: ''Mahabharata, Mahābhārata'' ( {{circa, {{BCE, 400, {{CE, 400 ) and the ''Ramayana'' ( {{circa, {{BCE, 300 and later); ''Abhijñānaśākuntalam'' (''The Recognition of Śakuntalā'', and other dramas of Kālidāsa ( {{circa, {{CE, 5th century ) and ''Sanskrit Classical poetry, Mahākāvya'' poetry.{{sfn, Johnson, 2008{{sfn, MacDonell, 2004, pp = 1–40{{sfn, Kālidāsa, Johnson, 2001 In Tamil literature, the
Sangam literature The Sangam literature (Tamil: சங்க இலக்கியம், ''caṅka ilakkiyam'';) historically known as 'the poetry of the noble ones' (Tamil: சான்றோர் செய்யுள், ''Cāṉṟōr ceyyuḷ'') connotes ...
({{circa, {{BCE, 600, {{BCE, 300 ) consisting of 2,381 poems, composed by 473 poets, is the earliest work.{{sfn, Zvelebil, 1997, p = 12{{sfn, Hart, 1975{{sfn, Ramanujan, 1985, pp=ix–x From the 14th to the 18th centuries, India's literary traditions went through a period of drastic change because of the emergence of Bhakti movement, devotional poets like Kabir, Kabīr, Tulsidas, Tulsīdās, and Guru Nanak, Guru Nānak. This period was characterised by a varied and wide spectrum of thought and expression; as a consequence, medieval Indian literary works differed significantly from classical traditions.{{sfn, Das, 2005 In the 19th century, Indian writers took a new interest in social questions and psychological descriptions. In the 20th century, Indian literature was influenced by the Works of Rabindranath Tagore, works of the Bengali poet, author and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore,{{sfn, Datta, 2006 who was a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.


Performing arts and media

{{Main, Music of India, Dance in India, Cinema of India, Television in India {{multiple image, perrow=1, total_width=180, image_style = border:none;, align = right , image1=Kuchipudi Performer DS.jpg, caption1=India's Sangeet Natak Akademi, National Academy of Performance Arts has recognised eight Indian dance styles to be ''classical''. One such is Kuchipudi shown here. Music of India, Indian music ranges over various traditions and regional styles. Indian classical music, Classical music encompasses two genres and their various folk offshoots: the northern Hindustani classical music, Hindustani and the southern Carnatic music, Carnatic schools.{{sfn, Massey, Massey, 1998 Regionalised popular forms include filmi and Indian folk music, folk music; the Syncretism, syncretic tradition of the ''bauls'' is a well-known form of the latter. Dance in India, Indian dance also features diverse folk and classical forms. Among the better-known List of Indian folk dances, folk dances are: the ''Bhangra (dance), bhangra'' of Punjab, the ''bihu dance, bihu'' of Assam, the ''Jhumair'' and ''Chhau dance, chhau'' of Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, ''Garba (dance), garba'' and ''Dandiya Raas, dandiya'' of Gujarat, ''ghoomar'' of Rajasthan, and the ''lavani'' of Maharashtra. Eight dance forms, many with narrative forms and mythological elements, have been accorded Classical Indian dance, classical dance status by India's Sangeet Natak Akademi, National Academy of Music, Dance, and Drama. These are: ''Bharata Natyam, bharatanatyam'' of the state of Tamil Nadu, ''kathak'' of Uttar Pradesh, ''kathakali'' and ''mohiniyattam'' of Kerala, ''kuchipudi'' of Andhra Pradesh, ''Manipuri dance, manipuri'' of Manipur, ''odissi'' of Odisha, and the ''sattriya'' of Assam. Theatre in India melds music, dance, and improvised or written dialogue.{{sfn, Lal, 2004, pp = 23, 30, 235 Often based on Hindu mythology, but also borrowing from medieval romances or social and political events, Indian theatre includes: the ''bhavai'' of Gujarat, the ''Jatra (Bengal), jatra'' of West Bengal, the ''nautanki'' and ''ramlila'' of North India, ''tamasha'' of Maharashtra, ''burrakatha'' of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, ''terukkuttu'' of Tamil Nadu, and the ''yakshagana'' of Karnataka.{{sfn, Karanth, 2002, p = 26 India has a theatre training institute the National School of Drama (NSD) that is situated at
New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...
It is an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Culture (India), Ministry of culture,
Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...
. The Cinema of India, Indian film industry produces the world's most-watched cinema.{{sfn, Dissanayake, Gokulsing, 2004 Established regional cinematic traditions exist in the Cinema of Assam, Assamese, Cinema of West Bengal, Bengali, Bhojpuri cinema, Bhojpuri, Bollywood, Hindi, Cinema of Karnataka, Kannada, Malayalam cinema, Malayalam, Cinema of Punjab, Punjabi, Gujarati cinema, Gujarati, Marathi cinema, Marathi, Cinema of Odisha, Odia, Tamil cinema, Tamil, and Telugu cinema, Telugu languages.{{sfn, Rajadhyaksha, Willemen, 1999, page = 652 The Hindi language film industry (''Bollywood'') is the largest sector representing 43% of box office revenue, followed by the Cinema of South India, South Indian Telugu and Tamil film industries which represent 36% combined.{{cite web, url=https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/in/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/in-tmt-economic-contribution-of-motion-picture-and-television-industry-noexp.pdf, title=Economic Contribution of the Indian Motion Picture and Television Industry, publisher=Deloitte, date=March 2014, access-date=21 April 2014 Television broadcasting began in India in 1959 as a state-run medium of communication and expanded slowly for more than two decades.{{sfn, Narayan, 2015, p={{page needed, date=April 2022 {{sfn, Kaminsky, Long, 2011, pp = 684–692 The Doordarshan, state monopoly on television broadcast ended in the 1990s. Since then, satellite channels have increasingly shaped the popular culture of Indian society.{{sfn, Mehta, 2008, pp = 1–10 Today, television is the most penetrative media in India; industry estimates indicate that {{As of, 2012, lc=y there are over 554 million TV consumers, 462 million with satellite or cable connections compared to other forms of mass media such as the press (350 million), radio (156 million) or internet (37 million).{{sfn, Hansa Research, 2012


Society

{{multiple image, perrow=1, total_width=220, image_style = border:none;, align = left , image1=Muslims praying in mosque in Srinagar, Kashmir.jpg, caption1=Muslims offer ''Salah, namaz'' at a mosque in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. Traditional Indian society is sometimes defined by social hierarchy. The Caste system in India, Indian caste system embodies much of the social stratification and many of the social restrictions found on the Indian subcontinent. Social classes are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups, often termed as ''jātis'', or "castes".{{sfn, Schwartzberg, 2011 India abolished
untouchability Untouchability is a form of social institution that legitimises and enforces practices that are discriminatory, humiliating, exclusionary and exploitative against people belonging to certain social groups. Although comparable forms of discrimin ...
in 1950 with the adoption of the Constitution of India, constitution and has since enacted other anti-discriminatory laws and social welfare initiatives. Family values are important in the Indian tradition, and multi-generational patrilineal joint family, joint families have been the norm in India, though nuclear family, nuclear families are becoming common in urban areas.{{sfn, Makar, 2007 An overwhelming majority of Indians, with their consent, have Arranged marriage in the Indian subcontinent, their marriages arranged by their parents or other family elders.{{sfn, Medora, 2003 Marriage is thought to be for life,{{sfn, Medora, 2003 and the divorce rate is extremely low,{{sfn, Jones, Ramdas, 2005, p = 111 with less than one in a thousand marriages ending in divorce. Child marriages are common, especially in rural areas; many women wed before reaching 18, which is their legal marriageable age.{{sfn, Cullen-Dupont, 2009, p = 96 Female infanticide in India, and lately female foeticide in India, female foeticide, have created skewed gender ratios; the number of missing women in the country quadrupled from 15 million to 63 million in the 50-year period ending in 2014, faster than the population growth during the same period, and constituting 20 percent of India's female electorate.{{cite news , url=https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/indias-missing-women/article5670801.ece , title=India's missing women, newspaper=
The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...
, date=10 February 2014, last1=Kapoor, first1=Mudit, last2=Shamika, first2=Ravi , access-date= 17 November 2019 , quote=In the last 50 years of Indian democracy, the absolute number of missing women has increased fourfold from 15 million to 68 million. This is not merely a reflection of the growth in the overall population, but, rather, of the fact that this dangerous trend has worsened with time. As a percentage of the female electorate, missing women have gone up significantly — from 13 per cent to approximately 20 per cent
Accord to an Indian government study, an additional 21 million girls are unwanted and do not receive adequate care.{{cite web , url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/30/more-than-63-million-women-missing-in-india-statistics-show , title=More than 63 million women 'missing' in India, statistics show , newspaper=Associated Press via The Guardian , date= 30 January 2018 , access-date= 17 November 2019 Quote: "More than 63 million women are “missing” statistically across India, and more than 21 million girls are unwanted by their families, government officials say. The skewed ratio of men to women is largely the result of sex-selective abortions, and better nutrition and medical care for boys, according to the government's annual economic survey, which was released on Monday. In addition, the survey found that “families where a son is born are more likely to stop having children than families where a girl is born”. Despite a government ban on sex-selective foeticide, the practice remains commonplace in India, the result of a preference for boys in a patriarchal society.{{cite web , url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/15/a-generation-of-girls-is-missing-in-india/ , title=A Generation of Girls Is Missing in India – Sex-selective abortion fuels a cycle of patriarchy and abuse., newspaper=Foreign Policy , first=Ira, last=Trivedi , date=15 August 2019 , access-date= 17 November 2019 Quote: "Although it has been illegal nationwide for doctors to disclose the sex of a fetus since the 1994 Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, the ease of ordering cheap and portable ultrasound machines, especially online, has kept the practice of sex-selective abortions alive." The payment of Dowry system in India, dowry, although Dowry law in India, illegal, remains widespread across class lines. Dowry deaths, Deaths resulting from dowry, mostly from bride burning, are on the rise, despite stringent anti-dowry laws. Many Public holidays in India, Indian festivals are religious in origin. The best known include: Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi, Thai Pongal, Holi, Durga Puja, Eid ul-Fitr, Bakr-Id, Christmas worldwide#India, Christmas, and Vaisakhi.


Education

{{Main, Education in India, Literacy in India, History of education in the Indian subcontinent In the 2011 census, about 73% of the population was literate, with 81% for men and 65% for women. This compares to 1981 when the respective rates were 41%, 53% and 29%. In 1951 the rates were 18%, 27% and 9%. In 1921 the rates 7%, 12% and 2%. In 1891 they were 5%, 9% and 1%, According to Latika Chaudhary, in 1911 there were under three primary schools for every ten villages. Statistically, more caste and religious diversity reduced private spending. Primary schools taught literacy, so local diversity limited its growth. The education system of India is the world's second-largest. India has over 900 universities, 40,000 colleges{{cite web , url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/hrd-to-increase-nearly-25-pc-seats-in-varsities-to-implement-10-pc-quota-for-poor-in-gen-category/articleshow/67545006.cms , title=HRD to increase nearly 25 pc seats in varsities to implement 10 pc quota for poor in gen category , newspaper=The Economic Times , date=15 January 2019, access-date=18 October 2021 and 1.5 million schools. In India's higher education system, a significant number of seats are reserved under Reservation in India, affirmative action policies for the historically disadvantaged. In recent decades India's improved education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to its economic development in India, economic development.{{Cite web, url=https://www.sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=1475704, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140220170624/https://www.sify.com/finance/india-achieves-27-decline-in-poverty-news-news-jegxaXgfcab.html, title=India achieves 27% decline in poverty, work=
Press Trust of India The Press Trust of India Ltd., commonly known as PTI, is the largest news agency in India. It is headquartered in New Delhi and is a nonprofit cooperative among more than 500 Indian newspapers. It has over 500 full-time employees , including abo ...
via Sify.com, date=12 September 2008, archive-date=20 February 2014, access-date=18 October 2021, url-status=dead


Clothing

{{Main, Clothing in India {{multiple image, perrow = 2, total_width = 360 , align = right , image_style = border:none; , image1 = India School.jpg , caption1 = Women in sari at an adult literacy class in Tamil Nadu , image2 = Water pump, Varanasi (15563170660) Cropped.jpg , caption2 = A man in dhoti and wearing a woollen shawl, in Varanasi From ancient times until the advent of the modern, the most widely worn traditional dress in India was draped.{{harvnb, Tarlo, 1996, p=26 For women it took the form of a sari, a single piece of cloth many yards long. The sari was traditionally wrapped around the lower body and the shoulder. In its modern form, it is combined with an underskirt, or Indian Petticoat#Asian petticoats, petticoat, and tucked in the waist band for more secure fastening. It is also commonly worn with an Indian blouse, or choli, which serves as the primary upper-body garment, the sari's end—passing over the shoulder—serving to cover the midriff and obscure the upper body's contours. For men, a similar but shorter length of cloth, the dhoti, has served as a lower-body garment.{{harvnb, Tarlo, 1996, pp=26–28 {{multiple image, perrow = 1, total_width = 180 , align = left , image_style = border:none; , image1 = Strolling Shoppers in Paltan Bazaar.jpg , caption1 = Women (from left to right) in churidars and kameez (with back to the camera), jeans and sweater, and pink Shalwar kameez; The use of stitched clothes became widespread after Muslim rule was established at first by the Delhi sultanate (ca 1300 CE) and then continued by the
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
(ca 1525 CE).{{citation , last=Alkazi , first=Roshen , editor=Rahman, Abdur , title=India's Interaction with China, Central and West Asia , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NZvpAAAAMAAJ , year=2002 , publisher=
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, isbn=978-0-19-565789-0 , pages=464–484 , chapter=Evolution of Indian Costume as a result of the links between Central Asia and India in ancient and medieval times
Among the garments introduced during this time and still commonly worn are: the shalwars and pyjamas, both styles of trousers, and the tunics kurta and kameez. In southern India, the traditional draped garments were to see much longer continuous use. Shalwars are atypically wide at the waist but narrow to a cuffed bottom. They are held up by a drawstring, which causes them to become pleated around the waist.{{citation, last1=Stevenson, first1=Angus, last2=Waite, first2=Maurice, title=Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Book & CD-ROM Set, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4XycAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1272, year=2011, publisher=
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, access-date=3 September 2019, isbn=978-0-19-960110-3, page=1272
The pants can be wide and baggy, or they can be cut quite narrow, on the Grain (textile)#Bias, bias, in which case they are called churidars. When they are ordinarily wide at the waist and their bottoms are hemmed but not cuffed, they are called pyjamas. The kameez is a long shirt or tunic,{{citation, last1=Stevenson, first1=Angus, last2=Waite, first2=Maurice, title=Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Book & CD-ROM Set, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4XycAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA774, year=2011, publisher=
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, isbn=978-0-19-960110-3, page=774
its side seams left open below the waist-line. The kurta is traditionally collarless and made of cotton or silk; it is worn plain or with embroidered decoration, such as chikan (embroidery), chikan; and typically falls to either just above or just below the wearer's knees.{{citation, last=Shukla, first=Pravina, title=The Grace of Four Moons: Dress, Adornment, and the Art of the Body in Modern India, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MlObCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA71, year=2015, publisher=Indiana University Press, isbn=978-0-253-02121-2, page=71 In the last 50 years, fashions have changed a great deal in India. Increasingly, in urban northern India, the sari is no longer the apparel of everyday wear, though they remain popular on formal occasions.{{citation, last=Dwyer, first=Rachel, author-link=Rachel Dwyer, title=Bollywood's India: Hindi Cinema as a Guide to Contemporary India, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DqwBBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA244, year=2014, publisher=Reaktion Books, isbn=978-1-78023-304-8, pages=244–245 The traditional shalwar kameez is rarely worn by younger urban women, who favour churidars or jeans. In white-collar office settings, ubiquitous air conditioning allows men to wear sports jackets year-round. For weddings and formal occasions, men in the middle- and upper classes often wear bandgala, or short Nehru jackets, with pants, with the groom and his groomsmen sporting sherwanis and churidars. The dhoti, once the universal garment of Hindu males, the wearing of which in the homespun and handwoven khadi allowed Gandhi to bring Indian nationalism to the millions,{{citation, last=Dwyer, first=Rachel, author-link=Rachel Dwyer, editor=Stella Bruzzi, Pamela Church Gibson, title=Fashion Cultures: Theories, Explorations and Analysis, chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FYGMAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA178, year=2013, publisher=
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
, isbn=978-1-136-29537-9, pages=178–189, chapter=Bombay Ishtyle
is seldom seen in the cities.


Cuisine

{{Main, Indian cuisine {{multiple image, perrow = 1/2, total_width = 180 , align = right , image_style = border:none; , image2 = Odia Mutton Curry (Mansha Tarkari) Rotated.jpg , caption2 = Mutton curry, Railway mutton curry from Odisha , image1 = South Indian Thali Cropped.jpg , caption1 = South Indian vegetarian thali, or platter The foundation of a typical Indian meal is a cereal cooked in a plain fashion and complemented with flavourful savoury dishes.{{citation, last=Davidson, first=Alan, title=The Oxford Companion to Food, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RL6LAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA409, year=2014, publisher=
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, isbn=978-0-19-967733-7, page=409
The cooked cereal could be steamed rice; chapati, a thin unleavened bread made from wheat flour, or occasionally cornmeal, and griddle-cooked dry;{{citation, last=Davidson, first=Alan, title=The Oxford Companion to Food, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RL6LAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA161, year=2014, publisher=
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, isbn=978-0-19-967733-7, page=161, quote=Chapatis are made from finely milled whole-wheat flour, called chapati flour or atta, and water. The dough is rolled into thin rounds which vary in size from region to region and then cooked without fat or oil on a slightly curved griddle called a tava.
the idli, a steamed breakfast cake, or Dosa (food), dosa, a griddled pancake, both leavened and made from a batter of rice- and Vigna mungo, gram meal.{{citation, last1=Tamang, first1=J. P., last2=Fleet, first2=G. H., editor1-last=Satyanarayana, editor1-first=T., editor2-last=Kunze, editor2-first=G., chapter=Yeasts Diversity in Fermented Foods and Beverages, title=Yeast Biotechnology: Diversity and Applications, publisher=Springer, page=180, chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jLFmiervaqMC&pg=PA180, year=2009, isbn=978-1-4020-8292-4, quote=Idli is an acid-leavened and steamed cake made by bacterial fermentation of a thick batter made from coarsely ground rice and dehulled black gram. Idli cakes are soft, moist and spongy, have desirable sour flavour, and is eaten as breakfast in South India. Dosa batter is very similar to idli batter, except that both the rice and black gram are finely grounded. The batter is thinner than that of idli and is fried as a thin, crisp pancake and eaten directly in South India. The savoury dishes might include lentils, pulses and vegetables commonly spiced with ginger root, ginger and garlic, but also with a combination of spices that may include coriander, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamon and others as informed by culinary conventions. They might also include poultry, fish, or meat dishes. In some instances, the ingredients might be mixed during the process of cooking.{{citation, last=Jhala, first=Angma Day, title=Royal Patronage, Power and Aesthetics in Princely India, publisher=Routledge, page=70, year=2015, isbn=978-1-317-31657-2, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WGpECgAAQBAJ&pg=PA70, quote=With the ascent of the Mughal Empire in sixteenth-century India, Turkic, Persian and Afghan traditions of dress, 'architecture and cuisine' were adopted by non-Muslim indigenous elites in South Asia. In this manner, Central Asian cooking merged with older traditions within the subcontinent, to create such signature dishes as biryani (a fusion of the Persian pilau and the spice-laden dishes of Hindustan), and the Kashmiri meat stew of Rogan Josh. It not only generated new dishes and entire cuisines, but also fostered novel modes of eating. Such newer trends included the consumption of Persian condiments, which relied heavily on almonds, pastries and quince jams, alongside Indian achars made from sweet limes, green vegetables and curds as side relishes during Mughlai meals. A platter, or thali, used for eating usually has a central place reserved for the cooked cereal, and peripheral ones for the flavourful accompaniments, which are often served in small bowls. The cereal and its accompaniments are eaten simultaneously rather than a piecemeal manner. This is accomplished by mixing—for example of rice and lentils—or folding, wrapping, scooping or dipping—such as chapati and cooked vegetables or lentils. India has distinctive vegetarian cuisines, each a feature of the geographical and cultural histories of its adherents.{{citation, last=Davidson, first=Alan, title=The Oxford Companion to Food, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RL6LAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA410, year=2014, publisher=
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, isbn=978-0-19-967733-7, page=410
The appearance of ''ahimsa'', or the avoidance of violence toward all forms of life in many religious orders early in Indian history, especially Upanishads, Upanishadic Hinduism,
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
and
Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current ...
, is thought to have contributed to the predominance of vegetarianism among a large segment of India's Hindu population, especially in southern India, Gujarat, the
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
-speaking belt of north-central India, as well as among Jains. Although meat is eaten widely in India, the proportional consumption of meat in the overall diet is low.{{citation, last1=Sahakian, first1=Marlyne, last2=Saloma, first2=Czarina, last3=Erkman, first3=Suren, title=Food Consumption in the City: Practices and patterns in urban Asia and the Pacific, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TBIxDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT50, year=2016, publisher=Taylor & Francis, isbn=978-1-317-31050-1, page=50 Unlike China, which has increased its per capita meat consumption substantially in its years of increased economic growth, in India the strong dietary traditions have contributed to dairy, rather than meat, becoming the preferred form of animal protein consumption.{{citation, author1=OECD, author2=Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, title=OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2018–2027, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JuBiDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA21, year=2018, publisher=OECD Publishing, isbn=978-92-64-06203-0, page=21 The most significant import of cooking techniques into India during the last millennium occurred during the
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
. Dishes such as the pilaf,{{sfn, Roger, 2000 developed in the Abbasid caliphate,{{citation, last=Sengupta, first=Jayanta , editor=Freedman, Paul , editor2=Chaplin, Joyce E. , editor3=Albala, Ken , title=Food in Time and Place: The American Historical Association Companion to Food History, chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SNQkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA74, year=2014, publisher=University of California Press, isbn=978-0-520-27745-8, page=74, chapter=India and cooking techniques such as the marinating of meat in yogurt, spread into northern India from regions to its northwest.{{citation, last=Collingham, first=Elizabeth M., title=Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pH88DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA25, year=2007, publisher=
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, isbn=978-0-19-532001-5, page=25
To the simple yogurt marinade of Persia, onions, garlic, almonds, and spices began to be added in India. Rice was partially cooked and layered alternately with the sauteed meat, the pot sealed tightly, and slow cooked according to another Persian cooking technique, to produce what has today become the Indian biryani, a feature of festive dining in many parts of India.{{citation, last1=Nandy, first1=Ashis, author-link=Ashis Nandy, title=The Changing Popular Culture of Indian Food: Preliminary Notes, journal=South Asia Research, volume=24, issue=1, year=2004 , pages=9–19, issn=0262-7280, doi=10.1177/0262728004042760, citeseerx=10.1.1.830.7136, s2cid=143223986 In the food served in Indian restaurants worldwide the diversity of Indian food has been partially concealed by the dominance of Punjabi cuisine. The popularity of tandoori chicken—cooked in the tandoor oven, which had traditionally been used for baking bread in the rural Punjab and the Delhi region, especially among Muslims, but which is originally from
Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
—dates to the 1950s, and was caused in large part by an entrepreneurial response among people from the Punjab who had been displaced by the 1947
partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...
.


Sports and recreation

{{Main, Sport in India {{multiple image , perrow = 1 , total_width = 220 , image_style = border:none; , align = right , image1 = Filles jouant à la marelle, Jaura, Inde.jpg , caption1 = Girls play hopscotch in Jaora, Madhya Pradesh. Hopscotch has been commonly played by girls in rural India.{{citation, last1=Srinivasan, first1=Radhika, last2=Jermyn, first2=Leslie, last3=Lek, first3=Hui Hui, title=India, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zoVby4OJWhYC&pg=PA109, year=2001, publisher=Times Books International, isbn=978-981-232-184-8, page=109 Quote: "Girls in India usually play jump rope, or hopscotch, and five stones, tossing the stones up in the air and catching them in many different ways ... the coconut-plucking contests, groundnut-eating races, ... of rural India." , direction = , alt1 = Several Traditional games of India, traditional indigenous sports such as ''kabaddi'', ''kho kho'', ''pehlwani'' and ''gilli-danda'', and also Indian martial arts, martial arts, such as ''Kalarippayattu'' and ''marma adi'' remain popular. Chess is commonly held to have History of chess#India, originated in India as ''chaturanga, chaturaṅga'';{{sfn, Wolpert, 2003, p = 2 There has been a rise in the number of Indian Grandmaster (chess), grandmasters.{{sfn, Rediff 2008 b Viswanathan Anand became the World Chess Championship 2007, Chess World Champion in 2007 and held the status until 2013. Parcheesi is derived from ''Pachisi'' another traditional Indian pastime, which in early modern times was played on a giant marble court by Mughal Empire, Mughal emperor Akbar the Great.{{sfn, Binmore, 2007, p = 98 Cricket is the most popular sport in India. Major domestic competitions include the Indian Premier League, which is the most-watched cricket league in the world and ranks sixth among all sports leagues. Other professional leagues include the Indian Super League (football) and the Pro Kabaddi League, pro Kabaddi league. India has won two One Day International, ODI Cricket World Cup, Cricket world cups, the 1983 Cricket World Cup, 1983 edition and the 2011 Cricket World Cup, 2011 edition, as well as becoming the inaugural Twenty20 International Cricket Champions in 2007 ICC World Twenty20, 2007 and has eight field hockey gold medals in the Field hockey at the Summer Olympics, summer olympics The improved results garnered by the India Davis Cup team, Indian Davis Cup team and other :Indian tennis players, Indian tennis players in the early 2010s have made tennis increasingly popular in the country.{{sfn, Futterman, Sharma, 2009 India has a :Indian sport shooters, comparatively strong presence in shooting sports, and has won several medals at the Olympic Games, Olympics, the ISSF World Shooting Championships, World Shooting Championships, and the Commonwealth Games.{{sfn, Commonwealth Games 2010{{sfn, Cyriac, 2010 Other sports in which Indians have succeeded internationally include badminton{{sfn, British Broadcasting Corporation 2010 a (Saina Nehwal and P. V. Sindhu are two of the top-ranked female badminton players in the world), boxing,{{sfn, Mint 2010 and wrestling.{{sfn, Xavier, 2010 Football in India, Football is popular in West Bengal, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and the Seven Sister States, north-eastern states.{{sfn, Majumdar, Bandyopadhyay, 2006, pp = 1–5 India has hosted or co-hosted several international sporting events: the 1951 and 1982 Asian Games; the 1987 Cricket World Cup, 1987, 1996 Cricket World Cup, 1996, and 2011 Cricket World Cup tournaments; the 2003 Afro-Asian Games; the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy; the 2009 BWF World Championships, 2009 World Badminton Championships; the 2010 Men's Hockey World Cup, 2010 Hockey World Cup; the 2010 Commonwealth Games; and the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup. Major international sporting events held annually in India include the Maharashtra Open, the Mumbai Marathon, the Delhi Half Marathon, and the Indian Masters. The first Formula One, Formula 1 Indian Grand Prix featured in late 2011 but has been discontinued from the F1 season calendar since 2014.{{sfn, Dehejia, 2011 India has traditionally been the dominant country at the South Asian Games. An example of this dominance is the Basketball at the South Asian Games, basketball competition where the India national basketball team, Indian team won three out of four tournaments to date.{{cite news , title=Basketball team named for 11th South Asian Games , url=https://nation.com.pk/02-Jan-2010/basketball-team-named-for-11th-south-asian-games , access-date=23 November 2019 , work=The Nation (Pakistan), The Nation , publisher=Nawaiwaqt Group , date=2 January 2010 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121202035448/https://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/lahore/02-Jan-2010/Basketball-team-named-for-11th-South-Asian-Games , archive-date=2 December 2012 , url-status=live


See also

{{Portal, India, Asia * Outline of India {{Clear


Notes

{{notes, refs={{efn, name=remaining religions, Besides specific religions, the last two categories in the 2011 Census were "Other religions and persuasions" (0.65%) and "Religion not stated" (0.23%)., 33em


References

{{Reflist, 30em


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