India Wins Freedom

India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia.

Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent 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. Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE.(a) ;
(b)
By , an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused 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 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''. Preserved by a resolutely vigilant oral tradition, the ''Rigveda'' records the dawning of Hinduism in India.(a) ;
(b) ;
(c)
(d) The Dravidian languages of India were supplanted in the northern and western regions.
By , stratification and exclusion by caste had emerged within Hinduism,
and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity.
Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires based in the Ganges Basin.(a) ;
(b) ;
(c) ;
(d) .
Their collective era 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 into an organised system of belief. In South India, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian-languages scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia.

In the early medieval era, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism became established on India's southern and western coasts.(a) ;

(b) ;

(c)
Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran India's northern plains,(a) ;
(b)
eventually founding the Delhi Sultanate, and drawing northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam.(a) ;

(b)
In the 15th century, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture in south India.
In the Punjab, Sikhism emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion.
The Mughal Empire, 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.(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 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 and a Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan, amid large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration.

India has been a federal republic since 1950, governed through a democratic parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual 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 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. It has disputes over Kashmir 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.
India's land is megadiverse, with four biodiversity hotspots. 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'' (third edition 2009), the name "India" is derived from the Classical Latin ''India'', a reference to South Asia and an uncertain region to its east; and in turn derived successively from: Hellenistic Greek ''India'' ('' Ἰνδία''); ancient Greek ''Indos'' ('' Ἰνδός''); Old Persian '' Hindush'', an eastern province of the Achaemenid Empire; and ultimately its cognate, the Sanskrit ''Sindhu'', or "river," specifically the Indus River and, by implication, its well-settled southern basin. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as ''Indoi'' ('), which translates as "The people of the Indus".

The term ''Bharat'' (; ), mentioned in both Indian epic poetry and the Constitution of India, is used in its variations by many Indian languages. A modern rendering of the historical name ''Bharatavarsha'', which applied originally to North India, ''Bharat'' gained increased currency from the mid-19th century as a native name for India.

''Hindustan'' () is a Middle Persian name for India, introduced during the Mughal Empire and used widely since. Its meaning has varied, referring to a region encompassing present-day northern India and Pakistan or to India in its near entirety.

History

Ancient India

By 55,000 years ago, the first modern humans, or ''Homo sapiens'', 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 and other sites in what is now Balochistan, Pakistan. These gradually developed into the Indus Valley Civilisation, 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, Dholavira, and Kalibangan, 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 cultures to the Iron Age ones. The Vedas, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism, were composed during this period, and historians have analysed these to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and the upper Gangetic Plain. Most historians also consider this period to have encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent from the north-west. The caste system, 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, archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom stage of political organisation. In South India, a progression to sedentary life is indicated by the large number of megalithic monuments dating from this period, as well as by nearby traces of agriculture, irrigation tanks, 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 emerging urbanisation gave rise to non-Vedic religious movements, two of which became independent religions. Jainism came into prominence during the life of its exemplar, Mahavira. Buddhism, based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha, 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 had annexed or reduced other states to emerge as the Mauryan Empire. 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''.

The Sangam literature of the Tamil language reveals that, between and , the southern peninsula was ruled by the Cheras, the Cholas, and the Pandyas, dynasties that traded extensively with the Roman Empire and with West and Southeast Asia. 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 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 and architecture, which found patrons among an urban elite. Classical Sanskrit literature flowered as well, and Indian science, astronomy, medicine, and 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 ruler of the Deccan. When his successor attempted to expand eastwards, he was defeated by the Pala king of Bengal. When the Chalukyas attempted to expand southwards, they were defeated by the Pallavas from farther south, who in turn were opposed by the Pandyas and the Cholas 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, Thailand, Laos, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. 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 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. 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 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, 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, literary forms, textiles, and architecture. Newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the Rajputs, and the Sikhs, 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, 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 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 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 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. However, disaffection with the company also grew during this time and set off the Indian Rebellion of 1857. 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 and with Pakistan. 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. India's defining geological processes began 75 million years ago when the Indian Plate, then part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, began a north-eastward drift caused by seafloor spreading to its south-west, and later, south and south-east. Simultaneously, the vast Tethyan oceanic crust, to its northeast, began to subduct under the Eurasian Plate. These dual processes, driven by convection in the Earth's mantle, both created the Indian Ocean and caused the Indian continental crust eventually to under-thrust Eurasia and to uplift the Himalayas. Immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast crescent-shaped trough that rapidly filled with river-borne sediment and now constitutes the Indo-Gangetic Plain. The original Indian plate makes its first appearance above the sediment in the ancient Aravalli range, which extends from the Delhi Ridge in a southwesterly direction. To the west lies the Thar Desert, 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, the oldest and geologically most stable part of India. It extends as far north as the Satpura and Vindhya 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 in Jharkhand in the east. To the south, the remaining peninsular landmass, the Deccan Plateau, is flanked on the west and east by coastal ranges known as the Western and Eastern Ghats; 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% mudflats or marshy shores.

Major Himalayan-origin rivers that substantially flow through India include the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, both of which drain into the Bay of Bengal.{{sfn, Dikshit , Schwartzberg, p=15 Important tributaries of the Ganges include the Yamuna and the Kosi; 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 Mahanadi, the Kaveri, and the Krishna, which also drain into the Bay of Bengal;{{sfn, Dikshit , Schwartzberg, p=16 and the Narmada and the Tapti, which drain into the Arabian Sea.{{sfn, Dikshit , Schwartzberg, p=17 Coastal features include the marshy Rann of Kutch 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 archipelagos: the Lakshadweep, coral atolls off India's south-western coast; and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a volcanic chain in the Andaman Sea.{{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 monsoons.{{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, 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 is often thought to be the cause. The retreat of Himalayan glaciers has adversely affected the flow rate of the major Himalayan rivers, including the Ganges and the Brahmaputra.{{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 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 and contain many species exclusively indigenous, or endemic, to them. India is a habitat for 8.6% of all mammal species, 13.7% of bird species, 7.9% of reptile species, 6% of amphibian species, 12.2% of fish species, and 6.0% of all flowering plant 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 region which has more than 1,500 vascular plant 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, 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.{{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, access-date=16 October 2021 It predominates in the tropical moist forest of the Andaman Islands, the Western Ghats, and Northeast India.{{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 Himalayas, the moist deciduous ''sal'' forest of eastern India, and the dry deciduous teak 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, 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'', or ''neem'', which is widely used in rural Indian herbal medicine,{{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, 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'', 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, 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, 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 is recorded in the Pali canon 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, isbn=978-1-4443-6005-9, page=358, quote=The tree under which Sakyamuni became the Buddha is a peepal tree (''Ficus religiosa'').

Many Indian species have descended from those of Gondwana, 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 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 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 , publisher=IUCN , 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-designated threatened animal species, or 2.9% of endangered forms.{{sfn, Mace, 1994, p = 4 These include the endangered Bengal tiger and the Ganges river dolphin. Critically endangered species include: the gharial, a crocodilian; the great Indian bustard; and the Indian white-rumped vulture, 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, 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 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 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 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; twenty-five wetlands are registered under the Ramsar Convention.{{sfn, Secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands

Politics and government

Politics

{{Main, Politics of India
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, caption1 = Social movements have long been a part of democracy in India. The picture shows a section of 25,000 landless people in the state of Madhya Pradesh listening to Rajagopal P. V. before their {{cvt, 350, km march, Janadesh 2007, from Gwalior to New Delhi to publicise their demand for further land reform in India.{{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, isbn=978-0-429-88566-2, page=83
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India is the world's most populous democracy.{{sfn, United Nations Population Division A parliamentary republic with a multi-party system,{{sfn, Burnell, Calvert, 1999, p = 125 it has eight{{Nbsprecognised national parties, including the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and more than 40{{Nbsp regional parties.{{sfn, Election Commission of India The Congress is considered centre-left in Indian political culture, and the BJP right-wing.{{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 governments 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-led Congress won easy victories. On Nehru's death in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri briefly became prime minister; he was succeeded, after his own unexpected death in 1966, by Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, who went on to lead the Congress to election victories in 1967 and 1971. Following public discontent with the state of emergency she declared in 1975, the Congress was voted out of power in 1977; the then-new Janata Party, 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, 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 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 led by P. V. Narasimha Rao.

{{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 in New Delhi, US president Barack Obama is shown here addressing the members of Parliament of both houses, the lower, Lok Sabha, and the upper, Rajya Sabha, 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 coalitions, which depended on external support. In 1998, the BJP was able to form a successful coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the NDA became the first non-Congress, coalition government to complete a five-year term.{{sfn, Dunleavy, Diwakar, Dunleavy, 2007 Again in the 2004 Indian general elections, no party won an absolute majority, but the Congress emerged as the largest single party, forming another successful coalition: the United Progressive Alliance (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 became the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru in 1957 and 1962 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, a former chief minister of Gujarat. On 22 July 2022, Droupadi Murmu 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 official residence of the President of India, was designed by British architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker for the Viceroy of India, and constructed between 1911 and 1931 during the British Raj.{{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, isbn=978-0-19-102232-6, page=117
India is a federation with a parliamentary system governed under the Constitution of India—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, democratic republic;" 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''
, song="Vande Mataram"
, 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, 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, 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 via The Hindu, 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 = ₹ (Indian rupee)
, calendar = Saka
, animal = {{plainlist,
* Bengal tiger
* River dolphin
* Indian peafowl

, flower = Lotus
, fruit = Mango
, tree = Banyan
, river = Ganges

The Government of India comprises three branches:
* Executive: The President of India is the ceremonial head of state,{{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 is the head of government 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 or political alliance 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, and the Union Council of Ministers—with the cabinet 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 act as permanent executives and all decisions of the executive are implemented by them.{{sfn, Mathew, 2003, p = 524
* Legislature: The legislature of India is the bicameral parliament. Operating under a Westminster-style parliamentary system, it comprises an upper house called the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and a lower house called the Lok Sabha (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 in the article 331, have been scrapped.
* Judiciary: India has a three-tier{{Nbspunitary independent judiciary{{sfn, Neuborne, 2003, p = 478 comprising the supreme court, headed by the Chief Justice of India, 25{{Nbsphigh courts, and a large number of trial courts.{{sfn, Neuborne, 2003, p = 478 The supreme court has original jurisdiction over cases involving fundamental rights and over disputes between states and the centre and has appellate jurisdiction 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 8 union territories.{{sfn, Library of Congress, 2004 All states, as well as the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry and the 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, 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
# Haryana
# Himachal Pradesh
# Jharkhand
# Karnataka
# Kerala
# Madhya Pradesh
# Maharashtra
# Manipur
# Meghalaya
# Mizoram
# Nagaland
# Odisha
# 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
, Chandigarh
, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu
, Jammu and Kashmir
, Ladakh
, Lakshadweep
, National Capital Territory of Delhi
, Puducherry

{{clear

Foreign, economic and strategic relations

{{Main, Foreign relations of India, Indian Armed Forces
{{multiple image, perrow=1, total_width=220
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, 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, 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 Yugoslavia and Jawaharlal Nehru in Belgrade, September 1961.

In the 1950s, India strongly supported decolonisation in Africa and Asia and 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 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 tense relations with neighbouring Pakistan; the two nations have gone to war four times: in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999. Three of these wars were fought over the disputed territory of Kashmir, while the fourth, the 1971 war, followed from India's support for the 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 peace-keeping operation in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990; and an armed intervention to prevent a 1988 coup d'état attempt in the Maldives. After the 1965 war with Pakistan, India began to pursue close military and economic 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 special relationship with Russia, India has wide-ranging defence relations with Israel and 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 military and police personnel to serve in 35 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

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, 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 , 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

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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

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, 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 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
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, 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, 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 (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 rupees) 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

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, 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
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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
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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, indigenous to South Asia 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, 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 (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, Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, and Jainism 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 language.{{sfn, Hoiberg, Ramchandani, 2000 Major works of Sanskrit literature include the ''Rigveda'' ({{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 ({{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 It is an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Culture (India), Ministry of culture, Government of India.

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 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, 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 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
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, 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
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, 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 (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 , 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, 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, 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, isbn=978-1-136-29537-9, pages=178–189, chapter=Bombay Ishtyle
is seldom seen in the cities.

Cuisine

{{Main, Indian cuisine
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, 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, 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, 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, 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 and Jainism, 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-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. 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 , 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—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.

Sports and recreation

{{Main, Sport in India
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, 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 =
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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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Etymology
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Geography
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Biodiversity
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* {{citation, date=4 June 2007, title=The List of Wetlands of International Importance, publisher=The Secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands, page=18, url=https://www.ramsar.org/sitelist.pdf, access-date=20 June 2007, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070621011113/https://www.ramsar.org/sitelist.pdf , archive-date=21 June 2007, ref={{sfnRef, Secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands
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Politics
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Foreign relations and military
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Economy
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* {{citation , date=October 2007 , title=Economic Survey of India 2007: Policy Brief , publisher=Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , url=https://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/52/39452196.pdf , access-date=22 July 2011 , ref={{sfnRef, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2007 , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606112149/https://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/52/39452196.pdf , archive-date=6 June 2011
* {{citation, date=April 2011, title=Report for Selected Countries and Subjects: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, publisher=International Monetary Fund , url=https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=25&pr.y=15&sy=1991&ey=2012&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=512%2C558%2C513%2C564%2C566%2C524%2C534%2C578%2C536%2C548&s=NGDPDPC&grp=0&a=, access-date=23 July 2011, ref={{sfnRef, International Monetary Fund 2011b
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* {{citation , year=1995 , title=Understanding the WTO: The Organization Members and Observers , publisher=World Trade Organization , url=https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/org6_e.htm , access-date=23 June 2012 , ref={{sfnRef, World Trade Organization 1995 , archive-date=29 December 2009, archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20091229021759/https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/org6_e.htm
* {{citation, date=June 2011, title=World Economic Outlook Update, publisher=International Monetary Fund, url=https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2009&ey=2016&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=512%2C548%2C558%2C564%2C566%2C524%2C578%2C534%2C536&s=NGDPDPC&grp=0&a=&pr.x=60&pr.y=17, access-date=22 July 2011, ref={{sfnRef, International Monetary Fund 2011a
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Demographics
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* {{citation, last=Chandramouli, first=C., date=15 July 2011, title=Rural Urban Distribution of Population, publisher=Ministry of Home Affairs (India), url=https://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/paper2/data_files/india/Rural_Urban_2011.pdf, access-date=24 January 2015
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* {{citation, last=Dyson, first=Tim, title=A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day, year=2018, publisher=Oxford University Press, isbn=978-0-19-882905-8 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ
* {{citation, last=Fisher, first=Michael H., year=2018, title=An Environmental History of India: From Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century, location=Cambridge and New York, publisher=Cambridge University Press , isbn=978-1-107-11162-2 , lccn=2018021693, doi=10.1017/9781316276044, s2cid=134229667 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kZVuDwAAQBAJ
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Art
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Culture
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External links

{{Sister project links, collapsible=collapsed, voy=India, India
Government

Official website of Government of India

Government of India Web Directory

General information

India
''The World Factbook''. Central Intelligence Agency.
* {{Curlie, Regional/Asia/India
* {{GovPubs, India

India
from the BBC News
* {{wikiatlas, India
* {{osmrelation-inline, 304716

Key Development Forecasts for India
from International Futures

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Member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
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