About India

  India

India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: Bhārat Gaṇarājya), 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 to the south, the Arabian Sea to the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal to 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 close to Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia.

Modern humans arrived in the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago. Their long occupation, initially in various forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers, made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human genetic diversity. Settled life appeared on the subcontinent at the western edge of the Indus River Basin 9,000 years ago and gradually evolved into the Indus Valley Civilization of the third millennium BC.By 1200 BC, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had spread to India from the northwest.We find its evidence today in the hymns of the Rigveda. Preserved by a decidedly vigilant oral tradition, the Rigveda records the dawn of Hinduism in India.The Dravidian languages ​​of India were replaced in the northern and western regions.Around 400 BCE, Hinduism saw the emergence of stratification and exclusion by caste and the emergence of Buddhism and Jainism, which proclaimed social orders not linked to heredity.Early political consolidations led to the emergence of the loosely connected Maurya and Gupta empires based in the Ganges basin. Their collective era was imbued with widespread creativity but also marked by the declining status of women And the incorporation of untouchability into an organized belief system. In southern India, the Middle Kingdom exported Dravidian scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia. .

In the early Middle Ages, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism established themselves on the southern and western coasts of India.Muslim armies from Central Asia occasionally occupied India's northern plains, eventually establishing the Sultanate of Delhi and drawing northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam.In the 15th century, the Vijayanagara Empire in southern India created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture.Sikhism emerged in Punjab, rejecting institutionalized religion.The Mughal Empire in 1526 ushered in two centuries of relative peace and left behind a legacy of resplendent architecture. This was followed by the gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company, turning India into a colonial economy but also consolidating its sovereignty.British Crown rule began in 1858. The rights promised to the Indians were slowly granted, but technological changes were introduced and modern ideas of education and public life took root. A pioneering and influential nationalist movement emerged that was known for nonviolent resistance and became a major factor in ending British rule.In 1947, the British Indian Empire was divided into two independent dominions,the Hindu-majority Dominion of India and the Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan, amid widespread loss of life and unprecedented migration.

Since 1950, India has been a federal republic governed by a democratic parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society. India's population has grown from 361 million in 1951 to 1.4 billion in 2022.At the same time, its nominal per capita income increased from US$64 per year to US$1,498 and its literacy rate from 16.6% to 74%. From a relatively poor country in 1951, India has become a rapidly growing major economy and information technology services center with an expanding middle class.It has a space program that includes several planned or completed extraterrestrial missions. Indian films, music and spiritual teachings play an increasingly important role in global culture. India has substantially reduced its poverty rate, albeit at the cost of growing economic inequality. It has disputes over Kashmir with its neighbors Pakistan and China, unresolved since the mid-20th century.Socio-economic issues facing India include gender inequality, child malnutrition and rising levels of air pollution. India's soil is very diverse, with four biodiversity hotspots. Its forest cover makes up 21.7% of its area. Indian wildlife, traditionally viewed with tolerance in Indian culture, is supported in these forests and elsewhere in protected areas.