India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: Bhārat Gaṇarājya),[24] 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;[f] 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.[25][26][27]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.[28] 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.[29]By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest,[30][31] unfolding as the language of the Rigveda, and recording the dawning of Hinduism in India.[32] The Dravidian languages of India were supplanted in the northern and western regions.[33]By 400 BCE, stratification and exclusion by caste had emerged within Hinduism,[34]and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity.[35]Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires based in the Ganges Basin.[36]Their collective era was suffused with wide-ranging creativity,[37] but also marked by the declining status of women,[38] and the incorporation of untouchability into an organised system of belief.[g] In South India, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian-languages scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia.[40]
In the early medieval era, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism put down roots on India's southern and western coasts.[41]Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran India's northern plains,[42]eventually establishing the Delhi Sultanate, and drawing northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam.[43]In the 15th century, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture in south India.[44]In the Punjab, Sikhism emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion.[45]The Mughal Empire, in 1526, ushered in two centuries of relative peace,[46]leaving a legacy of luminous architecture.[h][47]Gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company followed, turning India into a colonial economy, but also consolidating its sovereignty.[48] British Crown rule began in 1858. The rights promised to Indians were granted slowly,[49] but technological changes were introduced, and ideas of education, modernity and the public life took root.[51]A pioneering and influential nationalist movement emerged, which was noted for nonviolent resistance and became the major factor in ending British rule.[52] In 1947 the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two independent dominions, a Hindu-majority Dominion of India and a Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan, amid large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration.[53]
An illustration from an early-modern manuscript of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, composed in story-telling fashion
c. 400 BCE – c.
300 CE.
[74]Mauryan Empire,
c. 250 BCE.
[i]Cave 26 of the rock-cut Ajanta Caves, 5th century CE
A map of India in 1022 CE
Brihadeshwara temple, Thanjavur, completed in 1010 CE
India in 1398 CE, during the Delhi Sultanate (labelled "Afghan empire")
The Qutub Minar, 73 m (240 ft) tall, completed by the Sultan of Delhi, Iltutmish
India in 1525 at the onset of Mughal rule
India in 1605 during the rule of Akbar
A distant view of the Taj Mahal from the Agra Fort
A two mohur Company gold coin, issued in 1835, the obverse inscribed "William IV, King"
1909 map of the British Indian Empire
Jawaharlal Nehru sharing a light moment with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mumbai, 6 July 1946
India's orographical features
The Tungabhadra, with rocky outcrops, flows into the peninsular Krishna river.[172]
Fishing boats lashed together before a monsoon storm in a tidal creek in Anjarle village, Maharashtra.
A 1909 map showing India's forests, bush and small wood, cultivated lands, steppe, and desert.
A 2010 map showing India's forest cover averaged out for each state.
India has the majority of the world's wild tigers, approximately 3,000 in 2019.
[203] A Chital (Axis axis) stag attempts to browse in the Nagarhole National Park in a region covered by a moderately dense[l] forest.
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 350 km (220 mi) march, Janadesh 2007, from Gwalior to New Delhi to publicise their demand for further land reform in India.[216]
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.
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.[233]
A clickable map of the 28 states and 8 union territories of India
During the 1950s and 60s, India played a pivotal role in the Non-Aligned Movement.[258] 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.
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 the India's oldest regiment, the Maratha Light Infantry, founded in 1768.[268]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India (left, background) in talks with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico during a visit to Mexico, 2016
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 2018, 44% of India's total workforce was employed in agriculture.[290]
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.[292]
Women tend to a recently planted rice field in Junagadh district in Gujarat. 57% of India's female workforce was employed in agriculture in 2018.[291]
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.[315]
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.
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.[334]
The population density of India by natural divisions, based on the Indian census of 1901
Population density of India by each state, based on the Indian census of 2011
The prevailing religions of South Asia based on district-wise majorities in the 1901 census
The language families of South Asia
The interior of San Thome Basilica, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Christianity is believed to have been introduced to India by the late 2nd century by Syriac-speaking Christians.
A Sikh pilgrim at the Harmandir Sahib, or Golden Temple, in Amritsar, Punjab
The Taj Mahal showing the Yamuna river behind and the Mughal garden in front
India's National Academy of Performance Arts has recognised eight Indian dance styles to be classical. One such is Kuchipudi shown here.
Muslims offer namaz at a mosque in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir.
A Jain woman washes the feet of Bahubali Gomateswara at Shravanabelagola, Karnataka.
Children awaiting school lunch in Rayka (also Raika), a village in rural Gujarat. The salutation
Jai Bhim written on the blackboard honours the jurist, social reformer, and Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar.
Women in sari at an adult literacy class in Tamil Nadu
A man in dhoti and wearing a woollen shawl, in Varanasi
Women (from left to right) in churidars and kameez (with back to the camera), jeans and sweater, and pink Shalwar kameez;
Girls in the Kashmir region in embroidered hijab
A tailor in pagri and kameez working outside a fabric shop
South Indian vegetarian thali, or platter
Chicken biryani from Hyderabad
Home-cooked lunch delivered to the workplace by the Dabbawala.
Railway mutton curry from Odisha
A tandoor chef in the Turkman Gate, Old Delhi, makes Khameeri roti (a Muslim-influenced style of leavened bread).[466]
Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar about to score a record 14,000 runs in test cricket while playing against Australia in Bangalore, 2010.
Viswanathan Anand faced Garry Kasparov for the world championship in 1995 at the World Trade Center.
Girls play hopscotch in Jaora, Madhya Pradesh. Hopscotch has been commonly played by girls in rural India.[490]
