The Republic of India, commonly known as India, is a sovereign country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second most populous country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world. India has a coastline of over seven thousand kilometres, bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the east. India borders Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia.
 

    Home to the Indus Valley civilization and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four major world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated here, while Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism arrived in the first millennium AD and shaped the region's variegated culture. Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and colonised by Great Britain from the mid-nineteenth century, India became a modern nation-state in 1947 after a struggle for independence marked by widespread use of non-violent resistance under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.

    With the world's 4th largest economy in purchasing power and the 12th largest by exchange rates, India has made rapid economic progress in the last decade. Although the country's standard of living is projected to rise sharply in the next half-century, it currently battles high levels of poverty, illiteracy, persistent malnutrition, and environmental degradation. A pluralistic, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic society, India is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats.

Nikhil

nihhu99@yahoo.co.in