INDIA-THE WORLD’S LARGEST DEMOCRACY COUNTRY

INDIA-THE WORLD’S LARGEST

DEMOCRACY COUNTRY

 India is the World’s largest Democracy and most populous country emerged as a major power in the 1990s. It is militarily strong, has major cultural influence and a fast-growing and powerful economy.)

A nuclear-armed state, it carried out tests in the 1970s and again in the 1990s in defiance of world opinion. However, India is still tackling huge social, economic and environmental problems. The vast and diverse Indian sub-continent - from the mountainous Afghan frontier to the jungles of Burma - was under foreign rule from the early 1800s until the demise of the British Raj in 1947. The subsequent partition of the sub-continent - into present-day India and Pakistan - sowed the seeds for future conflict. There have been three wars between India and its arch-rival Pakistan since 1947, two of them over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

A peace process, which started in 2004, stayed on track despite tension over Kashmir and several high-profile bombings until the Mumbai attacks of November 2008, which police blamed on Pakistani militants. India announced that the process was on pause the following month. With its many languages, cultures and religions, India is highly diverse. This is also reflected in its federal political system, whereby power is shared between the central government and 28 states. However, communal, caste and regional tensions continue to haunt Indian politics, sometimes threatening its long-standing democratic and secular ethos.

In 1984 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her Sikh bodyguards after ordering troops to flush out Sikh militants from the Golden Temple in Amritsar. And in 1992, widespread Hindu-Muslim violence erupted after Hindu extremists demolished the Babri mosque at Ayodhya. Independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, dreamed of a socialist society and created a vast public infrastructure, much of which became a burden on the state. From the late 1980s India began to open up to the outside world, encouraging economic reform and foreign investment. It is now courted by the world's leading economic and political powers, including its one-time foe China. The country has a burgeoning urban middle class and has made great strides in fields such as information technology. Its large, skilled workforce makes it a popular choice for international companies seeking to outsource work. But the vast mass of the rural population and urban slum-dwellers remains impoverished. Their lives continue to be influenced by the ancient Hindu caste system, which assigns each person a place in the social hierarchy. Discrimination on the basis of caste is now illegal and various measures have been introduced to empower disadvantaged groups and give them easier access to opportunities - such as education and work. Poverty alleviation and literacy campaigns are ongoing

Nuclear tests carried out by India in May 1998 and similar tests by Pakistan just weeks later provoked international condemnation and concern over the stability of the region. The US quickly imposed sanctions on India, but more recently the two countries have improved their ties, and even agreed to share nuclear technology. India launches its own satellites and in 2008 sent its first spacecraft to the moon. It also boasts a massive cinema industry, the products of which are among the most widely-watched films in the world.

Full name: Republic of India Population: 1.2 billion (UN, Capital: New Delhi Most-populated city: Mumbai (Bombay) Area: 3.1 million sq km (1.2 million sq miles), excluding Indian-administered Kashmir (100,569 sq km/38,830 sq miles) Major languages: Hindi, English and at least 16 other official languages Major religions: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism Life expectancy: 64 years (men), 67 years (women) (UN) Monetary unit: 1 Indian Rupee = 100 paise Main exports: Agricultural products, textile goods, gems and jewellery, software services and technology, engineering goods, chemicals, leather products  GNI per capita: US $1180 (World Bank, 2009) Internet domain: .in International dialling code:

Doordarshan, the public TV, operates 21 services including its flagship DD1 channel, which reaches some 400 million viewers. Multichannel, direct-to-home (DTH) TV has been a huge hit. Five operators - Dish TV, Tata-Sky, Sun Direct, Big TV and Airtel Digital TV - have attracted millions of subscribers. State-owned Doordarshan Direct offers a free-to-air DTH service. Some industry sources say the number of DTH subscribers could reach 60 million by 2015. The cable TV market is one of the world's largest.  Since they were given the green light in 2000, music-based FM radio stations have proliferated in the cities. But only public All India Radio can broadcast news.  India's press is lively. Driven by a growing middle class, newspaper circulation has risen and new titles compete with established dailies. Internet use has soared; by the end of 2010, around 100 million Indians were online (Internetworldstats). There were more than 23 million Facebook users in India by March 2011. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders says "journalists' safety is precarious in some states in which press freedom is under threat from politicians, religious groups and criminal gangs" India Annual report 2011

                                                     Prof. John Kurakar