As a country located in Asia according to INTERNETSAILORS, India – officially the Republic of India – is a country located in South Asia. It is the seventh largest country, and the second most populated. It borders the Indian Ocean to the south, the Sea of Oman to the west, and the Gulf of Bengal to the east. India also borders Pakistan to the west; to the north with China, Nepal and Bhutan and to the east with Bangladesh and Burma.
Home to the culture of the Indus River Valley – located in present-day Pakistan – and a historic region for its trade routes and great empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified for its cultural and commercial wealth for most of its long history.
Name
The name India derives from the name of the Indus River, which comes from the Persian Hindu word, and this from the Sanskrit sindhu (‘river’), which was the historical local name for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as indoi (the ‘Indus people’).
The name ‘Hindustan’ comes from ‘Hindustan’, originally a Persian word for the ‘land of the Hindus’, referring to the region near the Indus River, in northwestern India, although it eventually began to be used as a synonym for the entire Indian continent.
The Constitution of India and several languages spoken in the country also recognize Bharat as the official name of the state. Bharat derives from the name of the legendary king of Hindu mythology, Bharata.
Characteristics
Climate: Most of India has a tropical climate
Population: the country’s population (according to estimates for 1998) was 984 million residents; in 1980 the population was 690 million, then the population increased by 294 million residents. Less than 3% of Indian households have incomes of more than $ 2,500 annually. Life expectancy was approximately 62.9 years. 73% of the population lives in rural areas.
Music: The sitar is the best known of the Indian instruments. It is a long-necked lute that is used in the classical music of North India.
Art: It is characterized by a great sense of drawing, patent both in its modern and traditional forms, a genuine sample is the rangoli.
Language: More than 1600 languages or dialects are spoken in India, comprised of 14 large groups. The constitution stipulates that Hindi (spoken by 30% of the population) is the official language of the country, while English is a language associated with administrative matters.
Religion: The major religious groups in India are Hinduism (83%), Islam (11%), Christianity (2%) and Sikhism (2%).
Education
Schools
In 1996, 110 million students were enrolled in 581,305 primary schools, and 68.9 million in middle, basic and upper secondary schools.
Universities
At the beginning of the 1990s, India had 149 universities, 10 institutions of national importance and 34 institutions with university rank and more than 7000 technical, arts and science colleges. The total number of students in Indian universities was 6.06 million in 1996.
Other centers of study and research are the Indian Institutes of Science in Bangalore and the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in Bombay.
