 SECOND ONLY
TO China in population, India is the world's
largest democracy. The country's 1 billion residents speak 1,500
languages and dialects, including the official tongues, Hindi and
English. Equally diverse is the subcontinent's geography. It ranges
from the frozen Himalayas in the north to the tropical Indian Ocean
in the south, with the sacred Ganges River flowing from west to
east. One third of the country lives in poverty, more than 50 years
after independence from Britain, which was celebrated in 1997. India
has four formal wars since independence, one against China and three
against officially Muslim Pakistan, which was also carved out of the
subcontinent as an independent country by the British colonial
rulers.
People |
Languages |
Hindi (national lang., primary tongue of 30% of
pop.), English (national, political, and commercial
lang.), 14 official languages |
| Major Religions
|
Hindu 80%, Muslim
14%, Christian 2.4%, Sikh 2%, Buddhist 0.7%, Jains 0.5%,
other 0.4% |
| Ethnic
groups |
Indo-Aryan 72%,
Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3% |
| Growth rate
|
1.71% |
| Birth
rate |
25.91
births/1,000 |
| Death rate
|
8.69
deaths/1,000 |
| Fertility
rate |
3.24
children/woman |
| Male life
expectancy |
62 |
| Female life
expectancy |
63 |
| Infant
mortality rate |
63.14 deaths/1,000
live births |
Economy |
Labor
force |
390.0 million (1997) |
| Unemployment rate |
N/A |
| Inflation Rate
|
7% (1997) |
| Gross domestic
product (total value of goods and services produced
annually) |
$1.5 trillion
(1997 est.) |
| Budget |
$61.0
billion |
| Debt |
$90.7 billion
(1997) |
| Exports
|
$33.9 billion
(1997 est.), primarily gems and jewelry, clothing,
engineering goods, chemicals, leather manufactures,
cotton yarn, and fabric |
| Imports |
$39.7 billion
(1997 est.), primarily crude oil and petroleum products,
machinery, gems, fertilizer, chemicals |
| Defense
spending |
2.7% of GDP (1997
est.) |
| Highways |
2,060,000 km
(1996) |
Source: 1998 CIA World
Factbook
|
