Location : Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Burma and Pakistan
Geographic coordinates :20 00 N, 77 00 E
Area :32,87,263 sqkm.
Coastline : 7,000 km
Land boundaries  :  Total : 14,103 km  

Maritime claims
Contiguous zone : 24 nm
Continental shelf : 200 nm or to the edge of the continental margin
Exclusive economic zone : 200 nm
Territorial sea : 12 nm

Climate  :  Varies from tropical monsoon in south to temperate in north.

Terrain  :  Upland plain (Deccan Plateau) in south, flat to rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts in west, Himalayas in north.

Elevation extremes  :  Lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 m
                                    Highest point: Kanchenjunga 8,598 m

Natural resources  :  Coal (fourth-largest reserves in the world), iron ore, manganese, mica, bauxite, titanium ore, chromate, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum, limestone.

Land use  : 
Arable land: 56%
Permanent crops: 1%
Permanent pastures: 4%
Forests and woodland: 23%
Other: 16% (1993 est.)

Irrigated land  :  480,000 sq km (1993 est.)

Natural hazards  :  Droughts, flash floods, severe thunderstorms common; earthquakes

Environment—current issues  :  Deforestation; soil erosion; overgrazing; desertification; air pollution from industrial effluents and vehicle emissions; water pollution from raw sewage and runoff of agricultural pesticides; tap water is not potable throughout the country; huge and rapidly growing population is overstraining natural resources.
Environment—international agreements  :  Party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements.
Geography—note  :  dominates South Asian subcontinent; near important Indian Ocean trade routes.

Population : 84,63.02.688 ( according to 1981 census).Crossed 100,00,00,000 in 2000. Census is on . 

Male Population :43,92,30,458
Female Population : 40,70,72,230
Population growth rate :1.71% (1998 est.) Birth rate :25.91 births/1,000 population (1998 est.)
Death rate : 8.69 deaths/1,000 population (1998 est.)
Net migration rate : 0.08 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1998 est.)
Sex ratio
At birth : 1.05 male(s)/female
Under 15 years : 1.06 male(s)/female
15-64 years : 1.08 male(s)/female
65 years and over : 1.04 male(s)/female (1998 est.)
Infant mortality rate  :  63.14 deaths/1,000 live births (1998 est.)
Life expectancy at birth
Total population: 62.9 years
Male: 62.11 years
Female: 63.73 years (1998 est.)
Total fertility rate : 3.24 children born/woman (1998 est.)
Nationality
Noun : Indian(s)
Adjective: Indian
Ethnic groups : Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3%
Religions :Hindu 80%, Muslim 14%, Christian 2.4%, Sikh 2%, Buddhist 0.7%, Jains 0.5%, other 0.4%
Languages :English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication, Hindi the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people, Bengali (official), Telugu (official), Marathi (official), Tamil (official), Urdu (official), Gujarati (official), Malayalam (official), Kannada (official), Oriya (official), Punjabi (official), Assamese (official), Kashmiri (official), Sindhi (official), Sanskrit (official), Hindustani a popular variant of Hindu/Urdu, is spoken widely throughout northern India.

Note: 24 languages each spoken by a million or more persons; numerous other languages and dialects, for the most part mutually unintelligible.
Literacy
Definition : age 15 and over can read and write
Total population : 52%
Male : 65.5%
Female : 37.7% (1995 est.)

Administrative divisions  :  28 states:  Arunachal Predesh,  Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chathisghudu, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jarchandhu, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Utharanchal, West Bengal.

Union Territories : Andaman-Nickobar, Chandigedu, Daman-Diu, Badra-Nagarhaveli, Pondicheri, Lakshadweep. 

Independence  :  15 August 1947 (from UK)     Republic  :  26 January 1950     Suffrage  :  18 years of age; universal

Executive branch  :  Chief of state: President, JP Abdul Kalam (since ); Vice President xxxx  (since xxxxx)

Head of government   :  Prime Minister, Manmohan Sing (since May 2004)

Cabinet  :  Council of Ministers appointed by the president on the recommendation of the prime minister

Elections  :  President elected by an electoral college of elected members of both houses of Parliament and the legislatures of the states for a five-year term; Vice- President elected by both houses of Parliament; Prime Minister elected by parliamentary members of the majority party following legislative elections.

Legislative branch  :  Lower House 

Consist of democratically  elected members. The present strength of Lower House is 545. ( 543 elected, 2 appointed; term five years )

Upper House  :  A body consisting of not more than 250 members, 12 of  them are appointed by the president, the rest are chosen by the elected assembly members of states and union territories. Tenure six years. 

Judicial branch  :  Supreme Court, judges are appointed by the president and remain in office until they reach the age of 65

Member in International organizations  :   AFDB, AG (observer), ASDB, BIS (pending member), C, CCC, CP, ESCAP, FAO, G- 6, G-15, G-19, G-24, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM (observer), ISO, ITU, MIPONUH, MONUA, NAM, OAS (observer), PCA, SAARC, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNIKOM, UNITAR, UNMIBH, UNOMIL, UNU, UPU, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO

Flag description  :  Three equal horizontal bands of saffron (top), white, and green with a blue chakra (24-spoked wheel) centered in the white band; similar to the flag of Niger, which has a small orange disk centered in the white band.

India's economy encompasses agriculture, industry, and a myriad of service industries. About 400 million-67% of Indian work force- toil in lands. Agriculture accounts for 30% of the country's GDP. Economic reforms unleashed by Narasimha Rao-led Congress Government in 1991 gained momentum with successive Governments throwing open sector after sector. Sluice gates of import were lifted, leading to a domestic market flooded with foreign products.

The reforms brought cataclysmic changes. Inflation graph kept fluctuating, occasionally jumping above the dangerous mark of ten.   

Even then, a return was impractical more so when the country joined the bandwagon of signatories of Wo0rld Trade Organisation and GATT. Economic reforms have hardly increased job opportunities. Instead, many in the Government sector had had to accept several voluntary retirement schemes offered by managements. Service and basic infrastructure sectors have to bear the brunt of liberalization. Banking and insurance sectors too were opened for foreign investment.

India's exports, currency, and foreign institutional investment were affected by the East Asian crisis in late 1997 and early 1998, but capital account controls, a low ratio of short-term debt to reserves, and enhanced supervision of the financial sector helped insulate it from near term balance-of-payments problems. Export growth, has been slipping in 1996-97, averaging only about 4% to 5%—a large drop from the more than 20% increases it was experiencing over the prior three years—mainly because of the fall in Asian currencies relative to the rupee. Energy, telecommunications, and transportation shortages and the legacy of inefficient factories constrain industrial growth which expanded only 6.7% in 1997.

Growth of the agricultural sector is abysmally slow.  Agricultural investment has receded, while subsidies on fertilizer, food distribution, and rural electricity were shaved down. 

Agriculture sector is reeling under an unprecedented crisis due to lower prices  for products.    

GDP  :  Purchasing power parity—$1.534 trillion (1997 est.)

GDP—real growth rate  :   5% (1997 est.)            GDP—per capita  :  Purchasing power parity—$1,600 (1997 est.)

GDP—composition by sector
Agriculture: 30%
Industry: 28%
Services: 42% (1996 est.)

Inflation rate—consumer price index  :  7% (1997 est.)

Labor force
Total: 390 million (1997 est.)
by occupation: agriculture 67%, services 18%, industry 15% (1995 est.)

Budget 
Revenues: $39 billion
Expenditures: $61 billion, including capital expenditures of $10 billion (FY97/98 est.)

Industries  :  Textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery

Industrial production growth rate  :   6.7% (1997 est.)   Electricity—capacity      :  83.288 million kW (1996)

Electricity—production  :  398.28 billion kWh (1995)       Electricity—consumption per capita  :  427 kWh (1995)

Agriculture—products  :  Rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes; cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, poultry; fish catch of about 3 million metric tons ranks India among the world's top 10 fishing nations.

Exports  
Total value    : $33.9 billion (f.o.b., 1997)
commodities : gems and jewelry, clothing, engineering goods, chemicals, leather manufactures, cotton yarn, and fabric; Partners       : US, Hong Kong, UK, Germany

Imports
Total value: $39.7 billion (c.i.f., 1997)
Commodities : crude oil and petroleum products, machinery, gems, fertilizer, chemicals
Partners        : US, Belgium, Germany, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UK, Japan

Debt—external  :  $90.7 billion (1997)

Economic aid  :  recipient: ODA, $1.237 billion (1993); US ODA bilateral commitments $171 million; US Ex-Im bilateral commitments $680 million; Western (non-US) countries, ODA bilateral commitments $2.48 billion; OPEC bilateral aid $200 million; World Bank (IBRD) multilateral commitments $2.8 billion; Asian Development Bank (AsDB) multilateral commitments $760 million; International Finance Corporation (IFC) multilateral commitments $200 million; other multilateral commitments $554 million (1995-96)

Currency  :  1 Indian rupee (Re) = 100 paise

Exchange rates   :  Indian rupees (Rs) per US$1—39.358 (January 1998), 36.313 (1997), 35.433 (1996), 32.427 (1995), 31.374 (1994), 30.493 (1993)

Fiscal year  :  1 April—31 March

Telephones  :  12 million (1996)

Telephone system  :  Probably the least adequate telephone system of any of the developing countries; three of every four villages have no telephone facility; only 5% of India's villages have long-distance service; poor telephone service significantly impedes commercial and industrial growth and penalizes India in global markets; slow improvement is taking place with the recent admission of private and private-public investors, but demand for communication services is also growing rapidly.

Domestic: local service is provided mostly by open wire and obsolete electromechanical and manual switchboard systems; within the last 10 years a substantial amount of digital switch gear has been introduced for local service; long-distance traffic is carried mostly by open wire, coaxial cable, and low-capacity microwave radio relay; since 1985, however, significant trunk capacity has been added in the form of fiber-optic cable and a domestic satellite system with over 100 earth stations.

International : satellite earth stations—8 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarsat (Indian Ocean Region); submarine cables to Malaysia and UAE.