Overview:

India is the 6th biggest country in the world and hosts a population of just over one billion people who collectively speak over 1500 languages. It is located in southern Asia (with an area of 3,287,590 sq km) bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Burma and Pakistan. A land of marked contrasts makes India without doubt one of the worlds most intriguing places to visit. The fertile plains of the south stand out against the huge peaks of the Himalayas in the North, whilst the desert conditions of Rajasthan distinguish themselves from those areas that are availed with the monsoon rains. Maharaja’s and palaces are ubiquitous throughout the major cities which now show the dramatic contrasts of 21st century businesses juxtaposed to street children and slums.

History:

India's history can be traced back to at least 3500 BC when the first known civilization settled along the Indus River. They originated in the south and moved north, building complex, mathematically-planned cities. Some of these towns were almost three miles in diameter and contained as many as 30,000 residents. Cities like Mohenjo Daro and Harrapa, had streets, brick built dwellings, shops, communal bathing areas, a bath in every house and even household toilets. The foundations date back to 3500 years BC, so perhaps for as long as a 1000 years the Indus valley cities scattered over 500,000 square miles of northern India enjoyed a quality of life and social harmony equalled for example, only by the Egyptians under the pharaohs or the Mayan Civilisation of central America.

The first group to invade India were the Aryans, who came out of the north in about 1500 BC. The Aryans brought with them strong cultural traditions that still remain in force today. They spoke and wrote in a language called Sanskrit, which was later used in the first documentation of the Vedas.

The second great invasion into India occurred around 500 BC, when the Persian kings Cyrus and Darius, pushing their empire eastward, conquered the ever-prized Indus Valley. Compared to the Aryans, the Persian influence was marginal, perhaps because they were only able to occupy the region for a relatively brief period of about 150 years. The Persians were in turn conquered by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, who swept through the country as far as the Beas River, where he defeated king Porus and an army of 200 elephants in 326 BC.

As the overextended Hellenistic sphere declined, a king known as Chandragupta swept back through India from Magadha (Bihar) and conquered his way well into Afghanistan. This was the beginning of one India's greatest dynasties, the Maurya. Under the great king Ashoka (268-31 BC), the Mauryan empire conquered nearly the entire subcontinent, extending itself as far south as Mysore.

After the demise of the Maurya dynasty, the regions it had conquered fragmented into a mosaic of kingdoms and smaller dynasties. The Greeks returned briefly in 150 BC and conquered the Punjab, and by this time Buddhism was becoming so influential that the Greek king Menander forsook the Hellenistic pantheon and became a Buddhist himself. The local kingdoms enjoyed relative autonomy for the next few hundred years, occasionally fighting (and often losing to) invaders from the north and China, who seemed to come and go like the monsoons.

In AD 319, Chandragupta II founded the Imperial Guptas dynasty, which conquered and consolidated the entire north and extended as far south as the Vindya mountains. When the Guptas diminished, a golden age of six separate kingdoms ensued, and at this time some of the most incredible temples in India were constructed in Bhubaneshwar, Konarak, and Khahurajo.

Arab traders had visited the western coast since 712, but it wasn't until 1001 that the Muslim world began to make itself keenly felt. In that year, Arab armies swept into India led by Mahmud of Ghazi. Rraiding anuually just about every other year for 26 years they returned home each time, eventually more or less vanishing behind the mountains for nearly 150 years.

In 1192, under Mohammed of Ghor, India was once again invaded. Ghor's armies laid waste to the Buddhist temples of Bihar, and by 1202 he had conquered the most powerful Hindu kingdoms along the Ganges. When Ghor died in 1206, one of his generals, Qutb-ud-din, ruled the far north from the Sultanate of Delhi, while the southern majority of India was free from the invaders. Turkish kings ruled these acquisitions until 1397.

There was an influx of Moghuls from 1397 to the 1520s from Central Asia, who maintained effective control of the north until the mid 18th century. At the end of that century, as the Moghul Empire declined, the British took control of the whole subcontinent, and the whole of India was administered by a single alien power.

The Indian National Congress was formed in 1885, but made little progress on independence until Mahatma Gandhi began the policy of non-cooperation with the British. But the congress itself was split on the issue of Hindus and Muslims. The Muslims, under Muhammad Ali Jinnah, claimed a separate homeland and in August 1947 the independent states of India and Pakistan came into being.

The first prime minister of independent India was Jawaharlal Nehru, who held office from 1947 until his death in 1964. Apart from a short period of two years from 1975-77, when an internal emergency was imposed by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and constitutional liberties were suspended, India has been a thriving parliamentary democracy.

Key Challenges

According to the World Bank. India is grappling with the fact that as incomes rise, citizens are demanding better delivery of core public services such as water and power supply, education, policing, sanitation, roads and public health. And as physical access to services improves, issues of quality have become more central. The following are critical areas.

Education: While India has made huge progress in getting more children into primary school, learning outcomes have yet to make more headway in many locales especially rural areas.

Health: Although population growth has fallen below 2% per year due to declining fertility, there has been little improvement in maternal mortality. And, despite the fall in child mortality, these rates remain high as they are strongly related to child malnutrition where little progress has been made.

Infrastructure: Power networks, roads, transportation systems and ports are facing huge demands from India’s rapidly growing economy. But, shortages are eroding the country’s competitiveness and hurting the growth of labor-intensive enterprises, particularly export-oriented manufacturing which has the potential to absorb India’s fast-growing working population.

Key Development Indicators

GROWTH:
Population Growth (1990 - 2005): 1.7%
GDP Growth (2006-07): 8.4%

• Agriculture: 2.7%
• Industry : 11 %
• Services: 11 %
  

Poverty (at $1 a day, PPP, 2004-05): 33.5%

Fertility rate: 2.7 births per woman

Average life expectancy at birth: 64

Infant mortality (per 1000 live births): 57

Maternal mor. (per 100,000 live births): 540

Children Underweight (below 5 yrs): 46%

Primary school enrollment, net: 90%

Male Adult literacy (age 15 & older): 73%

Female Adult literacy (age 15 & older): 48%

Access to improved water source: 86%

Access to improved sanitation: 33%

Source: World Development Indicators 2007, NFHS 3 2005-06, and CSO revised estimates of GDP