Republic of India

The Republic of India, in South Asia, is the 6th largest country by area.  It is home to 1,28 billion people making it the the world's second most populous country after China.

New Delhi is the capital, and largest city, with over 28,5 million people.


India is a little bigger than 1/3rd than the USA.  The country sits on the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal and borders Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, China, Nepal, and Pakistan.

©Wendover Productions

The Indian subcontinent was home to one of the world's oldest civilisations during the 3rd millennium BC.

Numerous empires and  dynasties ruled the area of the centuries.  Europeans started making footholds in the 16th century and by the 19th century the UK held control of India.  India gained independence in 1947 and eventually it split in to India and Pakistan.

India is a federal parliamentary republic with 29 states and 7 union territories.  It's a nuclear power and has the world's second largest military.

The Rupee (₽) is the official currency.  India is the world's 7th biggest economy known for providing outsourcing services.

When it gained independence, Indian Standard Time (IST) was established so that the whole country would be on the same time.  Daylight Savings Time is not observed and India time is UTC+5,5 hours.

There are 15 official languages.  Hindi is the most widely spoken language used by 41% of the population.  The other official languages are Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit.


English is a subsidiary official language and is used for most political and business situations.  Hindustani isn't an official language but is widely spoken in northern India.

©NDTV

Hinduism is the largest religion and overall the society tends to be quite conservative.  This makes it difficult for gay people.  Homosexuality was decriminalised in 2009 but it was then decriminalised in 2013.  Officially it is illegal with harsh penalties on the books.  However the ruling is currently being reviewed and there is hope that it will be decimalised again.  On the plus side, in 2014, India granted legal recognition of a third gender.

Bangalore is the Indian Silicon Valley and home to their outsourcing industry.  Here's an interesting video I found out on YouTube about the next wave of outsourcing in India.

©Financial Times

Here's a short 2014 video about how powerful the country is.

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