Amazing INDIA

1. India is the world's largest, oldest, continuous civilization.

2. India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.

3. India is the world's largest democracy.

4. Varanasi, also known as Benares, was called "the ancient city" when Lord Buddha visited it in 500 B.C.E, and is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world today.

5. India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

6. The World's first university was established in Takshashila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

7. Sanskrit is the mother of all the European languages. Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software - a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987.

8. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago. Today Ayurveda is fast regaining its rightful place in our civilization.

9. Although modern images of India often show poverty and lack of development, India was the richest country on earth until the time of British invasion in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus was attracted by India's wealth.

10. The art of Navigation was bornin the river Sindhu 6000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from Sanskrit 'Nou'.

11. Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.

12. The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century long before the European mathematicians.

13. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10**53(10 to the power of 53) with specific names as early as 5000 BCE during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera 10**12(10 to the power of 12).

14. IEEE has proved what has been a century old suspicion in the world scientific community that the pioneer of wireless communication was Prof. Jagdish Bose and not Marconi.

15. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.

16. According to Saka King Rudradaman I of 150 CE a beautiful lake called Sudarshana was constructed on the hills of Raivataka during Chandragupta Maurya's time.

17. Chess (Shataranja or AshtaPada) was invented in India.

18. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted complicated surgeries like cesareans, cataract, artificial limbs, fractures, urinary stones and even plastic surgery and brain surgery. Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India. Over 125 surgical equipment were used. Deep knowledge of anatomy, physiology, etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics and immunity is also found in many texts.

19. When many cultures were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilization).

20. The four religions born in India, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, are followed by 25% of the world's population.

21. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

22. India is one of the few countries in the World, which gained independence without violence.

23. India has the second largest pool of Scientists and Engineers in the World.

24. India is the largest English speaking nation in the world.

25. India is the only country other than US and Japan, to have built a super computer indigenously.

Famous Quotes on India (by non-Indians)

* Albert Einstein said: We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.

* Mark Twain said: India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only.

* French scholar Romain Rolland said: If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.

* Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA said: India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.



Facts to make every Indian proud

Q. Who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems?
A. Vinod Khosla

Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the
today's computers run on it)?
A. Vinod Dahm

Q. Who is the third richest man on the world?
A. According to the latest report on Fortune Magazine, it is Aziz Premji,
who is the CEO of Wipro Industries. The Sultan of Brunei is at 6th
position now.

Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world's No.1 web
based email program)?
A. Sabeer Bhatia

Q. Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator
of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
A. Arun Netravalli

Q. Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard?
A. Rajiv Gupta

Q. Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000,
responsible to iron out all initial problems?
A. Sanjay Tejwrika

Q. Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey & Stanchart?
A. Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.
We Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even
faring better than the whites and the natives.

There are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population). ,

Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator complex, intended to collide opposing beams of protons charged with approximately 7 TeVs of energy. Its main purpose is to explore the validity and limitations of the Standard Model, the current theoretical picture for particle physics. It is theorized the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and missing links in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass.

The LHC was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and lies underneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. It is funded by and built in collaboration with over eight thousand physicists from over eighty-five countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. The LHC is now operational, and in the process of being prepared for first collisions. The first beam was circulated through the collider on 10 September 2008 and the first high-energy collisions are planned to take place after the LHC is officially unveiled on 21 October 2008.

Although a few individuals have questioned the safety of the planned experiments in the media and through the courts, the consensus in the scientific community is that there is no basis for any conceivable threat from the LHC particle collisions.

Technical Design
The LHC is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. The collider is contained in a circular tunnel with a circumference of 27 kilometres (17 mi) at a depth ranging from 50 to 175 metres underground. The 3.8 metre (150 inches) diameter, concrete-lined tunnel, constructed between 1983 and 1988, was formerly used to house the LEP, an electron-positron collider. It crosses the border between Switzerland and France at four points, although most of it is in France. Surface buildings hold ancillary equipment such as compressors, ventilation equipment, control electronics and refrigeration plants.

The collider tunnel contains two adjacent beam pipes, each containing a proton beam (a proton is one type of hadron). The two beams travel in opposite directions around the ring. Some 1,232 bending magnets keep the beams on their circular path, while an additional 392 focusing magnets are used to keep the beams focused, in order to maximize the chances of interaction between the particles in the four intersection points, where the two beams will cross. In total, over 1,600 superconducting magnets are installed, with most weighing over 27 tonnes. Approximately 96 tonnes of liquid helium is needed to keep the magnets at their operating temperature of 1.9 K, making the LHC the largest cryogenic facility in the world at liquid helium temperature.

Once or twice a day, as the protons are accelerated from 450 GeV to 7 TeV, the field of the superconducting bending magnets will be increased from 0.54 T to 8.3 T.

The protons will each have an energy of 7 TeV, giving a total collision energy of 14 TeV. At this energy the protons have a gamma factor of about 7,500 and move at about 99.999999% of light speed. It will take less than 90 microseconds for a proton to travel once around the main ring (a speed of about 11,000 revolutions per second). Rather than continuous beams, the protons will be bunched together, into 2,808 bunches, so that interactions between the two beams will take place at discrete intervals never shorter than 25 ns apart. When the collider is first commissioned, it will be operated with fewer bunches, to give a bunch crossing interval of 75 ns. The number of bunches will later be increased to give a final bunch crossing interval of 25 ns.

Prior to being injected into the main accelerator, the particles are prepared by a series of systems that successively increase their energy. The first system is the linear accelerator Linac 2 generating 50 MeV protons, which feeds the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB). There the protons are accelerated to 1.4 GeV and injected into the Proton Synchrotron (PS), where they are accelerated to 26 GeV. Finally the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) is used to increase their energy to 450 GeV before they are at last injected (over a period of 20 minutes) into the main ring, where proton bunches are accumulated, accelerated (over a period of 20 minutes) to their peak 7 TeV energy, and finally stored for many hours (10 to 24) while collisions occur at the four intersection points.

The LHC will also be used to collide lead (Pb) nuclei with a collision energy of 1,150 TeV. The Pb ions will be first accelerated by the linear accelerator Linac 3, and the Low-Energy Injector Ring (LEIR) will be used as an ion storage and cooler unit. The ions then will be further accelerated by the Proton Synchrotron (PS) and Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) before being injected into LHC ring, where they will reach an energy of 2.76 TeV per nucleon.

Six detectors are being constructed at the LHC, located underground in large caverns excavated at the LHC's intersection points. Two of them, the ATLAS experiment and the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), are large, general purpose particle detectors. A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) is designed to study the properties of quark-gluon plasma from the debris of heavy-ion collisions. The other three, LHCb, TOTEM, and LHCf, are smaller and more specialized.

Detectors

BBC quotes about LHC CMS detectors:

“ ATLAS - one of two so-called general purpose detectors. Atlas will be used to look for signs of new physics, including the origins of mass and extra dimensions

CMS - the second general purpose detector will, like ATLAS, hunt for the Higgs boson and look for clues to the nature of dark matter

ALICE - will study a "liquid" form of matter called quark-gluon plasma that existed shortly after the Big Bang

LHCb - Equal amounts of matter and anti-matter were created in the Big Bang. LHCb will try to investigate what happened to the "missing" anti-matter”

Purpose
When activated, it is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson. The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory, which seeks to unify three of the four known fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force, leaving out only gravity. The Higgs boson may also help to explain why gravitation is so weak compared with the other three forces. In addition to the Higgs boson, other theorized particles, models and states might be produced, and for some searches are planned, including supersymmetric particles, compositeness (technicolor), extra dimensions, strangelets, micro black holes and magnetic monopoles.

Research

When in operation, about seven thousand scientists from eighty countries will have access to the LHC. Physicists hope to use the collider to test various grand unified theories and enhance their ability to answer the following questions:

* Is the popular Higgs mechanism for generating elementary particle masses in the Standard Model realised in nature? If so, how many Higgs bosons are there, and what are their masses?

* Will the more precise measurements of the masses of the quarks continue to be mutually consistent within the Standard Model?

* Do particles have supersymmetric ("SUSY") partners?

* Why are there apparent violations of the symmetry between matter and antimatter?

* Are there extra dimensions, as predicted by various models inspired by string theory, and can we "see" them?

* What is the nature of dark matter and dark energy?

* Why is gravity so many orders of magnitude weaker than the other three fundamental forces?

Renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has bet $100 the mega-experiment will not find the elusive particle seen as the holy grail of cosmic science. "I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of 100 dollars that we won't find the Higgs," said Prof Hawking. Hawking said the experiment could discover superpartners, particles that would be "supersymmetric partners" to particles already known about. "Their existence would be a key confirmation of string theory, and they could make up the mysterious dark matter that holds galaxies together," he said on the BBC. "Whatever the LHC finds, or fails to find, the results will tell us a lot about the structure of the universe," he said.

As an ion collider

The LHC physics program is mainly based on proton-proton collisions. However, shorter running periods, typically one month per year, with heavy-ion collisions are included in the programme. While lighter ions are considered as well, the baseline scheme deals with lead ions. This will allow an advancement in the experimental programme currently in progress at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).

Test timeline

September 2008

The first beam was circulated through the collider on the morning of 10 September 2008. CERN successfully fired the protons around the tunnel in stages, several kilometres at a time. The particles were fired in a clockwise direction into the accelerator and successfully steered around it at 10:28 am local time. The LHC successfully completed its first major test, for after a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen showing the protons traveled the full length of the Collider. CERN plans to send it counterclockwise, and eventually the two beams will be fired in opposite directions with the aim of smashing together protons to see how they are made. It took less than one hour to guide the stream of particles around its inaugural circuit.

October 2008

The first high-energy collisions are planned to take place after the LHC is officially unveiled on 21 October 2008.

Proposed upgrade

After some years of running, any particle physics experiment typically begins to suffer from diminishing returns; each additional year of operation discovers less than the year before. The way around the diminishing returns is to upgrade the experiment, either in energy or in luminosity. A luminosity upgrade of the LHC, called the Super LHC, has been proposed, to be made after ten years of LHC operation. The optimal path for the LHC luminosity upgrade includes an increase in the beam current (i.e., the number of protons in the beams) and the modification of the two high luminosity interaction regions, ATLAS and CMS. To achieve these increases, the energy of the beams at the point that they are injected into the (Super) LHC should also be increased to 1 TeV. This will require an upgrade of the full pre-injector system, the needed changes in the Super Proton Synchrotron being the most expensive.

Cost

The total cost of the project is anticipated to be between €3.2 to €6.4 billion. The construction of LHC was approved in 1995 with a budget of 2.6 billion Swiss francs (€1.6 billion), with another 210 million francs (€140 million) towards the cost of the experiments. However, cost over-runs, estimated in a major review in 2001 at around 480 million francs (€300 million) for the accelerator, and 50 million francs (€30 million) for the experiments, along with a reduction in CERN's budget, pushed the completion date from 2005 to April 2007. 180 million francs (€120 million) of the cost increase have been due to the superconducting magnets. There were also engineering difficulties encountered while building the underground cavern for the Compact Muon Solenoid. In part this was due to faulty parts loaned to CERN by fellow laboratories Argonne National Laboratory or Fermilab.

Computing resources

The LHC Computing Grid is being constructed to handle the massive amounts of data produced by the Large Hadron Collider. It incorporates both private fibre optic cable links and existing high-speed portions of the public Internet, to get data from CERN to academic institutions around the world.

The distributed computing project LHC@home was started to support the construction and calibration of the LHC. The project uses the BOINC platform to simulate how particles will travel in the tunnel. With this information, the scientists will be able to determine how the magnets should be calibrated to gain the most stable "orbit" of the beams in the ring.

Safety issues

Safety of particle collisions

Main article: Safety of the Large Hadron Collider

Although some individuals, including some scientists, have questioned the safety of the planned experiments in the media and through the courts, the consensus in the scientific community is that there is no basis for any conceivable threat from the LHC particle collisions.

Operational safety

The size of the LHC constitutes an exceptional engineering challenge with unique operational issues on account of the huge energy stored in the magnets and the beams. While operating, the total energy stored in the magnets is 10 GJ and the total energy carried by the two beams reaches 724 MJ.

Loss of only one ten-millionth part (10−7) of the beam is sufficient to quench a superconducting magnet, while the beam dump must absorb an energy equivalent to that of a typical air-dropped bomb. These immense energies are even more impressive when one considers how little matter is carrying it. Under nominal operating conditions (2,808 bunches per beam, 1.15×1011 protons per bunch), the beam pipes contain 1.0×10-9 gram of hydrogen, which, in standard conditions for temperature and pressure, would fill the volume of one grain of fine sand.

Construction accidents and delays

On 25 October 2005, a technician was killed in the LHC tunnel when a crane load was accidentally dropped. On 27 March 2007 a cryogenic magnet support broke during a pressure test involving one of the LHC's inner triplet (focusing quadrupole) magnet assemblies, provided by Fermilab and KEK. No one was injured. Fermilab director Pier Oddone stated "In this case we are dumbfounded that we missed some very simple balance of forces". This fault had been present in the original design, and remained during four engineering reviews over the following years. Analysis revealed that its design, made as thin as possible for better insulation, was not strong enough to withstand the forces generated during pressure testing. Details are available in a statement from Fermilab, with which CERN is in agreement. Repairing the broken magnet and reinforcing the eight identical assemblies used by LHC delayed the startup date, then planned for November 2007, by several weeks.

In popular culture

The Large Hadron Collider has been featured in a number of novels, including Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer, Black Hole by Angelo Paratico, and Decipher by Stel Pavlou, which described it in some detail. One of the most visible examples is Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, which involves dangerous antimatter created at the LHC used as a weapon against the Vatican. CERN published a "Fact or Fiction?" page discussing the accuracy of the book's portrayal of the LHC, CERN, and particle physics in general. The movie version of the book had footage filmed on-site at one of the experiments at the LHC; the director, Ron Howard, also met with CERN experts in an effort to make the science in the story more accurate. Katherine McAlpine, aka "alpinekat", a science writer working at CERN, wrote the lyrics for a personal rap video about the LHC called the "The Large Hadron Rap". The song was added to YouTube on 28 July 2008, and, as of 6 September, it had been viewed more than a million times.

BBC Radio 4 is broadcasting "Big Bang Day" on 10 September 2008 to coincide with the LHC being switched on. Included in this event will be a radio episode of the TV series Torchwood, with a plot surrounding the LHC, entitled Lost Souls.

On September 10, to commemorate the firing of the Large Hadron Collider, Google displayed a custom logo with a drawing of the LHC which linked to a web search for "Large Hadron Collider". It is a tradition for Google to change their logo to represent what they consider to be important or interesting events.

India betrayed! so say "No Deal"

The United States will not sell sensitive nuclear technologies to India and would immediately terminate nuclear trade if New Delhi conducted a nuclear test, the Bush administration told Congress in correspondence that has remained secret for nine months.

The correspondence, which also appears to contradict statements by Indian officials, was made public on 2 September, 2008 by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, just days before the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group meets again in Vienna to consider exempting India from restrictions on nuclear trade as part of a landmark U.S.-India civil nuclear deal.

The NSG, which governs trade in reactors and uranium, poses a key hurdle for the U.S-India pact. The group operates by consensus, allowing even small nations to block or significantly amend any agreement. The United States has pressed the NSG to impose few conditions on India, even though it has tested nuclear weapons and has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

A significant group of nations balked at the proposal when the NSG first discussed it two weeks ago. Berman's release of the correspondence could make approval even more difficult because it demonstrates that U.S. conditions for nuclear trade with India are tougher than what the United States is requesting from the NSG on India's behalf.
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About 20 nations offered more than 50 amendments to the U.S.-proposed draft text, focusing on terminating trade if India resumes testing and bans on the transfer of sensitive technologies.

The correspondence released by Berman is "going to reinforce the views of many states," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, which opposes the U.S.-India agreement. "There is no reason why this should not be an NSG-wide policy."

The correspondence concerned 45 highly technical questions that members of Congress posed about the deal. In 2006, Congress passed a law, known as the Hyde Act, to provisionally accept the agreement. But some lawmakers raised concerns about whether a separate implementing agreement negotiated by the administration papered over critical details to assuage Indian concerns. The questions were addressed in a 26-page letter sent to Berman's predecessor, the late Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), on Jan. 16.

The answers were considered so sensitive, particularly because debate over the agreement in India could have toppled the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, that the State Department requested they remain secret even though they were not classified.

Lynne Weil, a spokeswoman for Berman, said he made the answers public yesterday because, if NSG approval is granted, the U.S-India deal soon would be submitted to Congress for final approval and "he wants to assure that Congress has the relevant information."

In India, Singh and his aides have insisted that the deal would not constrain the country's right to nuclear tests and would provide an uninterrupted supply of fuel to India's nuclear reactors. In August 2007, Singh told Parliament, "The agreement does not in any way affect India's right to undertake future nuclear tests, if it is necessary."

The State Department's letter to Lantos gives a different story. It says the United States would help India deal only with "disruptions in supply to India that may result through no fault of its own," such as a trade war or market disruptions. "The fuel supply assurances are not, however, meant to insulate India against the consequences of a nuclear explosive test or a violation of nonproliferation commitments," the letter said.

The letter makes clear that terminating cooperation could be immediate and was within U.S. discretion, and that the supply assurances made by the United States are not legally binding but simply a commitment made by President Bush.

The letter also stated that the "U.S. government will not assist India in the design, construction or operation of sensitive nuclear technologies," even though the Hyde Act allowed transfers of such technology under certain circumstances. The U.S. government had no plans to seek to amend the deal to allow sensitive transfers, the letter said.

The administration is eager for NSG approval this week because there is a narrow window for final congressional action before lawmakers adjourn this month, although many of them say the prospects for quick action remain dim.

Reflecting the importance of the U.S.-India deal to Bush's foreign policy legacy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is dispatching two top officials -- William J. Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, and John Rood, acting undersecretary of state for arms control and international security -- to the NSG session.

Concerns about the deal have been raised by a group of mostly smaller states, led by Ireland and New Zealand. But this week China also publicly urged caution, saying in a foreign ministry statement that the NSG must "strike a balance between nuclear nonproliferation and peaceful use of energy."

Politics & the Cows

Socialism
You have two cows - you give one to your neighbor

Communism
You have two cows - the government takes them both and gives you the milk

Fascism
You have two cows - the government takes both and sells you the milk

Nazism
You have two cows - the government takes both and shoots you.

Capitalism
You have two cows - you sell one and buy a bull.

Trade Union
You have two cows - they take them from you shoot one and milk the other and throw the milk away.

Moral
Don't have anything to do with cows they only bring you trouble.

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Bharatham/ India

Introduction

India

Background:

The Indus Valley civilization, one of the oldest in the world, dates back at least 5,000 years. Aryan tribes from the northwest infiltrated onto Indian lands about 1500 B.C.; their merger with the earlier Dravidian inhabitants created the classical Indian culture. Arab incursions starting in the 8th century and Turkish in the 12th were followed by those of European traders, beginning in the late 15th century. By the 19th century, Britain had assumed political control of virtually all Indian lands. Indian armed forces in the British army played a vital role in both World Wars. Nonviolent resistance to British colonialism led by Mohandas GANDHI and Jawaharlal NEHRU brought independence in 1947. The subcontinent was divided into the secular state of India and the smaller Muslim state of Pakistan. A third war between the two countries in 1971 resulted in East Pakistan becoming the separate nation of Bangladesh. Despite impressive gains in economic investment and output, India faces pressing problems such as the ongoing dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir, significant overpopulation, environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and ethnic and religious strife.

Geography

India

Location:	Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Burma and Pakistan
Geographic coordinates:	20 00 N, 77 00 E
Map references:	Asia
Area:	total: 3,287,590 sq km land: 2,973,190 sq km water: 314,400 sq km
Area - comparative:	slightly more than one-third the size of the US
Land boundaries:	total: 14,103 km border countries: Bangladesh 4,053 km, Bhutan 605 km, Burma 1,463 km, China 3,380 km, Nepal 1,690 km, Pakistan 2,912 km
Coastline:	7,000 km
Maritime claims:	territorial sea: 12 nm contiguous zone: 24 nm exclusive economic zone: 200 nm continental shelf: 200 nm or to the edge of the continental margin
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, chromite, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum, limestone, arable land
Land use:	arable land: 48.83% permanent crops: 2.8% other: 48.37% (2005)
Irrigated land:	558,080 sq km (2003)
Natural hazards:	droughts; flash floods, as well as widespread and destructive flooding from monsoonal rains; severe thunderstorms; 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 growing population is overstraining natural resources
Environment - international agreements:	party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, Whaling signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography - note:	dominates South Asian subcontinent; near important Indian Ocean trade routes; Kanchenjunga, third tallest mountain in the world, lies on the border with Nepal

People

India

Population:	1,129,866,154 (July 2007 est.)
Age structure:	0-14 years: 31.8% (male 188,208,196/female 171,356,024) 15-64 years: 63.1% (male 366,977,821/female 346,034,565) 65 years and over: 5.1% (male 27,258,259/female 30,031,289) (2007 est.)
Median age:	total: 24.8 years male: 24.5 years female: 25.2 years (2007 est.)
Population growth rate:	1.606% (2007 est.)
Birth rate:	22.69 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Death rate:	6.58 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Net migration rate:	-0.05 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Sex ratio:	at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.098 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1.061 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.908 male(s)/female total population: 1.064 male(s)/female (2007 est.)
Infant mortality rate:	total: 34.61 deaths/1,000 live births male: 39.42 deaths/1,000 live births female: 29.23 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.)
Life expectancy at birth:	total population: 68.59 years male: 66.28 years female: 71.17 years (2007 est.)
Total fertility rate:	2.81 children born/woman (2007 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:	0.9% (2001 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:	5.1 million (2001 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths:	310,000 (2001 est.)
Major infectious diseases:	degree of risk: high food or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, and typhoid fever vectorborne diseases: dengue fever, malaria, and Japanese encephalitis are high risks in some locations animal contact disease: rabies note: highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza has been identified among birds in this country or surrounding region; it poses a negligible risk with extremely rare cases possible among US citizens who have close contact with birds (2007)
Nationality:	noun: Indian(s) adjective: Indian
Ethnic groups:	Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3% (2000)
Religions:	Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.1% (2001 census)
Languages:	English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language
Literacy:	definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 61% male: 73.4% female: 47.8% (2001 census)

Government

India

Economy

India

Economy - overview:	India's diverse economy encompasses traditional village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industries, and a multitude of services. Services are the major source of economic growth, accounting for more than half of India's output with less than one third of its labor force. About three-fifths of the work force is in agriculture, leading the UPA government to articulate an economic reform program that includes developing basic infrastructure to improve the lives of the rural poor and boost economic performance. The government has reduced controls on foreign trade and investment. Tariffs averaged 12.5% on non-agricultural items in 2006. Higher limits on foreign direct investment were permitted in a few key sectors, such as telecommunications. However, tariff spikes in sensitive categories, including agriculture, and incremental progress on economic reforms still hinder foreign access to India's vast and growing market. Privatization of government-owned industries remained stalled in 2006, and continues to generate political debate; populist pressure from within the UPA government and from its Left Front allies continues to restrain needed initiatives. The economy has posted an average growth rate of more than 7% in the decade since 1996, reducing poverty by about 10 percentage points. India achieved 8.5% GDP growth in 2006, significantly expanding manufacturing. India is capitalizing on its large numbers of well-educated people skilled in the English language to become a major exporter of software services and software workers. Economic expansion has helped New Delhi continue to make progress in reducing its federal fiscal deficit. However, strong growth - more than 8 percent growth in each of the last three years - combined with easy consumer credit and a real estate boom is fueling inflation concerns. The huge and growing population is the fundamental social, economic, and environmental problem.
GDP (purchasing power parity):	$4.156 trillion (2006 est.)
GDP (official exchange rate):	$804 billion (2006 est.)
GDP - real growth rate:	9.2% (2006 est.)
GDP - per capita (PPP):	$3,800 (2006 est.)
GDP - composition by sector:	agriculture: 19.9% industry: 19.3% services: 60.7% (2005 est.)
Labor force:	509.3 million (2006 est.)
Labor force - by occupation:	agriculture: 60% industry: 12% services: 28% (2003)
Unemployment rate:	7.8% (2006 est.)
Population below poverty line:	25% (2002 est.)
Household income or consumption by percentage share:	lowest 10%: 3.5% highest 10%: 33.5% (1997)
Distribution of family income - Gini index:	32.5 (2000)
Inflation rate (consumer prices):	5.3% (2006 est.)
Investment (gross fixed):	29.2% of GDP (2006 est.)
Budget:	revenues: $109.4 billion expenditures: $143.8 billion; including capital expenditures of $15 billion (2006 est.)
Public debt:	52.8% of GDP (federal and state debt combined) (2006 est.)
Agriculture - products:	rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes; cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, poultry; fish
Industries:	textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, software
Industrial production growth rate:	7.5% (2006 est.)
Electricity - production:	630.6 billion kWh (2004)
Electricity - production by source:	fossil fuel: 81.7% hydro: 14.5% nuclear: 3.4% other: 0.3% (2001)
Electricity - consumption:	587.9 billion kWh (2004)
Electricity - exports:	60 million kWh (2004)
Electricity - imports:	1.5 billion kWh (2004)
Oil - production:	785,000 bbl/day (2005 est.)
Oil - consumption:	2.45 million bbl/day (2004 est.)
Oil - exports:	350,000 bbl/day (2005 est.)
Oil - imports:	2.09 million bbl/day (2005 est.)
Oil - proved reserves:	5.6 billion bbl (2006 est.)
Natural gas - production:	28.2 billion cu m (2004 est.)
Natural gas - consumption:	30.83 billion cu m (2004 est.)
Natural gas - exports:	0 cu m (2004 est.)
Natural gas - imports:	2.63 billion cu m (2004 est.)
Natural gas - proved reserves:	853.5 billion cu m (1 January 2005 est.)
Current account balance:	-$26.4 billion (2006 est.)
Exports:	$112 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
Exports - commodities:	textile goods, gems and jewelry, engineering goods, chemicals, leather manufactures
Exports - partners:	US 16.7%, UAE 8.5%, China 6.6%, Singapore 5.3%, UK 4.9%, Hong Kong 4.4% (2005)
Imports:	$187.9 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
Imports - commodities:	crude oil, machinery, gems, fertilizer, chemicals
Imports - partners:	China 7.3%, US 5.6%, Switzerland 4.7% (2005)
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold:	$165 billion (2006 est.)
Debt - external:	$132.1 billion (30 June 2006 est.)
Economic aid - recipient:	$2.9 billion (FY98/99)
Currency (code):	Indian rupee (INR)
Currency code:	INR
Exchange rates:	Indian rupees per US dollar - 45.3 (2006), 44.101 (2005), 45.317 (2004), 46.583 (2003), 48.61 (2002)
Fiscal year:	1 April - 31 March

Communications

India

Telephones - main lines in use:	49.75 million (2005)
Telephones - mobile cellular:	69.193 million (2006)
Telephone system:	general assessment: recent deregulation and liberalization of telecommunications laws and policies have prompted rapid growth; local and long distance service provided throughout all regions of the country, with services primarily concentrated in the urban areas; steady improvement is taking place with the recent admission of private and private-public investors, but telephone density remains low at about 10 for each 100 persons nationwide and only 1 per 100 persons in rural areas; there remains a national waiting list of over 1.7 million; fastest growth is in cellular service with modest growth in fixed lines domestic: expansion of domestic service, although still weak in rural areas, resulted from increased competition and dramatic reductions in price led in large part by wireless service; mobile cellular service (both CDMA and GSM) introduced in 1994 and organized nationwide into four metropolitan cities and 19 telecom circles each with about three private service providers and one state-owned service provider; in recent years significant trunk capacity added in the form of fiber-optic cable and one of the world's largest domestic satellite systems, the Indian National Satellite system (INSAT), with 6 satellites supporting 33,000 very small aperture terminals (VSAT) international: country code - 91; satellite earth stations - 8 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarsat (Indian Ocean region); 9 gateway exchanges operating from Mumbai (Bombay), New Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai (Madras), Jalandhar, Kanpur, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, and Ernakulam; 6 submarine cables, including Sea-Me-We-3 with landing sites at Cochin and Mumbai (Bombay), Sea-Me-We-4 with landing site at Chennai, Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) with landing site at Mumbai (Bombay), South Africa - Far East (SAFE) with landing site at Cochin, i2icn linking to Singapore with landing sites at Mumbai (Bombay) and Chennai (Madras), and Tata Indicom linking Singapore and Chennai (Madras), provide a significant increase in the bandwidth available for both voice and data traffic (2006)
Radio broadcast stations:	AM 153, FM 91, shortwave 68 (1998)
Radios:	116 million (1997)
Television broadcast stations:	562 (1997)
Televisions:	63 million (1997)
Internet country code:	.in
Internet hosts:	1.543 million (2006)
Internet Service Providers (ISPs):	43 (2000)
Internet users:	60 million (2005)

Transportation

India

Airports:	341 (2006)
Airports - with paved runways:	total: 243 over 3,047 m: 17 2,438 to 3,047 m: 51 1,524 to 2,437 m: 73 914 to 1,523 m: 81 under 914 m: 21 (2006)
Airports - with unpaved runways:	total: 98 2,438 to 3,047 m: 1 1,524 to 2,437 m: 7 914 to 1,523 m: 42 under 914 m: 48 (2006)
Heliports:	28 (2006)
Pipelines:	condensate/gas 8 km; gas 5,184 km; liquid petroleum gas 1,993 km; oil 6,500 km; refined products 6,152 km (2006)
Railways:	total: 63,230 km broad gauge: 45,718 km 1.676-m gauge (16,528 km electrified) narrow gauge: 14,406 km 1.000-m gauge (165 km electrified); 3,106 km 0.762-m gauge and 0.610-m gauge (2005)
Roadways:	total: 3,383,344 km paved: 1,603,705 km unpaved: 1,779,639 km (2002)
Waterways:	14,500 km note: 5,200 km on major rivers and 485 km on canals suitable for mechanized vessels (2005)
Merchant marine:	total: 316 ships (1000 GRT or over) 7,772,313 GRT/13,310,858 DWT by type: bulk carrier 96, cargo 72, chemical tanker 13, container 8, liquefied gas 17, passenger 3, passenger/cargo 10, petroleum tanker 96, roll on/roll off 1 foreign-owned: 10 (China 2, Hong Kong 1, UAE 6, UK 1) registered in other countries: 46 (Bahamas 1, Comoros 1, Cyprus 5, North Korea 1, Liberia 3, Malta 1, Mauritius 2, Panama 19, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 6, Singapore 5, Venezuela 1, unknown 1) (2006)
Ports and terminals:	Chennai, Haldia, Jawaharal Nehru, Kandla, Kolkata (Calcutta), Mumbai (Bombay), New Mangalore, Vishakhapatnam

Military

India

Military branches:	Army, Navy (includes naval air arm), Air Force, Coast Guard, various security or paramilitary forces (includes Border Security Force, Assam Rifles, National Security Guards, Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Special Frontier Force, Central Reserve Police Force, Central Industrial Security Force, Railway Protection Force, and Defense Security Corps)
Military service age and obligation:	16 years of age for voluntary military service (2001)
Manpower available for military service:	males age 16-49: 287,551,111 females age 16-49: 268,524,835 (2005 est.)
Manpower fit for military service:	males age 16-49: 219,471,999 females age 16-49: 209,917,553 (2005 est.)
Manpower reaching military service age annually:	males age 18-49: 11,446,452 females age 16-49: 10,665,877 (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP:	2.5% (2006)

Transnational Issues

India

Disputes - international:	since China and India launched a security and foreign policy dialogue in 2005, consolidated discussions related to the dispute over most of their rugged, militarized boundary, regional nuclear proliferation, Indian claims that China transferred missiles to Pakistan, and other matters continue; various talks and confidence-building measures have cautiously begun to defuse tensions over Kashmir, particularly since the October 2005 earthquake in the region; Kashmir nevertheless remains the site of the world's largest and most militarized territorial dispute with portions under the de facto administration of China (Aksai Chin), India (Jammu and Kashmir), and Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas); India and Pakistan have maintained the 2004 cease fire in Kashmir and initiated discussions on defusing the armed stand-off in the Siachen glacier region; Pakistan protests India's fencing the highly militarized Line of Control and construction of the Baglihar Dam on the Chenab River in Jammu and Kashmir, which is part of the larger dispute on water sharing of the Indus River and its tributaries; UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has maintained a small group of peacekeepers since 1949; India does not recognize Pakistan's ceding historic Kashmir lands to China in 1964; to defuse tensions and prepare for discussions on a maritime boundary, India and Pakistan seek technical resolution of the disputed boundary in Sir Creek estuary at the mouth of the Rann of Kutch in the Arabian Sea; Pakistani maps continue to show its Junagadh claim in Indian Gujarat State; discussions with Bangladesh remain stalled to delimit a small section of river boundary, to exchange territory for 51 Bangladeshi exclaves in India and 111 Indian exclaves in Bangladesh, to allocate divided villages, and to stop illegal cross-border trade, migration, violence, and transit of terrorists through the porous border; Bangladesh protests India's attempts to fence off high-traffic sections of the border; dispute with Bangladesh over New Moore/South Talpatty/Purbasha Island in the Bay of Bengal deters maritime boundary delimitation; India seeks cooperation from Bhutan and Burma to keep Indian Nagaland and Assam separatists from hiding in remote areas along the borders; Joint Border Committee with Nepal continues to examine contested boundary sections, including the 400 square kilometer dispute over the source of the Kalapani River; India maintains a strict border regime to keep out Maoist insurgents and control illegal cross-border activities from Nepal
Refugees and internally displaced persons:	refugees (country of origin): 77,200 (Tibet/China), 50,730 (Sri Lanka), 9,700 (Afghanistan) IDPs: at least 600,000 (about half are Kashmiri Pandits from Jammu and Kashmir) (2006)
Trafficking in persons:	current situation: India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced or bonded labor and commercial sexual exploitation; the large population of men, women, and children - numbering in the millions - in debt bondage face involuntary servitude in brick kilns, rice mills, and embroidery factories, while some children endure involuntary servitude as domestic servants; internal trafficking of women and girls for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage also occurs; the government estimates that 90 percent of India's sex trafficking is internal; India is also a destination for women and girls from Nepal and Bangladesh trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation; boys from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are trafficked through India to the Gulf states for involuntary servitude as child camel jockeys; Indian men and women migrate willingly to the Persian Gulf region for work as domestic servants and low-skilled laborers, but some later find themselves in situations of involuntary servitude including extended working hours, nonpayment of wages, restrictions on their movement by withholding of their passports or confinement to the home, and physical or sexual abuse tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - India has been on the Tier 2 Watch List since 2004 for its failure to show evidence of increasing efforts to address trafficking in persons
Illicit drugs:	world's largest producer of licit opium for the pharmaceutical trade, but an undetermined quantity of opium is diverted to illicit international drug markets; transit point for illicit narcotics produced in neighboring countries; illicit producer of methaqualone; vulnerable to narcotics money laundering through the hawala system; licit ketamine and precursor production