India Country Profile

1. General information

Facts

* Population: 1,080,264,388 (est. 2005)

* Area: 3,287,590 sq km

* Location: Southern Asia. Neighbours are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, China, Nepal and Pakistan. It Borders the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.

* Capital: New Delhi

* Government type: Federal republic. President: A.P.J. Abdul KALAM

* Currency: Indian Rupee = 100 Paise

* Language: Hindi is the national language (30% of the population). There are 14 other official languages: Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Sanskrit and Hindustani. English is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication.

* Religions: Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.1%.

* Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3%.

* Climate: Temperate in north and tropical monsoon in south.

* Terrain: In south upland plain (Deccan Plateau), in west deserts, Himalayas in north and flat land along the Ganges.

* Natural Hazards: Flooding, droughts, earthquakes and severe thunderstorms.

Population

India is one of the most populated countries in the world. In the year 2001 India became the second country in the world after China to cross the one billion mark. About 1,080,264,388 people live today in India. By the middle of the 21st century, India will have passed China in the terms of number of inhabitants. India's population grew by 21.34 % between 1991 and 2000. If the growth continues in the same way, space might be a problem.

Although India occupies only 2.4% of the world's land area, it supports over 15% of the world's population. 63.5% of the population are the age of 14-65. The population is growing with an annual speed of 1.44%. About 70% of the people live in more than 550,000 villages, and the remainder in more than 200 towns and cities.

The birth rate of India is 22.8 births /1000. The life expectancy of an individual is 64.35 years. The total fertility rate is 2.85 children born per woman. About 40 % of the population in India are poor. Only about 59.5 % of the population can read and write (Male literacy 70.2% and female literacy 48.3%). The percentage of doctors per 1000 is very low, only about 0.07 %.

Inhabitants in the biggest cities:

City: Million people:

Bombay: 19.4

Calcutta: 15.4

Delhi: 19.0

Bangalore: 4.2

Total 58.0

("Using CIA World Fact book," 2005)

2. Historical development

The classical Indian culture was created when the Aryan tribes invaded from the northwest 1500 B.C and merged together with the Indus Valley civilization, which is one of the oldest in the world. The Arabs came in the 8th, Turkish in the 12th and the European traders came in the late 15th century to India. In the 19th century Britain took political control of all Indian lands. There was a little resistance against British colonialism and because of Mohandas Gandhi's and Jawaharlar Nehru's non-violence philosophy India became independent in 1947. The continent was divided into a non-religious state and a smaller Muslim state of Pakistan. A war between these two countries led to that East Pakistan became a separate nation of Bangladesh in 1971. There have been ongoing disputes in India about Pakistan over Kashmir, where environmental degradation, overpopulation, poverty and ethnic and religious disagreement occur. This still occurs even though there have been impressive gains in economic investment and output. ("Using NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository," 2004)

3. Political Structure

India is a democratic republic with a parliamentary system of government with subdivisions in each state. All 26 states are individually governed. There are multiple parties: Congress socialist, Indian socialist, Janata socialist, Conservative swatrana (freedom) party and the Muslim league. Nominally the head of the country is the President, whose term of office is five years. But the real administrator of the country is the Prime Minister. The president is elected by members from an Electoral College. The members in this College are both from the Houses of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies of the states. The Vice-President again is Ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha (Council of State). His term of office is also five years. The Parliament (or The Legislative Arm of the Union) consists of Rajya Sabha, Lok Sabha and the President.

The Rajya Sabha consists totally of 245 members. 233 members represent states and union territories and the remaining 12 are nominated by the president. The members of Legislative Assemblies of the states elect the members to the Rajya Sabha, the election is indirect. The Lok Sabha consists of representatives of the people, chosen by direct election. It consists of 545 members. Two of the members nominated by the president, represent the Anglo-Indian Community. There are 28 states and 7 Union territories in the country. The system of government in states is similar to the system in the Union. ("Using NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository," 2004)

4. Legal and Judicial System

The legal system used in India is based on the English Common law and it also involves some important US court decisions. The Indian Constitution was founded in 1950 and is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. It guarantees equal rights to all citizens, and prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, caste and religion. It also allows universal franchise. There is also the so called "directive principles of state policy", which requires the government to set up goals for the welfare of the people, e.g. minimum wages, jobs for everyone and subsidized medical care.

The Supreme Court