The Republic of India

The Republic of India is a country that occupies the greater part of the Indian subcontinent. It has a coastline of over seven thousand kilometers (4349 miles) , borders Pakistan to the west[1], the People's Republic of China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north, and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, it is adjacent to the island nation of Sri Lanka. India is the seventh-largest country by geographical area and has one of the most diverse populations of wildlife, geographical terrain and climate systems found anywhere in the world.

The name India /'ɪndiə/ is derived from the Old Persian version of Sindhu, the historic local appellation for the River Indus (see Origin of India's name). The Constitution of India and common usage also recognise Bharat (Hindi: भारत /bʰɑːrət̪/ listen (helpÐ'*info)), as an official name of equal status. A third name, Hindustan (Hindi: हिन्दुस्तान /hin̪d̪ust̪ɑːn/) listen (helpÐ'*info) (Persian: Land of the Hindus) has been used since the twelfth century, though its contemporary use is unevenly applied. Home to one of the four major ancient civilisations, a center of important trade routes and vast empires of the Mauryas, Guptas and the Mughals, India has long played a significant role in human history. Four religions, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and SikhismÐ'-all have their origins in India, and Islam and Christianity enjoy a strong cultural heritage. Colonized in the British Empire in the nineteenth century, India gained independence in 1947 as a unified nation after an intensive struggle for independence.

With over one billion people, it is the second most populous country in the world and the world's largest liberal democracy. India has 28 states and 7 territories, and recognizes 22 official languages spoken across its diverse regions, including the official national language, Hindi, and English, which is widely spoken. After decades of intensive efforts to combat the widespread poverty, illiteracy and poor living conditions across the country, India's economy is today the fourth-largest in the world in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) and the tenth-largest in nominal terms. Once reliant heavily on agriculture, India's economy is one of the fastest-growing in the world, and the nation is home to modern businesses and high-technology industries. India became a declared nuclear weapons state in 1974.

HISTORY

The history of India can be traced in fragments to as far back as 9,500 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization, one of the oldest in the world, dates back over 5,000 years. This was followed by the Vedic Civilization of the Indo-Aryans. The origins of the Indo-Aryans is under some dispute. Most scholars today believe in some form of the Indo-Aryan migration hypothesis, which proposes that the Aryans, a semi-nomadic people, possibly from Central Asia or northern Iran, migrated into the north-west regions of the Indian subcontinent between 2000 and 1500 BCE. The nature of this migration, the place of origin of the Aryans, and sometimes even the very existence of the Aryans as a separate people are hotly debated. The merger of the Vedic culture with the earlier Dravidian cultures (presumably of the descendants of the Indus Valley Civilization) apparently resulted in classical Indian culture, though the exact details of this process are controversial. The births of Mahavira and Buddha in the 6th century BCE mark the beginning of well-recorded Indian history. For the next 1500 years, India produced its classical civilisation, and is estimated to have had the largest economy of the ancient world between the 1st and 15th centuries CE, controlling between one third and one quarter of the world's wealth up to the time of the Mughals, from whence it rapidly declined during European rule.

Incursions by Arab and Central Asian armies in the 8th and 12th centuries were followed by inroads by traders from Europe, beginning in the late 15th century. From 1757, the British East India Company had begun colonising parts of India and by 1858, the British Crown had assumed political control over virtually all of India. Indian armed forces in the British army played a vital role in both the World Wars. Nonviolent resistance to British colonialism led, by Mohandas Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru brought independence in 1947. The subcontinent was partitioned into the Secular Democratic Republic of India and the smaller Islamic Republic of Pakistan. A war between the two countries in 1971 resulted in East Pakistan becoming the separate nation of Bangladesh. In the 21st century, India has made impressive gains in economic investment and output, and stands as the world's largest democracy with a population exceeding 1 billion, is self sufficient in terms of food, and is a fast-growing, economically strong country, with the fourth largest economy (PPP) in the world.

Human civilisations in India are some of the earliest recorded, and were contemporaries of civilisations in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. India's history essentially includes all of the Indian subcontinent, including the more recent nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh. India is also inalienably linked with the history and heritage of the other South Asian nations like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. India's culture, economy and politics has had an influence on the history and culture of the nations in South East Asia, East Asia and Central Asia, such as Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, China, Tibet, Persia and Afghanistan over thousands of years, and in turn, India has been influenced by Persia, and to an extent, China and Afghanistan. After Arab incursions into India during the early part of the secondnd millennium CE, similar quests for access to India's fabled wealth strongly influenced the history of medieval Europe, after the landing of Vasco Da Gama. Christopher Columbus discovered America whilst seaching for a new route to India, and the British Empire gained much of its resources after the incorporation of India as the 'Jewel in the Crown', from the late 1700s to 1947.

The Paleolithic era

Bhimbetka rock paintingIsolated remains of Homo Erectus in Hathnora in the Narmada Valley in Central India indicate that India might have been inhabited since at least the Middle Pleistocene era [1]. The precise date of these remains is unclear, and archaeologists put it anywhere between 200,000 to 500,000 years [2]. The fossils