INDIA - AT A GLANCE ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ India lies at the north of the equator between 8° 4 and 37° 6 north latitude and 68° 7 and 97° 25 east longitude. It is bounded on the South West by the Arabian Sea & on the South East by the Bay of Bengal. On the North, North East & North West lie the Himalayan ranges. The southern tip, Kanyakumari is washed by the Indian Ocean. India measures 3214 km from North to South & 2933 km from east to west with a total land area of 3,287,263 sq.km. It has a land frontier of 15,200 km & a coastline of 7516.5 km. Andaman & Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal & Lakshadweep in the Arabian Sea are parts of India. India shares its political borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan on the West and Bangladesh and Burma on the East. The Northern boundary is made up of the Sinkiang province of China, Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan. India has Seven major Physiographic regions 1. Northern Mountains including the Himalayas and mountain ranges in the North-East. 2. The Indo-Gangetic plain 3. Central Highlands 4. Peninsular plateau 5. East Coast 6. West Coast 7. Bordering seas and islands. India has Seven principal Mountain ranges 1. the Himalayas 2. the Patkai and other ranges bordering India in the North & North East 3. the Vindhyas, which separate the Indo- Gangetic plain from the Deccan Plateau 4. the Satpura 5. the Aravalli 6. the Sahayadri, which covers the Eastern fringe of the West Coast plains and 7. the Eastern Ghats, irregularly scattered on the East Coast and, forming the boundary of the East Coast plains. Himalayas, the highest mountain - system in the world, is also one of the worlds youngest mountain ranges. National EMBLEM The State Emblem of India is an adaptation from the Sarnath Lion Capital of Asoka as preserved in the Sarnath Museum. The Government adopted the emblem on 26th January, 1950, the day when India became a Republic. In the State Emblem adopted by the Government, only three lions are visible, the fourth being hidden from view. The wheel appears in relief in the centre of the abacus with a bull on the right and a horse on the left and the outlines of the other wheels on the extreme right and left. The bell-shaped lotus has been omitted. The Words, Saytameva Jayate from the Mundaka Upanishad meaning ‘Truth alone triumphs’ are inscribed below the abacus in Devanagari script. National FLAG The National Flag is a horizontal tri-colour of deep saffron (Kesari) at the top, white in the middle and dark green at the bottom in equal proportion. The ratio of the width of the flag to its length is two to three. In the centre of white band is a wheel, in navy blue, which represents the Charkha (Khadi Spinning Wheel). Its design is that of the wheel (Chakra) which appears on the abacus of the Sarnath Lion Capital of Asoka. Its diameter approximates the width of the white band. It has 24 spokes. The design of the National Flag was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India on 22nd July, 1947. Its use and display are regulated by a code. Rabindranath Tagore’s song, Jana-gana-mana was adopted by the Constituent Assembly as the National Anthem of India on 24th January 1950. The first stanza (out of 5 stanzas) of the song, forms the National Anthem. National Calendar The Saka year has the normal 365 days and begins with Chaitra as its first month. The days of the Saka calendar have permanent correspondence with the dates of the Gregorian Calendar, Chaitra 1 falling on March 22 in a normal year and on March 21 in a Leap Year. The National Calendar commenced on Chaitra 1 Saka, 1879 corresponding to March 22, 1957 A.D. NATIONAL ANIMAL : TIGER NATIONAL GAME : HOCKEY NATIONAL FLOWER: LOTUS NATIONAL BIRD : PEACOCK National Song Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Vande Mataram which was a source of inspiration to the people in their struggle for freedom, has an equal status with Janagana- mana. The first political occasion on which it was sung was the 1896 session of the Indian National Congress. India-Religious Communities The major religious communities of India are the Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis. RELIGIOUS BOOKS Hindus Four Vedas, The Bhagwad Gita, The Ramayana, The Puranas, The Mahabharat, The Upanishads, The Ramcharitmanas Muslims The Holy Quran Sikhs Guru Granth Sahib Christians The Bible Parsis Zend Avesta India - Principal Languages India has 18 officially recognised languages (Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were added to the official list of 15 in 1992). The 1961 and 1971 census had listed 1652 languages as mother tongues spoken in India. The Indian languages of today have evolved from different language families. They may be grouped into 6 groups as under : 1. Negroid 4. Dravidian 2. Austric 5. Indo-Aryan 3. Sino-Tibetan 6. Other Speeches. These languages have interacted on one another through the centuries and have produced the major linguistic divisions of modern India. Among the major groups, the Aryan and the Dravidan are the dominating families. Indo-Aryan, the Indic branch of the Indo- European family, came into India with the Aryans. It is the biggest of the language groups in India, accounting for about 74 % of the entire Indian population. The important languages in this group are : Western Punjabi, Sindhi, Eastern Punjabi, Hindi, Bihari, Rajasthani, Gujarati, Marathi, Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, Pahari, Kashmiri and Sanskrit. Sankrit, the classical language of India, represents the highest achievement of the Indo-Aryan languages. Although hardly spoken now-a-days, Sanskrit has been listed a nationally accepted language in the VIII Schedule to the Constitution. Dravidian languages form a group by themselves, and unlike the Aryan, Austric or Sino- Tibetan speeches, have no relations outside the Indian subcontinent, that is, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Dravidian family is the second largest group in India, covering about 25% of the total Indian population. The Dravidian language came into India centuries before the Indo-Aryan. The outstanding languages of the Dravidian groups are : (a) Telugu, the State language of Andhra Pradesh, numerically the biggest of the Dravidian languages (b) Tamil, the State language of Tamil Nadu, apparently the oldest and purest branch of the Dravidian family (c) Kannada, the State language of Karnataka, another ancient Dravidian language that has developed individually (d) Malayalam, the State language of Kerala, the smallest and the youngest of the Dravidian family. Of the 1652 mother tongues listed in the census, 33 are spoken by people numbering over a lakh. With independence, the question of a common language naturally came up. The Constituent Assembly could not arrive at a consensus in the matter. The question was put to vote and Hindi won on a single vote-the casting vote of the President. Hindi however was only one of the many regional languages of India. The Indian National Congress had advocated the formation of linguistic provinces. The acceptance of this policy involved the statutory recognition of all the major regional languages. The Constitution therefore recognised Hindi in Devanagari script as the official language of the Union (Art.343) and the regional languages as the official langugaes of the States concerned (Art.345). English was recognised as the authoritative legislative and judicial language (Art 348). The 8th Schedule was added to the Constitution to indicate all regional languages statutarily recognised. The Schedule originally contained 15 languages as follows : 1. Assamese 6. Kashmiri 11. Sanskrit 2. Bengali 7. Malayalam 12. Tamil 3. Gujarati 8. Marathi 13. Telugu 4. Hindi 9. Oriya 14. Urdu 5. Kannada 10. Punjabi 15. Sindhi. By the 71st Amendment to the Constitution, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were added to the list in 1992. Hindi, numerically the biggest of the Indo-Aryan family is the official language of the Government of India. This was originally spoken in Delhi and some Western UP districts. Official Hindi is written in Devanagiri script. Tamil, the oldest of the Dravidian languages, is the State language of Tamil Nadu. Tamil literature goes back to centuries before the Christian era. The language is spoken by 74 million or more and judging by its modern publications, it is advancing at a faster pace. Kannada, the official language of the State of Karnataka, belongs to the Dravidian family. Kannada, as an independent language, dates from the 9th century. It has rich literary traditions. Malayalam, a branch of the Dravidian family, is the official language of the State of Kerala. It is one of the most developed languages of India. Telugu, numerically the biggest of the Dravidian languages is the State language of Andhra Pradesh. Next to Hindi, it is the biggest linguistic unit in India.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 09:00:19 +0000
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