Just reat indians >> Capital and Major Cities:Capital New Delhi, population 12,800,000Major Cities Mumbai, population 16,400,000 Kolkata, population 13,200,000 Chennai, population 6,400,000 Bangalore, population 5,700,000 Hyderabad, population 5,500,000 Ahmedabad, population 5,000,000 Pune, population 4,000,000 Indias Government: India is a parliamentary democracy. The head of government is the Prime Minister, currently Narendra Modi. Pranab Mukherjee is the current President and head of state. The President serves a five-year term; he or she appoints the Prime Minister. The Indian Parliament orSansadis made up of the 245-memberRajya Sabhaor upper house and the 545-memberLok Sabhaor lower house. The Rajya Sabha is elected by state legislatures for six-year terms, while the Lok Sabha is elected directly by the people to five-year terms. The judiciary consists of a Supreme Court, High Courts that hear appeals, and many trial courts. Population of India: India is the second most populous nation on Earth, with approximately 1.2 billion citizens. The countrys annual population growth rate is 1.55%. The people of India represent over 2,000 different ethno-linguistic groups. About 24% of the population belongs to one of the Scheduled Castes (the untouchables) or Scheduled Tribes; these are historically discriminated-against groups given special recognition in the Indian Constitution. Although the country has at least 35 cities with more than one million residents, the vast majority of Indians live in rural areas - some 72% of the total population. Languages: India has two official languages - Hindi and English. However, its citizens speak an array of languages spanning the Indo-European, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burmic linguistic families. More than 1,500 languages are spoken today in India. The languages with the most native speakers are: Hindi, 422 million; Bengali, 83 million; Telugu, 74 million; Marthi, 72 million; and Tamil, 61 million. The diversity of spoken languages is matched by a number of written scripts. Many are unique to India, although some northern Indian languages such as Urdu and Panjabi may be written in a form of Perso-Arabic script. Religion: Greater India is the birthplace of a number of religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. Currently, about 80% of the population is Hindu, 13% is Muslim, 2.3% Christian, 1.9% Sikh, and there are smaller populations of Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Jews and Jains. Historically, two religious branches of thought developed in ancient India. The Shramana led to Buddhism and Jainism, while the Vedic tradition developed into Hinduism. Modern India is a secular state, but religious tensions do flare from time to time, particularly between Hindus and Muslims or Hindus and Sikhs. Indian Geography: India covers 1.27 million square miles in area (3.29 million sq km). It is the seventh-largest country on Earth. It borders on Bangladeshand Myanmarto the east, Bhutan, Chinaand Nepalto the north, and Pakistanto the west. India includes a high central plain, called the Deccan Plateau, the Himalayas in the north, and desert lands to the west. The highest point is Kanchenjunga at 8,598 meters. The lowest point is sea level. Rivers are crucial in India, and include the Ganga (Ganges) and Brahmaputra. Climate of India: Indias climate is strongly monsoonal, and is also influenced by the vast topographical variation between the coastal areas and the Himalaya range. Thus, the climate ranges from alpine glacial in the mountains to wet and tropical in the southwest, and hot and arid in the northwest. The lowest temperature ever recorded was -34°C (-27.4°F) in Ladakh. The highest was 50.6°C (123°F) in Alwar. Between June and September, massive amounts of monsoon rainfall pummel much of the country, bringing as much as 5 feet of rain.
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 02:48:01 +0000
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