India

=India=

Content
1. General facts about India 2. India`s economy 3. India's goverment 4. The history of India 5. Social conditions in India 6. Indian culture

General facts about India
India's capital is New Dehli, and is located north in India. The estimated population in India is 1 198 003 000, in an area of 3 287 263 km^2 wich is 2,7m^2 per inhabitant in Norway however there is 79,6m^2 there is a huge difference. India's national holiday is 25th august because that's the date of independence in india

India's economy
India has got a very large economy since the last 10 years. India has now the world`s fourth largest economy, and in 2003 was India the second country with best progress in the world.

India`s gross domestic product is ca. 2900 American dollars, and this is very much to be a country white ca. 1 billion humans. Some professors mean that India and Kina will be the riches land into 30 years. The agriculture is the one of the most important income to the people. They cultivate rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, tea, potatoes and sugar. It is India how give out the most of the tea we have in the world today.

Important imports goods that India buys are petroleum, machinery, chemicals, fertilizer, transport equipment, steel and iron. India sell exports goods like gems, machinery, petroleum products, transports equipment, cotton, clothing, leather, chemicals and fishery product. In 2008 India was number tree as the largest fishery industry.

Important buyers of India are United Kingdom, Japan, USA and Germany.

Some of India`s largest mineral resources are coal, iron, titanium, natural gas and diamonds. India has around 10 % of the world collage. India has also oil, but the oil resees just covering 25 % of India`s energy needs. Therefore use India lots of coal, and they also need to importer oil from other land. The oil takes place at Bombay High, white coast at Maharashtra, Gujarat, and white the east coast in Assam.

India use lots of renewable energy sources, like solar energy, wind energy and bio fuels.

India's bank
India`s bank has a long history, but to do the whole history short can we say that the Indian bank is now nationalized.

indias flag

India's government
India is the largest populous de mocracy in the world. Indian National Congress (NIC) has led the country for most of the time since India entered the democratic rule. Parties around the states in India have been dominated a lot in the policy. 1950-1990 in this period had INC parliamentary majority in two shorts periods.

In 1977 to 1980 NIC were not allowed to control the country anymore, because of people`s dissatisfaction the states of emergency. Janata Party won the election.

in 1989 were the elections won by a clash between National Front and Left Front, but they only had the power for two years.

1996-1998 were a difficult period for many of the political parties. In this period had many parties the power, but for many of them they lost the power after a time. But in 1998 the Bharativa Janata Party formed the National Democratic Alliance, with several regional parties. They became the first non-INC government that should complete a full five year period.

After the elections in 2004 had INC enough votes to formed a coalition government called the “united Progressive Alliance”, they gets support from the Communists and other anti BJP parties. The constitution defines India like a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic. The government of India has been built up under the Westminster-style. Westminster-style is a model after the politic of the United Kingdom, but the hallmarks of like this government has a strong center and weaker states. But it has grown a great deal since late in 1990s as a result of political, economic and social changes.

The presidents of India have the head of the state. The president will be chose of some electoral college. Electoral College is a set of electors who has been selected to elect a candidate to lead the country. The president will be the leader of five years, one term. The president is also the boss of the defense.

The prime minister is the head of the government, and can exercises most executive powers. It is the president who choosing the prime minister.

The Indian Parliament consists of two chambers, the House of Lords “Rajya Sabha” and the House of Lok Sabha.

The Rajya Sabha has 245 members who can be in the house for six years. The most of them are elected indirectly by the state. The two biggest tem normally goes together and make a coalition.

543 of 545 members of Lok Sabha are directly elected by the national election for five years. The other two are nominated by the president from the Angelo-Indian community, this happen only if the president means that society is not adequately represented.

Background history
India has a long history, we have documents from 6000BC, but in this text you can only read about the history from the late 15th century. Let’s go back in time, the year is 1498 and Vasco de Gama sets his foot on India. When the Indian people first saw him they had no idea what his discovery was going to do with the country or the people living there. In 1499 Vasco de Gama returned home and told the world about the new land with many resources, and the Englishmen set sail south, in 1619 the first trading post was finished, placed Surat, at the west coast in India. This was in many ways the beginning of the colony India. Slowly the trading post expanded and at last the whole India was a British colony (including the princely states). The British colony was divided into two parts, The British Provinces and the Princely States. The British Provinces is the parts of India where the British government was the leader. In the Princely States however there was the king of a native tribe who was the leader, even though the prince was the leader he still had to report to and pay taxes to the British government. What's important to remember is that India's main language was English under the colonial era, even in the princely states, so all the "civilised" people talked English.

The colonial era
In India under the colonial era the black people was dicriminated, they had to sit on their own bench when they waited for the bus etc. The black people ofcourse wasn't pleased with that system and wanted the same rights as the white people. India was called "The Jewel in the Crown" by the British people because they gained so much resources and manpower from India almost for free. Image by Elliott ErwittT

The Indian independence
In 1947 India finally got it's independence, but that was after many years with freedom fighting, Mahatma Ghandi is the most known freedom fighter from India, he was a user of nonvoilence and made his word come out to the people, think about it there is a black guy on the bus, you have the order to punch him, but when you do so he just sit as if nothing happened and let you punch him. You wouldn't be able to punch him for a long time before you felt really bad. There is not much to say about the revolution, because it was not any war, just voilence against the black people. After the second world war however the British goverment decided to let go of all of their colonies and that's how the Indian country became independent (but it would most likley not be independent if it was not for Ghandi).

The language however did not change to anything else than English, English was used so much so they did not bore to change it because it would have taken so much time and money.

Social conditions
The social conditions in India are not very good. In the slum and in the village they live very close to each other. One out of four Indians is living in the slum or in the village. Over 100 000 people took their lives in the villages the last 10 years. There are many poor peoples in India, but it also rich peoples. The difference between them is big. In Norway people are “poor” if they earn less than 150 000 NOK in a year, in India it’s the opposite. In some villages in India they have castes. A cast is a “ranking” you will be born into. Some place people can’t get married if they’re not in the same cast. In the 19th century they had this thing all over India.

Culture
The Indian culture is one of the oldest and unique. Almost every state has different culture. There is probably no other country that’s as unique as India, and it is a big country with many peoples.

Religion
India is the place where several religions started. These religions are Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Indian religions, also known as Dharmic religions. These religions are the biggest and most widespread next to the Abrahamic religions. Hinduism and Buddhism are the world’s third and fourth largest religions in the world. It has 1.4 followers today. India is the most religiously country in the world, and the culture are influenced by the religions.

Sports
Sport in India is very widespread. Field hockey is the national sport in India, but it isn’t the most popular. India dominated this game before the 20th century. They won eight gold medals in the Olympic Games. India's recent performance have been below par and India is currently ranked 8th in the world. The most popular sport in India is Cricket. They have one of the best national cricket team, and famous players like Kapil Dev, Rahul Dravid and Sunil Gavaskar has dominated the last 30 years. India Also won the first and only World Champions of Cricket and most recently World Twenty tournament in 2007. Soccer is one of the major sports in India. It was introduced during the British occupation and in some areas of the country it is as popular as cricket. India is ranked 146 in the FIFA ranking. India has also won some medals in the Olympic Games, they have 6 Gold medals in Field Hockey, and the last one in 1980. The latest Gold medal did Abhinav Bindra won in Beijing. He won it in shooting. Total they have nine gold medals, four silver medals and seven bronze medals.