India

= = = = = = = = = = =**Facts About India**=
 * [[image:http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/files/images/090806_untouchables.jpg width="208" height="138" caption="Untouchables" link="untouchables"]] || [[image:http://www.shreedarshan.com/hindu-society-caste-shudra..jpg width="125" height="148" caption="Shudras" link="Shudras"]] || [[image:http://www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/asst001/spring98/images/5b.JPG width="218" height="147" caption="Vaishyas" link="Vaishyas"]] ||
 * [[image:http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/crf7uO1TdLs/hqdefault.jpg width="212" height="160" caption="Kshatriya" link="Kshatriya"]] ||  || [[image:http://www.hindustantimes.com/Images/2010/5/d84c867b-d101-4a08-8e29-d32deeb8e079HiRes.JPG width="216" height="164" caption="Brahmans" link="Brahmans"]] ||

OFFICIAL NAME: Republic of India, Bharat

FORM OF GOVERNMENT: Federal republic

CAPITAL: New Delhi

POPULATION: 1,095,351,995

OFFICIAL LANGUAGES: Hindi, English, 21 others

MONEY: Rupee

AREA: 1,269,345 square miles (3,287,590 square kilometers)

MAJOR MOUNTAIN RANGE: Himalaya

MAJOR RIVERS: Ganges, Yamuna, Indus, Brahmaputra

Indian Flag

 Map of India

NATURE

For thousands of years, since the Hindu religion first evolved, respect for animal life has been an important part of Indians' beliefs. Cows in particular are sacred and cannot be harmed. They are even allowed to wander through city streets, which often causes traffic jams!

India's varied climate zones support about 65,000 animal species, including elephants, pythons, river dolphins, and rhinos, and 12,000 types of flowering plants. It is the only country in the world with both lions and tigers. It's also a bird watcher's paradise.

On the coast of the Bay of Bengal is the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest. Here, tigers swim in the same rivers as dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, and saltwater crocodiles. This unique landscape is constantly under threat as sea levels rise and humans hunt illegally and clear trees for firewood.

The Himalaya mountains provide a home for some of India's rarest animals and plants. The most elusive animal is the snow leopard. Bears and black buck live lower down, and in the northeast, the tiger and one-horned rhinoceros can be found.

PEOPLE & CULTURE

Society throughout India is divided into social ranks, called castes. Caste is determined by birth and there is almost no way to change it. High castes include priests, landowners, and soldiers. So-called Untouchables have no caste and do the most menial jobs.

India is a very spiritual country. It has no official religion, but more than 80 percent of Indians are Hindu. About 13 percent are Muslim. Other religions include Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, which all began in India.

GEOGRAPHY

India is part of the continent of Asia. Most of India forms a peninsula, which means it is surrounded by water on three sides. The world's highest mountain range, the Himalaya, rises in the north. The southeast is bordered by the Bay of Bengal, and the southwest is bordered by the Arabian Sea.

India's terrain varies widely, from the Thar Desert in the west to jungles in the northeast. A fertile area called the Ganges Plain covers much of northern India. This formation was created from soil that was deposited by rivers running from the Himalaya. In some places, this layer of silt is over 25,000 feet (7,620 meters) deep.

Rupee

GOVERNMENT & ECONOMY India's parliamentary government was inherited from the British. After independence in 1947, one party, the Congress Party, and one family, the Nehru family, dominated politics in India for decades. Now, however, many parties compete for elected positions.

India's economy is growing so fast that experts predict it will soon become one of the world's leading markets. Indians are hard workers. And though many are poorly educated, there are many others who are highly trained college graduates.

=A day in the life= 

Yoshita Sharma Hi! I'm Yoshita Sharma. I am 10 years old. I live with my parents, granddad, sister, aunt and cousin in Noida, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.  This is my normal day in India   6:15 A.M. Mama wakes me up. I brush my teeth, take a bath and dress for school. For breakfast, I usually have a glass of cold milk and fruit or a bowl of cornflakes. 7:15 A.M. I take my huge school bag and run for my bus. My friends and their parents are already there. I greet everybody and then start chatting with my friends. 8:00 A.M. At school, we have assembly. We say prayers and do judo, karate and yoga. At 8:30, we head to our classrooms to start lessons. There are 45 children in my class. We are studying nouns in English. Next is social studies. My teacher gives us long dictations. We have to write very fast to keep up. 10:20 A.M. After a 20-minute recess, it's time to study Hindi. Art, my favorite class, is next. I'm doing pottery. It will take me time to perfect it. 12:35 P.M. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,'Nimbus Sans L',sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Time for another break. I go to the canteen for a late breakfast. I have chole bhatura, which is deep-fried bread with tomato sauce. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">12:45 P.M. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,'Nimbus Sans L',sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">After recess, I have science class. We are learning about motion. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">1:50 P.M. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,'Nimbus Sans L',sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">School is over. We are all sweaty and tired, so we drench ourselves with our water bottles. Then we rush for the stalls that sell ice cream. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">2:30 P.M. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,'Nimbus Sans L',sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">At home, a chilled vanilla milkshake cools me off. I change my clothes and wash up. I'm almost lifeless from the heat. I watch TV while Mama feeds me my lunch of chapati bread, rice, vegetables and sweet curd. Then I take a nap. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">6:30 P.M. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,'Nimbus Sans L',sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I rush to the park to play games with my friends. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">8:00 P.M. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,'Nimbus Sans L',sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Back at home, I watch TV and then do my homework. For dinner, I have shahi-paneer, which is cottage cheese, rice, peas, and bread. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">11:00 P.M. <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,'Nimbus Sans L',sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I brush my teeth before bed. Good night! <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #031a35; display: block; font-family: DinAlternate,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: top;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #031a35; display: block; font-family: DinAlternate,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: top;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #031a35; display: block; font-family: DinAlternate,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: top;"> <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,'Nimbus Sans L',sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The Caste System <span style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,'Nimbus Sans L',sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">media type="custom" key="26180502" <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #031a35; display: block; font-family: DinAlternate,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: top;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #031a35; display: block; font-family: DinAlternate,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: top;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #031a35; display: block; font-family: DinAlternate,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: top;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Castes were the central feature of people's identities in ancient India. Beginning soon after the [|Aryan invasion], people in India began to divide everyone into one of five groups, or castes. People thought of the caste system as people's mirror of the way the [|universe] worked. Just as the [|sun] and the [|planets] each had to follow its prescribed path, in the same way people had to live according to their caste. This parallel between the real world and the caste system made caste seem natural and impossible to change or avoid. Caste gave some people special rights and privileges that other people did not have.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">The [|Rig Veda] describes each of these castes. There were really four castes, and then the lowest group had no caste, and were known as Untouchables. Below the untouchables were the [|slaves]. Untouchables usually did the worst jobs, like cleaning up people's bathrooms, or collecting garbage.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">The lowest of the castes was the shudras - the servants and farmhands who did not own their own business or their own land, and who had to work for other people. But gradually a lot of land-owning farmers fell into this caste, too. Probably the largest number of people belonged to this caste.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Above them were the vaishyas, or farmers and traders, who owned their own farms or businesses. There were a lot of them, too.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Above these were the Kshatriya, or warriors. There were not very many Kshatriyas. A lot of them were in the army, or leaders in other ways. Women could not be warriors, but they could be Kshatriyas anyway.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">The most powerful caste was the Brahmans, the priests and leaders. There were only a few of them. Only Brahman men were allowed to go to school, or to teach in schools (Brahman women could not go to school).