The EU-India trade agreement

That made it the fourth country and first Asian country to do so, successfully. India sent a spacecraft to Mars for the first time in 2014. Several modern religions are linked to India, namely modern Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism.

In 2008, a civilian nuclear agreement was signed between India and the United States. India maintains a “no first use” nuclear policy and is developing a nuclear triad capability as a part of its “Minimum Credible Deterrence” doctrine. India has signed neither the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Bet365 Treaty nor the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, considering both to be flawed and discriminatory. India conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 1974 and carried out additional underground testing in 1998.

History of India

During the 1930s, the British enacted slow legislative reform; the Indian National Congress won victories in the resulting elections. It was marked by British reforms but also repressive legislation, by more strident Indian calls for self-rule, and by the beginnings of a nonviolent movement of non-co-operation led by Mahatma Gandhi. After World War I, in which approximately one million Indians served, a new period began. The railway network provided critical famine relief, notably reduced the cost of moving goods, and helped nascent Indian-owned industry. There was an increase in the number of large-scale famines, and, despite the risks of infrastructure development borne by Indian taxpayers, little industrial employment was generated for Indians.

Union territories

The Cochin International Airport is the first in the world to operate solely on solar energy. Hampi Bazar was a street market that served as a ‘mall’ for the Vijayanagar empire. Ramoji Film City is the largest film studio in the world. Indore has held the title of India’s cleanest city for six consecutive years, from 2017 to 2022. St. Thomas Church served as a prison for Indian freedom fighters while Britain was in power.

• In 2008, India’s share of world trade was 1.7%; in 2021, India was the world’s ninth-largest importer and the sixteenth-largest exporter.
• There are two main language families in India, the Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian languages.
• The Indian biotech industry grew by 15.1% in 2012–2013, increasing its revenues from ₹204.4 billion (Indian rupees) to ₹235.24 billion (US$3.94 billion at June 2013 exchange rates).
• In 1914, British India and Tibet agreed on the McMahon Line, as part of the Simla Accord.
• According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the English proper noun “India” derives most immediately from the Classical Latin India, a reference to a loosely-defined historical region of Asia stretching from South Asia to the borders of China.
• © Ministry of Tourism, Government of India.

Moderately dense forest, whose canopy density is between 40% and 70%, occupies 9.39% of India’s land area. India also contains four of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots, or regions that display significant habitat loss in the presence of high endemism.t India is the habitat for 8.6% of all mammals, 13.7% of bird species, 7.9% of reptile species, 6% of amphibian species, 12.2% of fish species, and 6.0% of all flowering plant species. Temperatures in India have risen by 0.7 °C (1.3 °F) between 1901 and 2018. India’s coastline measures 7,517 kilometres (4,700 mi) in length; of this distance, 5,423 kilometres (3,400 mi) belong to peninsular India and 2,094 kilometres (1,300 mi) to the Andaman, Nicobar, and Lakshadweep island chains. Major Himalayan-origin rivers that substantially flow through India include the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, both of which drain into the Bay of Bengal.

The Indian subcontinent is the second most diverse region after Africa. Humans came to the Indian subcontinent from Africa more than 55,000 years ago. It has been the world’s largest democracy by number of people since 1947. India (भारत  (Hindi) Bhārat Gaṇarājya) officially the Republic of India, also known as Hindustān, is a country in South Asia.

India’s territory is made up of 28 states and 8 union territories, and its national capital is New Delhi. The oldest extant mathematical document produced on the Indian subcontinent is the birch bark Bakhshali manuscript from the 7th century CE. India has the largest population of Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains, the third-largest population of Muslims (after Indonesia and Pakistan) and the ninth largest of Buddhists.

Mumbai is the centre of the Indian film industry, often referred to as Bollywood, producing more films per year than Hollywood. Patna was the capital of the ancient Magadha kingdom and one of the most important cities of ancient India. It is an important global wetland habitat and has been declared an International Bird Conservation Area. The twin hills of Khandagiri and Udaigiri are famous for their rock-cut caves, constructed by Jain monks during the 1st and 2nd century BC.

Early modern India

During the election, critics accused Mr Modi and his party of using hate speech, attacking the country’s Muslim minority, and jailing opposition figures. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi was elected for a third term as India’s prime minister in June 2024. As a rising economic powerhouse and nuclear-armed state, India has emerged as an important regional power. The new mountains—together with vast amounts of sediment eroded from them—were so heavy that the Indian-Australian Plate just south of the range was forced downward, creating a zone of crustal subsidence. When the two finally collided (approximately 50 million years ago), the northern edge of the Indian-Australian Plate was thrust under the Eurasian Plate at a low angle. Apart from its many religions and sects, India is home to innumerable castes and tribes, as well as to more than a dozen major and hundreds of minor linguistic groups from several language families unrelated to one another.