Republic of India

India, officially the Republic of India (Bharat Ganrajya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country with everyplace 1. 2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the mouth of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the westd China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east and Burma and Bangladesh to the east.In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives in addition, Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia. Home to the ancient Indus vale Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history.Four world religionsHinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhismoriginated here, whereas Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Chris tianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the regions diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent oppositeness led by Mahatma Gandhi.Rabindranath Tagore is Asias first Nobel laureate and composer of Indias national anthem Swami Vivekananda was a key figure in introducing Vedanta and Yoga in Europe and USA, raising interfaith knowingness and making Hinduism a world religion. The Indian economy is the worlds tenth-largest by nominal GDP and third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the fastest-growing major economies it is considered a newly industrialised country.However, it continues to face the chal lenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, inadequate public healthcare, and terrorism. A nuclear weapons state and a regional power, it has the third-largest standing host in the world and ranks eighth in military expenditure among nations. India is a federal constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system consisting of 28 states and 7 union territories. India is a pluralistic, multilingual, and a multi-ethnic society. It is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats.