India

total:

645.84 cu km/yr (8%/5%/86%)

per capita:

585 cu m/yr (2000)

• droughts;
• flash floods, as well as widespread and destructive flooding from monsoonal rains;
• severe thunderstorms;
• earthquakes

• deforestation;
• soil erosion;
• overgrazing;
• desertification;
• air pollution from industrial effluents and vehicle emissions;
• water pollution from raw sewage and runoff of agricultural pesticides;
• tap water is not potable throughout the country;
• huge and growing population is overstraining natural resources

• dominates South Asian subcontinent;
• near important Indian Ocean trade routes;
• Kanchenjunga, third tallest mountain in the world, lies on the border with Nepal

at birth:

1.12 male(s)/female

under 15 years:

1.1 male(s)/female

15-64 years:

1.06 male(s)/female

65 years and over:

0.9 male(s)/female

total population:

1.06 male(s)/female (2009 est.)

noun:

Indian(s)

adjective:

Indian

conventional long form:

Republic of India

conventional short form:

India

local long form:

Republic of India/Bharatiya Ganarajya

local short form:

India/Bharat

name:

New Delhi

geographic coordinates:

28 36 N, 77 12 E

time difference:

UTC+5.5 (10.5 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)

• based on English common law;
• judicial review of legislative acts;
• accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction with reservations;
• separate personal law codes apply to Muslims, Christians, and Hindus

chief of state:

President Pratibha PATIL (since 25 July 2007); Vice President Hamid ANSARI (since 11 August 2007)

head of government:

Prime Minister Manmohan SINGH (since 22 May 2004)

cabinet:

Cabinet appointed by the president on the recommendation of the prime minister

elections:

• president elected by an electoral college consisting of elected members of both houses of Parliament and the legislatures of the states for a five-year term (no term limits);
• election last held in July 2007 (next to be held in July 2012);
• vice president elected by both houses of Parliament for a five-year term;
• election last held in August 2007 (next to be held August 2012);
• prime minister chosen by parliamentary members of the majority party following legislative elections;
• election last held April - May 2004 (next to be held no later than May 2009)

election results:

Pratibha PATIL elected president; percent of vote - Pratibha PATIL 65.8%, Bhairon Singh SHEKHAWAT - 34.2%

• All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or AIADMK [J. JAYALALITHAA];
• All India Trinamool Congress or AITC [Mamata BANERJEE];
• Bahujan Samaj Party or BSP [Kumari MAYAWATI];
• Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP [Rajnath SINGH];
• Biju Janata Dal or BJD [Naveen PATNAIK];
• Communist Party of India or CPI [Ardhendu Bhushan BARDHAN];
• Communist Party of India-Marxist or CPI-M [Prakash KARAT];
• Dravida Munnetra Kazagham or DMK [M. KARUNANIDHI];
• Indian National Congress or INC [Sonia GANDHI];
• Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) [Sharad YADAV];
• Jharkhand Mukti Morcha or JMM [Shibu SOREN];
• Left Front (an alliance of Indian leftist parties);
• Lok Jan Shakti Party or LJSP [Ram Vilas PASWAN];
• Nationalist Congress Party or NCP [Sharad PAWAR];
• Pattali Makkal Katchi or PMK [S. RAMADOSS];
• Rashtriya Janata Dal or RJD [Laloo Prasad YADAV];
• Samajwadi Party or SP [Mulayam Singh YADAV];
• Shiromani Akali Dal or SAD [Parkash Singh BADAL];
• Shiv Sena or SS [Bal THACKERAY];
• note - India has dozens of national and regional political parties;
• only parties or coalitions with four or more seats in the People's Assembly are listed

• All Parties Hurriyat Conference in the Kashmir Valley (separatist group);
• Bajrang Dal (religious organization);
• National Socialist Council of Nagaland in the northeast (separatist group);
• Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (religious organization);
• Vishwa Hindu Parishad (religious organization

other:

numerous religious or militant/chauvinistic organizations; various separatist groups seeking greater communal and/or regional autonomy

chief of mission:

Ambassador Meera SHANKAR

chancery:

2107 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008; note - Consular Wing located at 2536 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008

telephone:

[1] (202) 939-7000

FAX:

[1] (202) 265-4351

consulate(s) general:

Chicago, Houston, New York, San Francisco

chief of mission:

Ambassador (vacant); Charge d'Affaires A. Peter BURLEIGH

embassy:

Shantipath, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi 110021

mailing address:

use embassy street address

telephone:

[91] (011) 2419-8000

FAX:

[91] (11) 2419-0017

consulate(s) general:

Chennai (Madras), Kolkata (Calcutta), Mumbai (Bombay)

• three equal horizontal bands of saffron (subdued orange) (top), white, and green, with a blue chakra (24-spoked wheel) centered in the white band;
• similar to the flag of Niger, which has a small orange disk centered in the white band

agriculture:

60%

industry:

12%

services:

28% (2003)

lowest 10%:

3.6%

highest 10%:

31.1% (2005)

• rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes;
• onions, dairy products, sheep, goats, poultry;
• fish

general assessment:

• recent deregulation and liberalization of telecommunications laws and policies have prompted rapid growth;
• local and long distance service provided throughout all regions of the country, with services primarily concentrated in the urban areas;
• steady improvement is taking place with the recent admission of private and private-public investors, but combined fixed and mobile telephone density remains low at about 40 for each 100 persons nationwide and much lower for persons in rural areas;
• extremely rapid growth in cellular service with modest declines in fixed lines

domestic:

• mobile cellular service introduced in 1994 and organized nationwide into four metropolitan areas and 19 telecom circles each with multiple private service providers and one or more state-owned service providers;
• in recent years significant trunk capacity added in the form of fiber-optic cable and one of the world's largest domestic satellite systems, the Indian National Satellite system (INSAT), with 6 satellites supporting 33,000 very small aperture terminals (VSAT)

international:

• country code - 91;
• a number of major international submarine cable systems, including Sea-Me-We-3 with landing sites at Cochin and Mumbai (Bombay), Sea-Me-We-4 with a landing site at Chennai, Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) with a landing site at Mumbai (Bombay), South Africa - Far East (SAFE) with a landing site at Cochin, the i2i cable network linking to Singapore with landing sites at Mumbai (Bombay) and Chennai (Madras), and Tata Indicom linking Singapore and Chennai (Madras), provide a significant increase in the bandwidth available for both voice and data traffic;
• satellite earth stations - 8 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarsat (Indian Ocean region);
• 9 gateway exchanges operating from Mumbai (Bombay), New Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai (Madras), Jalandhar, Kanpur, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, and Ernakulam (2008)

• condensate/gas 2 km;
• gas 6,061 km;
• liquid petroleum gas 2,156 km;
• oil 7,678 km;
• refined products 6,876 km (2008)

total:

63,327 km

country comparison to the world: 4

broad gauge:

49,820 km 1.676-m gauge (17,786 km electrified)

narrow gauge:

10,621 km 1.000-m gauge (135 km electrified); 2,886 km 0.762-m gauge and 0.610-m gauge (2007)

• 16 years of age for voluntary military service;
• no conscription;
• women officers allowed in noncombat roles only (2008)

males age 16-49:

301,094,084

females age 16-49:

283,047,141 (2008 est.)

males age 16-49:

237,042,868

females age 16-49:

243,276,310 (2009 est.)

male:

11.795 million

female:

10,820,590 (2009 est.)

refugees (country of origin):

• 77,200 (Tibet/China);
• 69,609 (Sri Lanka);
• 9,472 (Afghanistan)

IDPs:

at least 600,000 (about half are Kashmiri Pandits from Jammu and Kashmir) (2007)

current situation:

• India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation;
• internal forced labor may constitute India's largest trafficking problem;
• men, women, and children are held in debt bondage and face forced labor working in brick kilns, rice mills, agriculture, and embroidery factories;
• women and girls are trafficked within the country for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage;
• children are subjected to forced labor as factory workers, domestic servants, beggars, and agriculture workers, and have been used as armed combatants by some terrorist and insurgent groups;
• India is also a destination for women and girls from Nepal and Bangladesh trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation;
• Indian women are trafficked to the Middle East for commercial sexual exploitation;
• men and women from Bangladesh and Nepal are trafficked through India for forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation in the Middle East

tier rating:

• Tier 2 Watch List - India is on the Tier 2 Watch List for a fifth consecutive year for its failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat human trafficking in 2007;
• despite the reported extent of the trafficking crisis in India, government authorities made uneven efforts to prosecute traffickers and protect trafficking victims;
• government authorities continued to rescue victims of commercial sexual exploitation and forced child labor and child armed combatants, and began to show progress in law enforcement against these forms of trafficking;
• a critical challenge overall is the lack of punishment for traffickers, effectively resulting in impunity for acts of human trafficking;
• India has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol (2008)

• world's largest producer of licit opium for the pharmaceutical trade, but an undetermined quantity of opium is diverted to illicit international drug markets;
• transit point for illicit narcotics produced in neighboring countries and throughout Southwest Asia;
• illicit producer of methaqualone;
• vulnerable to narcotics money laundering through the hawala system;
• licit ketamine and precursor production