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INDIA The world’s seventh largest country in area, India occupies more than 3 million sq km (1 million sq mi), encompassing a varied landscape rich in natural resources. The Indian Peninsula forms a rough triangle framed on the north by the world’s highest mountains, the Himalayas, and on the east, south, and west by oceans. Its topography varies from the barren dunes of the Thar Desert to the dense tropical forests of rain-drenched Assam state. Much of India, however, consists of fertile river plains and high plateaus. Several major rivers, including the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Indus, flow through India. Arising in the northern mountains and carrying rich alluvial soil to the plains below, these mighty rivers have supported agriculture-based civilizations for thousands of years. With nearly 1 billion inhabitants, India ranks second only to China among the world's most populous countries. Its people are culturally diverse, and religion plays an important role in the life of the country. About 83 percent of the people practice Hinduism, a religion that originated in India. Another 12 percent are Muslims, and millions of others are Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains. Eighteen major languages and more than 1000 minor languages and dialects are spoken in India. India’s long history stretches back to the Indus Valley civilization of about 2500-1700 BC. For hundreds of years, India was home to massive empires and regional kingdoms. British rule in India began in the 1700s AD. Foreign domination engendered Indian nationalism, which eventually led to India winning its independence in 1947. Split from Pakistan at independence, India struggled with its Muslim neighbor over border differences and Hindu-Muslim relations. India and Pakistan still conflict over the Jammu and Kashmīr region, parts of which are also occupied by China. India’s federal political system, a democracy for more than 50 years, has demonstrated a remarkable resilience in resolving domestic and international crises. India has grown since independence to have great influence on Asia and a massive world presence. The country is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, an association of political entities that once gave or currently give allegiance to the British crown. The
Indian economy has also evolved since independence. Once heavily dependent on agriculture,
it has expanded in recent years into the realms of industry and services. Economic reforms
in 1991 dramatically increased the amount of foreign investment in the country. The rivers of India can be divided into three groups: the great Himalayan rivers of the north, the westward-flowing rivers of central India, and the eastward-flowing rivers of the Deccan Plateau and the rest of peninsular India. Only small portions of India’s rivers are navigable because of silting and the wide seasonal variation in water flow (due to the monsoon climate). Water transport is thus of little importance in India. Barrages, structures that redirect water flow, have been erected on many of the rivers for irrigation, diverting water into some of the oldest and most extensive canal systems in the world. The Indian subcontinent’s three great northern rivers, the Indus, the Brahmaputra, and the Ganges, flow through India. The Indus (about 2900 km/1800 mi long) originates in the Himalayas of western Tibet, flows through the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmīr State, then enters Pakistan. The waters of three of its tributaries, the Sutlej, Rāvi, and Chenāb have been diverted, under the Indus Water Treaty, for use in India. The Brahmaputra (about 2900 km/ 1800 mi long) likewise rises in the Tibetan Himalayas. It flows through Assam state and then south through Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal. The Ganges (about 2510 km/ 1560 mi long), known as Ganga in India, rises in the Indian Himalayas and enters the Gangetic Plain north of Delhi. At Allahābād it is joined by its major tributary, the Yamuna. The main branch of the Ganges flows through Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal, while a second branch meets the bay in India, near Calcutta. Both the Brahmaputra and Ganges rivers discharge enormous amounts of water, almost all of it during the monsoon season. The Narmada (1289 km/801 mi long) is India’s major west-flowing river; it flows mainly in the state of Madhya Pradesh, emptying into the Arabian Sea in Gujarāt state. Its annual runoff is less than one-tenth that of the Ganges system. Its basin consists of about 5 million cultivable hectares (about 12 million acres), though only a small percentage is currently irrigated. A major dam system under construction will divert large amounts of water for irrigation, particularly in the state of Gujarāt. Three major rivers flow east into the Bay of Bengal, rising from the western hills of the Deccan Plateau. The northernmost is the Godāvari (about 1450 km/900 mi long). It has a basin (the area drained by a river) one-third the size of the Ganges, and carries one-tenth of the amount of water the Ganges carries. Emptying into the sea not far south of the Godāvari is the Krishna (about 1290 km/800 mi long), with a basin equal to the Godāvari but carrying only two-thirds of the amount of water. The smallest of the three rivers is the Kāveri (about 760 km/475 mi long), with a basin less than one-third the size of the other two rivers. India has a number of other significant rivers. Tributaries of the Ganges from the north include the Kosi, Gandak, Ghāghara, Gumti, and Sārda rivers. Joining the Ganges from the south are the Betwa, Chambal, and Son rivers. The Mahi, Sābarmatī, and Tāpi flow west into the Arabian Sea in Gujarāt. Flowing west to join the Indus River in Pakistan are the Beās, Chenāb, Jhelum, Rāvi, and Sutlej, all rivers of the Punjab (Hindi for "five rivers") region of India and Pakistan. The Mahānadī and Brāhmani rivers rise in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa states, respectively, and flow east to empty into the Bay of Bengal. The waters of all these rivers are used to irrigate crops, but the amount stored for purposes of irrigation and power generation varies enormously from river to river depending, among other things, on the number of dams on the river. There are only a few natural lakes in India of any size. Chilika Lake on the coast of Orissa varies seasonally in volume and is alternately fresh and salty. Other lakes, such as Sāmbhar in Rājasthān state and Colair in Orissa state, typically dry out completely before the monsoon begins. Small artificially created ponds called tanks are a feature of virtually every village, serving as sources of water for drinking, bathing, and irrigation. India is home to abundant plant and animal life and has a wide range of climates that accommodate a diversity of species throughout the country. Broadly classified, there are seven major regions for plant and animal life in India: the arid Indus Plain, the Gangetic Plain, the Himalayas, Assam Valley, the Malabar Coast, the peninsular plateau, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. India has an estimated 45,000 species of plants, 33 percent of which are native. There are 15,000 flowering plant species, 6 percent of the world's total. About 3000 to 4000 of the total number of plant species are believed to be threatened with extinction. In the arid areas that adjoin Pakistan, the eastern part of the Indus Plain, most plant life is sparse and herblike. Various thorny species, including capers (spiny shrubs with pale flowers) and jujubes (fruit-producing trees with veined leaves and yellowish flowers), are common. Bamboo grows in some areas, and among the few varieties of trees is the palm. The Gangetic Plain, which has more moisture, supports many types of plant life. Vegetation is especially luxuriant in the southeastern part of the plains region, where the mangrove and the sal, a hardwood timber tree, flourish. In the Himalayas many varieties of arctic flora are found on the higher slopes. The lower levels of the mountain range support many types of subtropical plant life, notably the orchid. Dense forests remain in the few areas where agriculture and commercial forestry have had little effect. Coniferous trees, including cedar and pine, predominate in the northwestern Himalayan region. On the Himalayas’ eastern slopes, tropical and subtropical types of vegetation abound. Here rhododendrons grow to tree height. Among the predominant trees are oak and magnolia. The Assam Valley features evergreen forests, bamboo, and areas of tall grasses. The Malabar Coast, which receives a large amount of rainfall, is thickly wooded. Evergreens, bamboo, and several varieties of valuable timber trees, including teak, predominate in this region. Extensive tracts of impenetrable jungle are found in the swampy lowlands and along the lower elevations of the Western Ghats. The vegetation of the peninsular plateau is less luxuriant, but thickets of bamboo, palm, and deciduous trees grow throughout the Deccan Plateau. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands have tropical forests, both evergreen and semievergreen. India is inhabited by a wide variety of animal life, including almost 5000 species of larger animals. Several species of the cat family—including the tiger, panther, Asiatic lion, Asiatic cheetah, snow leopard, jungle cat, and clouded leopard—live in some areas of India. Most of these species are under threat of extinction. Elephants roam the lower slopes of the central and eastern Himalayan foothills and the remote forests of the southern Deccan Plateau. Other large quadrupeds (four-footed animals) native to India include rhinoceroses (under threat of extinction), black bear, wolf, jackal, dhole (wild Asian dog), wild buffalo, wild hog, antelope, and deer. Several species of monkeys live throughout the country. Various species of wild goats and sheep, including ibexes and serows, are found in the Himalayas and other mountainous areas. The pygmy hog, bandicoot rat, and tree mouse are typical types of smaller native quadrupeds; bats are also abundant. Venomous reptiles, including the cobra, krait, and saltwater snake, are especially numerous in India, and pythons and crocodiles are also found. Tropical birds of India include the parrot, peacock, kingfisher, and heron. The rivers and coastal waters of India teem with fish, including many edible varieties. India's most important natural resources are land and water. About 56 percent of the land area is arable, and groundwater resources are considerable. The Gangetic Plain is one of India’s most fertile regions. The soils of this region were formed by the alluvial deposits of the Ganges and its tributaries. In this area, as well as in the peninsular deltas, groundwater is plentiful and close to the surface, making year-round irrigation possible. These regions may produce two or three harvests a year. Most of India’s wheat and rice are grown here. The black and red soils of the Deccan Plateau, though not as thick as the Gangetic Plain alluvium, are also fertile. The groundwater resources of the Deccan are significant but more difficult to reach, so most farmers rely on the monsoons for water. Farmers typically grow a single crop, including coarse grains such as sorghum, maize (corn), or millet, and cotton. Forests constitute another natural resource for India, with woodlands covering 22 percent of its land area. India's highly varied climate and land produce diverse forests. The majority are deciduous, both tropical-dry, experiencing a significant dry season, and tropical-moist, receiving relatively uniform rainfall year-round. The remainder of forests range in type from tropical evergreen to Himalayan temperate and alpine. Major commercial tree species include teak, rosewood, and sal. Bamboo is a widely used construction material. Despite significant overuse of forest resources in the past, government and private efforts have reduced the rate of deforestation in natural forests, and increased new plantations of trees, creating a modest net gain in forest cover since 1990. The mineral resources of India include a vast belt of coal stretching from eastern Mahārāshtra state through the hill areas of Madhya Pradesh and Bihār to West Bengal. The same geographical area, with the addition of Orissa state, contains major deposits of bauxite. Iron ore is also found here, as well as in the Western Ghats in and around Goa. Other mineral deposits include manganese (found mainly in central India), copper, and chromite. There are significant oil and natural gas reserves in Assam and Gujarāt states, and on the continental shelf off Mahārāshtra and Gujarāt. India also has ample reserves of phosphate rock apatite, gypsum, limestone, and mica. India’s shape, unusual topography, and geographical position give it a diverse climate. Most of India has a tropical or subtropical climate, with little variation in temperature between seasons. The northern plains, however, have a greater temperature range, with cooler winters and hotter summers. The mountain areas have cold winters and cool summers. As elevations increase sharply in the mountains, climate type can change from subtropical to polar within a few miles. India’s seasonal cycle includes three main phases: the cool, dry winter from October to March; the hot, dry summer from April to June; and the southwest monsoon season of warm, torrential rains from mid-June to September. India’s winter season brings cold temperatures to the mountain slopes and northern plains; temperatures in the Thar Desert reach freezing at night. Farther south, temperatures are mild. Average daily temperatures in January range from 13° to 27° C (55° to 81° F) in the northeastern city of Calcutta; from 7° to 21° C (44° to 70° F) in the north central city of Delhi; from 19° to 28° C (67° to 83° F) in the west central coast city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay); and from 19° to 29° C (67° to 85° F) in the vicinity of Chennai (formerly Madras) on the southeastern coast. Dry weather generally accompanies the cool winter season, although severe storms sometimes traverse the country, yielding slight precipitation on the northern plains and heavy snowfall in the Himalayas. India’s hot and dry season reaches its most oppressive stage during May, when temperatures as high as 49° C (120° F) are commonly recorded in the northern plains. Temperatures in the southern peninsula are somewhat lower, averaging 35° to 40° C (95° to 104° F). At higher altitudes, as in the Western Ghats and the Himalayas, temperatures are considerably cooler. The intense heat breaks when the summer monsoon season arrives in June. For most of the year the monsoons, or seasonal winds, blow from the northeast. In the summer months, however, they begin to blow from the southwest, absorbing moisture as they cross the Indian Ocean. This warm, moist air creates heavy rains as it rises over the Indian Peninsula and is finally forced up the slopes of the Himalayas. The rains start in early June on a strip of coast lying between the Arabian Sea and the foot of the Western Ghats. A second "arm" of the monsoon starts from the Bay of Bengal in the northeast and gradually extends up the Gangetic Plain, where it meets the Arabian Sea "arm" in the Delhi region around July 1. In July the average daily temperature range is 26° to 32° C (79° to 89° F) in Calcutta; 27° to 36° C (81° to 96° F) in Delhi; 25° to 29° C (77° to 85° F) in Mumbai; and 26° to 36° C (79° to 96° F) in Chennai. The monsoon season is critical to India. Farming depends heavily on the monsoon, even though artificial sources of irrigation are also commonly used. The economy prospers when the monsoon season is normal and plummets when it is not. In the past a failure of the monsoon has brought abnormally low rains in crucial food-growing regions, leading to famine. A failed monsoon season in the dryland areas of the Deccan Plateau can mean poor or nonexistent harvests for that year’s crop. In the Gangetic Plain, the groundwater needed for irrigating the winter crop depends on the monsoon for replenishing. However, an excessive monsoon may also spell disaster, especially in the Gangetic Plain of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihār, where rivers can flood and wash away homes and fields. The average annual rainfall for India as a whole is 1250 mm (about 49 in). The heaviest rainfall occurs along the Western Ghats, often more than 3175 mm (more than 125 in), and on the slopes of the eastern Himalayas and the Khāsi Hills (of Meghalaya), where the town of Cherrapunji receives about 10,900 mm (about 430 in) annually. The entire northeast region averages more than 2000 mm (about 80 in) annually, with the Bihār plateau, Orissa, and the Bengal region receiving nearly as much. Rain and snow fall in abundance on the entire Himalayan range. New Delhi receives an annual average of about 800 to 1000 mm (about 32 to 40 in) of rain, and the broad swath of land extending to the south, much of it in the rain shadow of the Western Ghats, receives about the same or a little more. India’s main environmental concern is its growing population, which is expected to increase 50 percent to 1.5 billion by the year 2050. In order to feed so large a population, more groundwater will be needed to irrigate crops, increasing the risk of poor soil quality due to salinization (increased salt levels). More artificial fertilizer will likely be applied to crop fields, posing threats to drinking water. The demand for meat has increased with greater levels of prosperity, resulting in overgrazing and increasing wasteland. The demand for fuelwood has grown with rural populations, leading to the loss of trees and forests. To decrease reliance on fuelwood, the government has promoted the use of biogas (a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide produced by decomposing organic matter) for cooking fuel. Expanding agrarian population has also affected wildlife. Farmers and herders have encroached on national park and other wildlife sanctuary land, and the spread of cultivation has limited the range of animals such as tigers and elephants outside of parks as well. Poaching is also a problem. To help combat these difficulties, the Indian government has enacted strong laws for forest conservation, wetland preservation, and wildlife protection, and established a Ministry of Environment and Forests in 1985. India has a severe air pollution problem, generated by fumes from industry as well as from a burgeoning fleet of trucks, cars, and motor scooters. Water-treatment facilities have not kept pace with the increase in urban populations, and pollution of rivers and groundwater is a significant and worsening problem. Another major problem is toxic waste, generated by industry and deposited in rivers and oceans and on low-lying land within factory boundaries. Because of the large number of small industrial workshops, enforcement of laws against industrial waste pollution can be difficult. The Republic of India
is a federal republic, governed under a constitution and incorporating various features of
the constitutional systems of United Kingdom, the United States, and other democracies.
The power of the government is separated into three branches: executive, parliament, and a
judiciary headed by a Supreme Court. Like the United States, India is a union of states,
but its federalism is slightly different. The central government has power over the
states, including the power to redraw state boundaries, but the states, many of which have
large populations sharing a common language, culture, and history, have an identity that
is in some ways more significant than that of the country as a whole. The head of state of India is the president. The role of president, modeled on the British constitutional monarch, is largely nominal and ceremonial. Most powers assigned to the president are exercised under direction of the cabinet. The president’s major political responsibility is to select the prime minister, although that choice is circumscribed by a constantly evolving set of conventions (for example, that the leader of the party with the largest number of seats in parliament should be given the first opportunity to form a government). The president is elected for a five-year term by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of the national and state legislatures. The president is eligible for successive terms. The vice president is elected in the same manner as the president and assumes the role of the president if the president is incapacitated or otherwise unable to perform his or her duties. A council of ministers, or cabinet, is headed by a prime minister and wields executive power at the national level. The council, which is responsible to parliament, is selected by the president upon the advice of the prime minister. Each council member heads an administrative department of the central government. In most important respects, the Indian cabinet system is identical to that of Britain. There is a constitutionally fixed division of responsibilities between national and state governments, so that the national government has exclusive powers over areas such as foreign affairs, while the states are responsible for health care systems and agricultural development, among other areas. Some areas are the joint responsibility of both the national and state governments, such as education. The actual administration is carried out by a many-tiered civil service, almost all of whom are recruited by a competitive, merit-based examination. At the top is the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), whose senior members serve as the administrative heads of departments, responsible only to their minister. All members of this service are assigned to particular states and spend most of their early career serving in those states. They typically start as district-level administrators and rapidly move to head state-level departments. Additional central government civil services include the Indian Foreign Service, the Indian Police Service, and services for audits and accounts, posts and telegraphs, customs and excise, and railroads. The constitution vests national legislative power in a parliament of two houses: the Lok Sabha (House of the People), the lower house, and the Rajya Sabha (Council of States), the upper house. The Lok Sabha consists of 545 members directly elected by universal adult suffrage, except for two members who are appointed by the president to represent the Anglo-Indian community. The number of seats allocated to each state and union territory is proportional to its population. The term of the Lok Sabha is limited to five years, but the president may dissolve the house upon the advice of the prime minister, or upon defeat of major legislation proposed by the government. A provision of the constitution that was intended to expire after ten years, but which has been consistently extended, allocates reserved seats to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in proportion to their share of the population. Members of the Rajya Sabha are elected by the members of the state legislative assemblies, except for 12 presidential appointees who have special knowledge or practical experience in literature, the arts, science, or social services. The elected members are chosen by a system of proportional representation for a six-year term; one-third of the Rajya Sabha is chosen every two years. A two-thirds majority is required for some constitutional amendments to pass; some amendments also require ratification by one-half of the states. Judicial authority in India is exercised through a system of national courts administering the laws of the republic and the states. All senior judges are appointees of the executive branch of the government, with their independence guaranteed by a variety of safeguards. Noteworthy among these safeguards is a provision requiring a two-thirds vote of parliament to remove a judge from office. The highest court is the Supreme Court; all Supreme Court judges serve until a retirement age of 65. The top court at the state level is called the High Court; members of the Supreme Court are selected from among justices of the High Courts. Judges of the High Courts are in turn selected from subordinate courts operating at the district level. Important judicial posts at the district level are filled by members of the administrative service. India is a union of 26 states with full-fledged democratic governments and 6 union territories that elect representatives to the national parliament but are not self-governing. The Indian states are Andhra Pradesh, Arunāchal Pradesh, Assam, Bihār, Delhi, Goa, Gujarāt, Haryāna, Himāchal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmīr, Karnātaka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Mahārāshtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Punjab, Rājasthān, Sikkim, Tamil Nādu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. The union territories are the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandīgarh, Dādra and Nagar Haveli, Damān and Diu, Lakshadweep, and Pondicherry. The form of state governments in India is generally modeled after that of the central government. Each state is formally headed by a governor, who is appointed to a five-year term by the national government. The governor’s powers resemble those of the president of India. The governor’s most important duty is to invite a party leader to form a government after state legislative elections. The basic territorial unit of administration in the states is the district; there are 537 districts in India. Within the districts are units called tehsils or talukas for departments such as revenue and education, and "blocks," which are the base units for agrarian development. Local self-government includes village councils (panchayats) and municipal councils, which began under British rule. Local governments have been saddled with major duties, few sources of revenue, and a weak base of political power. These bodies were frequently superseded for long periods by the state governments. In the mid-1990s new constitutional provisions, including the requirement that a percentage of village council seats must go to women, were implemented to help improve these local governments. A few states, most notably West Bengal and Karnātaka, had successful village government systems in the 1980s and 1990s. Political parties play an important role in India’s democracy. For many years a centrist national party known as the Congress Party was the most powerful political party in India. Established in 1885 as the Indian National Congress, it led India in the struggle for independence. Its members have included such influential figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. With few exceptions, the Congress Party provided the country’s prime ministers until the mid-1990s. The Congress, also known since 1977 as the Congress (I) Party, significantly declined in popular support in the 1990s after allegations of corruption. India’s two major socialist parties evolved out of the Janata (People’s) Party. The Janata was a coalition of opposition parties formed in 1977 to defeat the Congress Party and abolish emergency rule, a set of extraordinary provisions restricting democratic freedoms that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had instituted in 1975. After winning the 1977 elections and repealing the emergency laws, the coalition fractured in 1979. Its primary successors are the Janata Dal (People’s Party), a secular, socialist party appealing to lower caste and Muslim voters, and the Bharatiya Janata (Indian People's) Party (BJP), which promotes Hindu nationalism and supports socialistic economic goals. The BJP became the largest single party in the Lok Sabha in 1996 and retained that position in the 1998 elections. The party’s main supporters tend to be middle-class Hindu voters, who see the BJP as having greater discipline and integrity than the Congress or Janata Dal parties. The far left of the political spectrum is occupied by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which draws support from urban and rural laborers. The more moderate Communist Party of India has been gradually losing its share of voters but remains a significant participant in coalition politics. The newest national party, the Bahujan Samaj (Society’s Majority) Party, draws on the support of the scheduled caste population. A number of the national parties are powerful in only a few states. The BJP is weak in eastern and southern India. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has been in power in the state of West Bengal since the 1977 election but is a force in only one other major state, Kerala. The Janata Dal is a major party in Bihār and Karnātaka, while a socialist party successor to the Janata has been in power in Uttar Pradesh. In Tamil Nādu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, and smaller states, particularly in the northeast, regional parties are of major importance. These regional parties deliberately focus on support of particular people of a particular state and thus have no ambition of extending their reach to other states. They elect a significant number of members of parliament, and many have been included in coalition governments by forming alliances with larger parties. India’s central government has focused on improving the welfare of the Indian people since independence. The focus has been on transforming the health of the population and providing benefits for the weakest members of the society, especially scheduled castes and tribes, women, and children. These efforts have resulted in improvements, although the degree varies by state. Health care facilities have been extended to all parts of the country, with more than 20,000 primary health centers and more than 100,000 subcenters in 1995. Still, the number and quality of personnel staffing them are less than desirable, and spending levels have been low. Although the number of hospital beds in relation to the population has increased since independence, there are still too few doctors for the population, particularly in rural areas. The government also promotes family planning and alternate systems of health care, particularly those with deep Indian roots such as Ayurvedic medicine. Life expectancy at birth was 62 years in 1997, compared with 32 years in 1941. The infant mortality rate is still high at about 65 deaths per 1000 live births in 1997, down from about 150 per 1000 live births in the late 1940s. Smallpox was eradicated in the 1970s, and deaths on a large scale due to cholera, influenza, and other similar diseases have also been eliminated. Malaria and tuberculosis occur at much reduced rates, but new drug-resistant varieties are cause for concern. While the number of cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) were few in the mid-1990s, the number of people with the virus that causes AIDS had exploded by then, with some estimates of more than 1 million infected. Efforts to check the spread of the disease, particularly prevalent among prostitutes in major cities and among drug users in some of the northeastern areas, have not been very effective. Malnutrition remains a serious problem, despite the gradually increasing amount of grain available per capita (rice, wheat, and grains such as millet remain the major food source of most Indians). Public sanitation facilities are not adequate, and in most areas, including most towns, smaller cities, and the countryside, are almost nonexistent. Welfare programs for the scheduled tribes and scheduled castes (including the Harijans, or Untouchables) have centered on "compensatory discrimination," which is similar to affirmative action: positions are reserved for this population in the legislature, civil services, and educational institutions. Also, education subsidies are provided, including scholarships and reduced fees. A national commission for scheduled castes and tribes monitors progress in ending discrimination against these groups and progress in their social and economic standing. Public discrimination has become rare, and quite a few individuals have risen to positions of influence and respect, including India’s first Harijan president, Kocheril Raman Narayanan, who was elected in 1997. Private discrimination in housing and employment continues, however, and the desperately poor of the countryside, constituting the majority of these groups, remain virtually powerless against exploitation and physical abuse. There are a wide variety of programs intended to improve the welfare of women and children, but they have had little impact in parts of the country (particularly the northern states) where the problem is most acute. Female children suffer particularly: they are often neglected in infancy, sometimes resulting in death. Also, they may be kept out of school or married off early. Programs for children, such as those for supplemental nutrition, have little effect in situations where child labor is endemic. All branches of the armed services of India are made up solely of volunteers. Service, however, is considered a national duty, and competition for entry into the armed forces remains high. Although defense is considered important in India, the percentage of GDP spent on defense has declined. It was 2.8 percent in 1996. Salaries and pensions account for a major portion of defense spending. In 1996 the strength of the army was 980,000, the navy comprised 55,000 members, and the air force had 110,000 people. Of 636,000 people in the paramilitary forces, 432,000 serve in units that guard the borders and join with police in suppressing insurgencies. Women have long served in the medical areas of the armed services but have only recently been allowed in limited numbers to enroll as officers in other noncombatant sections of the armed services. Military units of all branches are well equipped. India has received extensive military aid, especially from the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Many of its weapons systems, including some of the most advanced such as missiles, are manufactured in India. The country exploded its first nuclear device in 1974, leading to an arms race with neighboring Pakistan. Exactly 24 years later, India set off five more nuclear devices and declared itself a "nuclear weapons state." Pakistan responded within weeks with its own nuclear tests. India is a founding member of the United Nations (UN), the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), and the International Development Association. It is a member of 13 additional organizations of the UN system, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Labor Organization (ILO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), World Trade Organization (WTO), and Universal Postal Union. India sent an ambulance troop to Korea with UN forces during the Korean War (1950-1953). Since the 1950s Indian troops or observers have been part of peacekeeping missions on the Egypt-Israel border, in Lebanon, Cyprus, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Irian Jaya. In the mid-1990s Indian troops served in Angola, Haiti, Iraq, Liberia, and Rwanda. India is also a member of the Nonaligned Nations, a group of nations that did not align themselves with either the United States or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War. In keeping with its policy of nonalignment, India has not joined regional security arrangements, but it is the core state of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Since its founding in 1985, SAARC has brought heads of government, foreign ministers, and senior diplomats together at regular intervals to discuss issues involving member nations. |
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