India

INDIA

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LOCATION: Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal between Burma and Pakestan.

AREA:  Slightly more than one-third the size of the US.

CLIMATE: Varies from tropical monsoon in south to temperate in the north.

TERRAIN:  Upland plain (Deccan Plateau) is south, flat rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts in west, Himalayas in north.

NATURAL RESOURCES:  coal (fourth-largest reserves in the world), iron ore, manganese, mica, bauxite, titanium ore, chromite, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum, limestone, arable land.

NATURAL HAZARDS: Droughts; flash floods, as well as widespread and destrutive flooding from monsoonal rains; severe thunderstorms; earthquakes.

POPULATION:  1,147,995,904 (July 2008 est.)

RELIGIONS:  Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%

LANGUAGES:  Hindi 41%, Bengali 8.1%, Telugu 7.2%, Marathi 7%, Tamil 5.9%, Urdu 5%, Gujarati 4.5%, Kannada 3.7%, Malayalam 3.2%, Oriy 3.2%, Punjabi 2.8%, Assamese 1.3%, Haithili 1.2%, other 5.9%

Literacy:  61% of population can read and write.

Country Name:  Republic of India

ECONOMY:  India's diverse economy encompasses traditional village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industris, and a multitude of services.

POVERTY LINE:  25% below the poverty line.

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS:  INdia is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commerical sexual exploitation.

ILLICIT DRUGS: India is the world's largest producer of licit opium for the pharmaceutical trade, but an undetermined quantity of opium is diverted to illicit international drug markets.