Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in India. Hindi is often described as a standardised and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language, which itself is based primarily on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and neighbouring areas of Northern India. Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, is one of the two official languages of the Government of India, along with the English language. It is an official language of 9 states and 3 Union Territories and additional official language of 3 states. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India.
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the second-most populous country, the seventh-largest country by land area, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
India is the second most populated country in the world with nearly a fifth of the world's population. According to the 2019 revision of the World Population Prospects population stood at 1,352,642,280.
Mumbai is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the most populous city in the country and the seventh-most populous city in the world with a population of roughly 20 million. As per Indian government population census of 2011, Mumbai is the most populous city in India with an estimated city proper population of 12.5 million living under Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. Mumbai is the centre of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, the sixth most populous metropolitan area in the world with a population of over 23 million. Mumbai lies on the Konkan coast on the west coast of India and has a deep natural harbour. In 2008, Mumbai was named an alpha world city. It has the highest number of millionaires and billionaires among all cities in India. Mumbai is home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Elephanta Caves, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, and the city's distinctive ensemble of Victorian and Art Deco buildings.
Maharashtra is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. As the home of the Marathi people, Maharashtra is the second-most populous state in India as well as the second-most populous country subdivision. Maharashtra was formed on 1 May 1960 by splitting the bilingual Bombay State, which had existed since 1956, into majority Marathi-speaking Maharashtra and Gujarati-speaking Gujarat, respectively. The state capital is Mumbai, the most populous urban area in India. The Godavari and the Krishna are the two major rivers in the state. Marathi is the most widely spoken language and is also the official language of the state.
The prime minister of India is the leader of the executive of the Government of India. The prime minister is the chief adviser to the president of India and the head of the Union Council of Ministers. They can be a member of any of the two houses of the Parliament of India—the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha ; but has to be a member of the political party or coalition, having a majority in the Lok Sabha.
Delhi, officially known as the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT), is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. It is bordered by the state of Haryana on three sides and by Uttar Pradesh to the east. The NCT covers an area of 1,484 square kilometres (573 sq mi). According to the 2011 census, Delhi's city proper population was over 11 million, the second-highest in India after Mumbai, while the whole NCT's population was about 16.8 million. Delhi's urban area is now considered to extend beyond the NCT boundaries, and include the neighbouring satellite cities of Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon and Noida in an area called the National Capital Region (NCR) and had an estimated 2016 population of over 26 million people, making it the world's second-largest urban area according to the United Nations. Recent estimates of the metro economy of its urban area have ranked Delhi either the most or second-most productive metro area of India. Delhi is the second-wealthiest city in India after Mumbai and is home to 18 billionaires and 23,000 millionaires. Delhi ranks fifth among the Indian states and union territories in human development index. Delhi has the second-highest GDP per capita in India. Delhi is of great historical significance as an important commercial, transport, and cultural hub, as well as the political centre of India.
The East India Company (EIC), also known as the Honourable East India Company (HEIC), East India Trading Company (EITC), the English East India Company or the British East India Company, and informally known as John Company, Company Bahadur, or simply The Company, was an English and later British joint-stock company. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies, and later with Qing China. The company ended up seizing control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong after the First Opium War, and maintained trading posts and colonies in the Middle Eastern Gulf called Persian Gulf Residencies.
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam was an Indian aerospace scientist and politician who served as the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007. He was born and raised in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu and studied physics and aerospace engineering. He spent the next four decades as a scientist and science administrator, mainly at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and was intimately involved in India's civilian space programme and military missile development efforts. He thus came to be known as the Missile Man of India for his work on the development of ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology. He also played a pivotal organisational, technical, and political role in India's Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998, the first since the original nuclear test by India in 1974.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is one of two major political parties in India along with Indian National Congress. It has been the ruling political party of the Republic of India since 2014. As of 2019, it is the country's largest political party in terms of representation in the national parliament and state assemblies and is the world's largest party in terms of primary membership. BJP is a right-wing party, and its policy has historically reflected Hindu nationalist positions. It has close ideological and organisational links to the much older Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, also known as Babasaheb Ambedkar, was an Indian jurist, economist, politician and social reformer, who inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement and campaigned against social discrimination towards the untouchables (Dalits). He was independent India's first Minister of Law and Justice, and the chief architect of the Constitution of India.
The Constitution of India is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework demarcating fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental rights, directive principles, and the duties of citizens. It is the longest written constitution of any country on earth. B. R. Ambedkar, chairman of the drafting committee, is widely considered to be its chief architect.
India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, for a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions.
Narendra Damodardas Modi is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. He was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament for Varanasi. Modi is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation. He is the first prime minister outside of the Indian National Congress to win two consecutive terms with a full majority and the second to complete more than five years in office after Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The economy of India is characterised as a developing market economy. It is the world's fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). According to the IMF, on a per capita income basis, India ranked 139th by GDP (nominal) and 118th by GDP (PPP) in 2018. From independence in 1947 until 1991, successive governments promoted protectionist economic policies with extensive state intervention and regulation which is characterised as Dirigism. the end of the Cold War and an acute balance of payments crisis in 1991 led to the adoption of a broad program of economic liberalisation. Since the start of the 21st century, annual average GDP growth has been 6% to 7%, and from 2014 to 2018, India was the world's fastest growing major economy, surpassing China. Historically, India was the largest economy in the world for most of the two millennia from the 1st until 19th century.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, is a former Indian international cricketer who captained the Indian national team in limited-overs formats from 2007 to 2016 and in Test cricket from 2008 to 2014. Under his captaincy, India won the inaugural 2007 ICC World Twenty20, the 2010 and 2016 Asia Cups, the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup and the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy. A right-handed middle-order batsman and wicket-keeper, Dhoni is one of the highest run scorers in One Day Internationals (ODIs) with more than 10,000 runs scored and is considered an effective "finisher" in limited-overs formats. He is also regarded by some as one of the best wicket-keepers and captains in modern limited-overs international cricket. He was also the first wicketkeeper to effect 100 stumpings in ODI cricket.
The British Raj was the rule by the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent from 1858 to 1947. The rule is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India. The region under British control was commonly called India in contemporaneous usage, and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and areas ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British tutelage or paramountcy, called the princely states. The region was sometimes called the Indian Empire in gazetteers and maps, though not officially.
The Mughal Empire or Mogul Empire, self-designated as Gurkani, was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. For some two centuries, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of present-day Assam and Bangladesh in the east, and the uplands of the Deccan plateau in south India.
The COVID-19 pandemic in India is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The first case of COVID-19 in India, which originated from China, was reported on 30 January 2020. India currently has the largest number of confirmed cases in Asia, and has the second-highest number of confirmed cases in the world after the United States, with the number of total confirmed cases breaching the 100,000 mark on 19 May, and 1,000,000 confirmed cases on 17 July 2020. On 29 August 2020, India recorded the global highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases with 78,761 cases, surpassing the previous record of 77,368 cases recorded in the US on 17 July 2020. India currently holds the single day record for largest increase in cases, set on September 17, with an additional 97,894.
