About India

About India

India, officially known as Republic of India can aptly be described by the starting words of Charles Dickens in `The Tale of Two Cities’:

`It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us’

-- Charles Dickens

India is a country full of such paradoxes. Be it economic stratas in the society, culture, climate or the terrain. Yes Sir, a nation of contradictions, that is India.

The name 'India' is derived from the River Indus, the valleys around which were the home of the early settlers called "The Aryans". They called it the Sindhu river. The Persian invaders started calling it the "Hindu river". The combination of these two words gives the India another name of "Hindustan".

India lies to the north of the equator between 6°44' and 35°30' north latitude and 68°7' and 97°25' east longitude with a coastline of 7,517 kilometers (4,671 mi).

The Indian climate varies from tropical monsoon in south to temperate in north to the snow covered peaks of the Himalaya mountains. The terrain also varies greatly with upland plain (Deccan Plateau) in south, flat to rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts in west and Himalayas (Mountains) in north.

India has a lot of natural resources including but not limited to coal (fourth-largest reserves in the world), iron ore, manganese, mica, bauxite, titanium ore, chromite, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum and limestone.

I have divided this section of my site into various subsections, each containing additional information about India. Please use the links below or on the left side to learn more about specific parts of India:

Section Name	Comments/Description
History	Learn more about India's origin and history
Indian Religion   *  Hinduism	Learn more about Indian religions
Indian Art	Learn more about Indian Art
Indian Languages	Learn more about Indian Languages
Indian Flag	Get infomation on the Indian Flag
Indian National Anthem	Get infomation about India's National anthem
Indian National Emblem	Get infomation about India's National Emblem
Indian Constitution	Get infomation about India's constitution
National animal of India	Get infomation about India's National Animal
National bird of India	Get infomation about India's National Bird

Visit the following sites for more infomation about India and its culture:

• iloveindia.com: An exaustive resource about Indian Culture and Heritage.
• india.gov.in: The National Portal of India
• History of India: Wikipedia article on Indian History
• 123india.com: A good search engine for topics related to India
• CIA India Factbook: Lots of facts about India
• Indiatimes: Premier Indian news site
• Maps of India: Visit if you want to view maps of India

Current Version: 3.1
Last updated: 15th Sept 2011

Version 3.1:

• Updated the Indian Constitution page to include the entire text of the constition.
• Made a PDF copy of the Constitution available for download

Version 3.0:

• Updated all pages/subsections with additional information
• Moved the section to the new theme and cleaned up the html

Version 2.0:

• Went through a couple of layout changes. No major content changes were made

Version 1.0:

• Section created. All intitial content added

If you think that any of the infomation in this section is incorrect or you would like to suggest some changes/updates please contact me. If you have a site which is related to India and would like to add a link to it on this page, please contact me.

- Suramya
  15th Jan 2010