Country profile: India
The world's largest democracy and second most populous country has emerged as a major power after a period of foreign rule and several
decades during which its economy was virtually closed.
A nuclear weapons state, it carried out a programme of tests in the late 1990s in defiance of world opinion. However, India is still tackling huge social,
economic and environmental problems.
The vast and diverse Indian sub-continent - from the mountainous Afghan frontier to the jungles of Burma - was under foreign rule from the early 1800s
until the demise of the British Raj in 1947.
But the subsequent partition of the sub-continent sowed the seeds for future conflict. There have been three wars between India and its arch-rival
Pakistan since 1947, two of them over the disputed territory of Kashmir. A peace process, which started in 2004, has achieved a fragile rapprochement.
Communal, caste and regional tensions continue to haunt Indian politics, sometimes threatening its long-standing democratic and secular ethos.
In 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her Sikh bodyguards after ordering troops to flush out Sikh militants from the Golden Temple
in Amritsar.
And in 1992, widespread Hindu-Muslim violence erupted after Hindu extremists demolished the Babri mosque at Ayodhya.
Independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, dreamed of a socialist society and created a vast public infrastructure, much of which became
a burden on the state.
From the late 1980s India began to open up to the outside world, encouraging economic reform and foreign investment. It is now courted by the world's
leading economic and political powers, including its one-time foe China.
The country has a burgeoning urban middle class and has made great strides in fields such as information technology. Its large, skilled workforce makes
it a popular choice for international companies seeking to outsource work.
India launches its own satellites and plans to send a spacecraft to the moon. It also boasts a massive cinema industry, the products of which are among
the most widely-watched films in the world.
But the vast mass of the rural population remains illiterate and impoverished.
Their lives continue to be dominated by the ancient Hindu caste system, which assigns each person a fixed place in the social hierarchy.
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Population: 1.1 billion (UN, 2005)
Capital: New Delhi
Area: 3.1 million sq km (1.2 million sq miles), excluding Indian-administered Kashmir (100,569 sq km/38,830 sq miles)
Major languages: Hindi, English and 17 other official languages
Major religions: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism
Life expectancy: 62 years (men), 65 years (women) (UN)
Monetary unit: 1 Indian Rupee = 100 paise
Main exports: Agricultural products, textile goods, gems and jewellery, software services and technology, engineering goods, chemicals,
leather products
 GNI per capita: US $620 (World Bank, 2005)
 Internet domain: .in
 International dialling code: +91
President: APJ Abdul Kalam
APJ Abdul Kalam, a scientist and the architect of the country's missile programme, was sworn in as India's third Muslim head of state in 2002.
Indian presidents have few actual powers, but they can decide which party or individual should form the central government after general elections.
Prime minister: Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh became prime minister in May 2004 after the Congress Party's unexpected success in general elections.
The party's president, Sonia Gandhi, the widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, shocked her supporters by declining the top post, apparently to
protect the party from damaging attacks over her Italian birth.
Mr Singh said his priorities were to reduce poverty and to plough on with economic reforms. He stated a desire for friendly relations with India's
neighbours, especially Pakistan.
During his first year in office the prime minister held together a coalition which included communist allies and ministers accused of corruption. He
continued to pursue market-friendly economic policies and oversaw the introduction of nuclear non-proliferation legislation.
But his promised "New Deal" for rural India - an attempt to raise the poorest citizens out of poverty - has still to bear fruit.
Mr Singh made his reputation as a finance minister in the early 1990s, under the Narasimha Rao government, when he was the driving force behind
economic liberalisation.
When the Congress Party was voted out of office, Mr Singh became opposition leader in the upper house.
A Sikh born in West Punjab, Mr Singh is a former International Monetary Fund official and governor of India's Central Bank. He was educated at Oxford
and Cambridge.
Finance minister: Palaniappan Chidambaram
Defence minister: Pranab Mukherjee
Broadcasting in India has flourished since state TV's monopoly was broken in 1992. The array of channels is still growing.
Privately-owned cable and satellite stations command large audiences. Star Plus - run by the global media giant News Corporation - is one of the most
popular. Its version of the game show "Who Wants to be a Millionnaire?" proved to be one of the channel's biggest draws.
News broadcasts are also popular, often outperforming entertainment shows. Many 24-hour news channels are up and running and more are planned.
Doordarshan, the public TV service, operates 21 services including its flagship DD1 channel, which reaches some 400 million viewers.
Two multichannel, direct-to-home (DTH) TV operations - the Zee Group's subscription-based Dish TV and a free-to-air offering from Doordarshan - are
recent arrivals on the satellite scene. A third DTH venture, Tata-Sky, will use a newly-launched, purpose-built satellite.
India's cable TV market is one of the world's largest, with more than 60 million subscribers, although growth slowed in 2005.
Private radio is a relative newcomer. Since they were sanctioned in 2000, music-based FM stations have proliferated in the cities. But only public All India
Radio (AIR) can broadcast news. Private FM radio is poised for expansion in 2006 with bidders competing for some 300 licences.
India's press is lively. Driven by a growing middle class, newspaper circulation has risen and new titles compete with established dailies.
India and neighbouring Pakistan sometimes engage in a war of words via their respective media, occasionally banning relays of broadcasts from the
other country.
Internet use has soared; more than 38 million Indians were online by 2006.