The latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River.[9] The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi (Ινδοί), which translates as "the people of the Indus".[10] The geographical term Bharat (pronounced [ˈbʱaːrət̪] ( listen)), which is recognised
by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many
Indian languages in various subtle guises.[11] The eponym of Bharat is Bharata, a mythological figure that Hindu scriptures describe as a legendary emperor of ancient India. Hindustan ([ɦɪnd̪ʊˈst̪aːn] ( listen)) was originally a Persian word that meant "Land of the Hindus"; prior to 1947, it referred to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan. It is occasionally used to solely denote India in its entirety.[12][13]
The Indian economy is the world's eleventh-largest by nominal GDP and third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the fastest-growing major economies; it is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, illiteracy, corruption, and inadequate public healthcare. A nuclear weapons state and a regional power, it has the third-largest standing army in the world and ranks eighth in military expenditure among nations. India is a federal constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system consisting of 28 states and 7 union territories. It is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. India comprises the bulk of the Indian subcontinent and lies atop the minor Indian tectonic plate, which in turn belongs to the Indo-Australian Plate.[106] India's defining geological processes commenced 75 million years ago when the Indian subcontinent, then part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, began a north-eastward drift across the then-unformed Indian Ocean that lasted fifty million years.[106] The subcontinent's subsequent collision with, and subduction under, the Eurasian Plate bore aloft the planet's highest mountains, the Himalayas. They abut India in the north and the north-east.[106] In the former seabed immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast trough that has gradually filled with river-borne sediment;[107] it now forms the Indo-Gangetic Plain.[108] To the west lies the Thar Desert, which is cut off by the Aravalli Range.[109]
India is the world's most populous democracy.[138] A parliamentary republic with a multi-party system,[139] it has six recognised national parties, including the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and more than 40 regional parties.[140] The Congress is considered centre-left or "liberal" in Indian political culture, and the BJP centre-right or "conservative". For most of the period between 1950—when India first became a republic—and the late 1980s, the Congress held a majority in the parliament. Since then, however, it has increasingly shared the political stage with the BJP,[141] as well as with powerful regional parties which have often forced the creation of multi-party coalitions at the centre.[142]
India is a federation with a parliamentary system governed under the Constitution of India, which serves as the country's supreme legal document. It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, in which "majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law". Federalism in India defines the power distribution between the federal government and the states. The government abides by constitutional checks and balances. The Constitution of India, which came into effect on 26 January 1950,[148] states in its preamble that India is a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic.[149] India's form of government, traditionally described as "quasi-federal" with a strong centre and weak states,[150] has grown increasingly federal since the late 1990s as a result of political, economic, and social changes.[151][152]
