India - People and Society
India is the second most populated country in the world, with a population of over a billion people. Second only to China in terms of population, India's population is predicted to overtake China by the year 2030, according to a UN study. While this immense population pressure had led to problems such as deforestation, congestion in urban areas and pollution, India's young population is seen as a positive asset in the global economy.
Population: 1,080,264,388 (Estimated as of July 2005)
Population growth rate: 1.4% (Estimated as of July 2005)
Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other groups 3% (2000)
Religions: Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.1% (2001 census)
Languages: English in understood across all major cities and towns in India. Hindi is the national language of India and Hindi and its variants are spoken widely across North India. It is the primary tongue of 30% of the Indian people. There are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit.
Migration: India as also home to many migrant populations, including about 100,000 Tibetan migrants. There are also significant populations of economic migrants from Nepal and Bangladesh in many cities and towns of India.
India - Society
India is a very large country, with an estimated population of one billion (by comparison, Britain has 58 million). It has, after China, the largest population of any country in the world.
Most people living in India are subject to the caste system. The caste system in India is part of the Hindu religion, to which 82 per cent of the people belong. The caste system used to regulate who did what jobs, how rich people were likely to become, and many aspects of their lives. Only very high caste Hindus, called Brahmins, could become Hindu priests. Lower-caste people were generally the poorest. The lowest Hindu castes were called untouchables and did the jobs no-one else wanted to. The Indian goverment has introduced laws to modify the caste system. Untouchability in the traditional sense has been outlawed and the lowest castes are now called “Scheduled Castes” or “Dalits” (meaning the “oppressed”). Despite this the caste people are born into continues to have a strong influence on the life they can expect to lead.
Music and media
Popular culture in India is big news. The thriving film industry, nick-named "Bollywood", makes huge numbers of films and videos which go all over the world. Television is lively and popular and there are many radio stations. Pop and rock music create massive stars, as does the film industry.
