The Republic of India was established in January 1950 after it gained independence from the British Commonwealth in 1947 and proclaimed a new constitution. Since then India has existed as a federal republic consisting of 28 states and 7 union territories. The country’s parliamentary democracy is considered to be the largest democracy in the world and has become increasingly federal since the late 1990s as a result of social, political, and economic changes. India has no national language, but Hindi has the largest number of speakers and is also the official language used by the government.
India’s economy has been subject to considerable growth since its liberation in the early 1990s. India’s GDP growth rate has consistently been well above five percent for the last ten years. As a result of this growth, the country’s GDP was ranked the sixth largest in the world in 2017. Additionally, unemployment in India has fallen to 3.5 percent in 2017.
The biggest industry in India is retail, which makes up almost a quarter of the nation’s GDP. Agriculture also remains a key industry with India producing products such as rice, wheat, cotton, and tea. The mining industry is also one of the major contributors to the economy of India. The country is one of the largest producers of iron ore, the fifth largest producer of bauxite, and the third largest producer of coal in the world. More recently, India has developed a reputation as a breeding ground for IT specialists, and the relatively low wage levels make India a very popular destination for outsourcing. The IT industry in India is continuing to surge with over 143 billion U.S. dollar’s worth of revenue generated in 2016/17, contributing a considerable amount to the country’s overall GDP.
