INDIA
INDIA is one of the oldest civilisations in the world
with a kaleidoscopic variety and rich cultural heritage.
It has achieved multifaceted socio-economic progress
during the last 60 years of its Independence.India
has become self-sufficient in agricultural production,
and is now the tenth industrialised country in the world
and the sixth nation to have gone into outer space to
conquer nature for the benefit of the people. It covers
an area of 32,87,263 sq km, extending from the snow-covered
Himalayan heights to the tropical rain forests of the
south"." As the seventh largest country in the world,
India stands apart from the rest of Asia, marked off
as it is by mountains and the sea, which give the country
a distinct geographical entity.
Bounded by the Great
Himalayas in the north, it stretches southwards and
at the Tropic of Cancer, tapers off into the Indian
Ocean between the Bay of Bengal on the east and the
Arabian Sea on the west.
Lying entirely in the northern hemisphere, the mainland
extends between latitudes 8°4' and 37°6' north, longitudes
68°7' and 97°25' east, and measures about 3,214 km from
north to south between the extreme latitudes and about
2,933 km from east to west between the extreme longitudes.
It has a land frontier of about 15,200 km. The total
length of the coastline of the mainland, Lakshadweep
Islands, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is 7,516.6
km.