India, My Motherland

India, my motherland is the seventh-largest country by area and the second-most populous country (with over 1.2 billion people) in the world. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the West; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the North-East; and Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh to the East. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia. It covers an area of 32,87,263 sq. km (1,269,346 sq mi), extending from the snow-covered Himalayan heights to the tropical rain forests of the south.

          India is one of the oldest civilizations in the world with a rich cultural heritage. It has achieved all-round socio-economic progress during the last 67 years of its Independence. India has become self-sufficient in agricultural production and is now one of the top industrialized countries in the world and one of the few nations to have gone into outer space to conquer nature for the benefit of the people.

Currently, the Indian economy is the world's seventh-largest by nominal GDP and third-largest by purchasing power parity. It has the third-largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a federal republic governed under a parliamentary system and consists of 29 states and 7 union territories. People of different religions and different languages live here peacefully. It is a land of unity in diversity.