Lotus Temple, Hampi, Karnataka.
India is a large, fascinating, and diverse county, and has many claims to fame. For example, did you know...
- ... that India is the world's largest democracy?
- ... that India is now the fourth largest economy in the world, as measured by Purchasing Power Parity?
- ... that Indian culture is a blending of Hindu, Muslim, and many, many other religious and ethnic groups?
- ... that the Indian Constitution recognizes 23 official languages?
- ... that India has a labor force of over 500 000 000?
- ... that India's national sport is field hockey?
Going into the future... as reported by KPMG and BRIC Report by Goldman Sachs:
- India's GDP would be the third largest in the world by 2020.
- Share of BRICeconomies in global capital markets will be 10-17% by 2020.
- Middle class to increase 14 times by 2020
- In dollar terms India will be third largest country in GDP by 2040
- India's share of actual oil demand could nearly double and gradually converge on China's demand by 2050
India is truly a vast, complex, and rewarding place, as you'll find out when you visit!
Some quotes from other visitors:
"So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or by nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on its rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked"
"India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only."
- Mark Twain (American author, 1835 - 1910)
"India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all."
- Will Durant (American Historian, 1885-1981)
"We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made."
- Albert Einstein (Famous scientist, 1879- 1955)
"If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India."
- Max Muller (German Scholar, 1823-1900)
"If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India."
- Romain Rolland (French Philosopher, 1886-1994)