Planet India (Kamdar) lends a comprehensive perspective on the largest Democracy in the world. Here are some little facts that struck me as I was reading:
- “There are 22 official languages in India. India’s diverse population includes Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians, Jews, and animists.”
- There are “800 million people who live on less than $2 per day.”
- “India is the world’s youngest country. Fifty percent of India’s people are under the age of twenty-five. By 2015, there will be 550 million teenagers in India.”
- “India is facing a severe water crisis. With 17 percent of the world’s population but only 4 percent of the world’s freshwater, India’s water resources are already stretched beyond capacity.”
- Walt Whitman wrote about India in Leaves of Grass (1855):
Passage to India!
Lo, soul, seest thou not God’s purpose from the firs
The earth to be spann’d, connected by network,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.
