Brief History of India
India
(Hindi: Bha-rat), officially the Republic of India, is a sovereign country
in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second most populous country,
and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south,
the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the east, India has a coastline of over 7000 kilometres.
It borders Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Bangladesh and Myanmar
to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Indonesia.
Home to the Indus Valley civilization and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four major world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated here, while Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's variegated culture. Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and colonised by the United Kingdom from the mid-nineteenth century, India became a modern nation-state in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by widespread use of nonviolent resistance as a means of social protest.
India is the world's 4th largest economy in terms of purchasing power and the 12th largest economy at market exchange rates. India has made rapid economic progress in the last decade. Although the country's standard of living is projected to rise sharply in the next half-century, it currently battles high levels of poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, and environmental degradation. A pluralistic, multi-lingual, and multi-ethnic society, India is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. [ Source: Wikipedia ]
Flag & Embleem
The flag is a horizontal tricolour of "deep saffron" at the top, white in the middle,
and green at the bottom.
In the centre, there is a navy blue wheel with twenty-four spokes, known as the Ashoka Chakra,
taken from the Ashoka pillar at Sarnath. The diameter of this Chakra is three-fourths of the height of
the white strip. The ratio of the width of the flag to its length is 2:3. The flag is also the
Indian Army's war flag, hoisted daily on military installations.
[ Source:
Wikipedia]
The Emblem of India is an adaptation from the Sarnath Lion Capital of Ashoka.
Emperor Ashoka the Great erected the capital to mark the spot where Gautama Buddha first taught the Dharma,
and where the Buddhist Sangha was founded. In the original, there are four lions, standing back to back,
mounted on an abacus with a frieze carrying sculptures in high relief of an elephant, a galloping horse,
a bull and a lion separated by intervening wheels over a bell-shaped lotus. Carved out of a single block of
polished sandstone, the capital is crowned by the Wheel of the Law (Dharmacakra).
It was adopted on 26 January 1950, the day that India became a republic.
It has four "Indian Lions", resting on a circular abacus. The fourth lion is on the rear and hence hidden from view. The emblem symbolizes power, courage and confidence. The abacus is girded by four smaller animals - guardians of the four directions: the Lion of the north, the Elephant of the east, the Horse of the south and Bull of the west. The abacus rests on a nelumbo nucifera in full bloom, exemplifying the fountainhead of life. [ Source: Wikipedia ]