India - Emerging Power

• Population: 1.2 billion people with 3 mean ethnic groups and 14 ethnic languages
• Religious country - Hindu 9%, Muslim 14% and Sikh 1.7%
• Life expectancy = 68.3 years
• Spend 2.4% of GDP on their military
• No conscription - voluntary service and now female officers and pilots in army
• Increased in nuclear weapons as worried about neighbors like China and Pakistan both having them
• Disputes with China over Tibet - both claim it
• Disputes with Pakistan over the region of Kashmir in north west (post British Empire disputed territory)
• GDP growth = 7.1% (2016)
• 1947 post-independence economy broken and trying to rebuild after famines = millions in poverty
• 1951 - series of 5 year plans focused on industry and becoming self-reliant on food supply so agriculture boosted (now 17% of GDP)
• 1998 - lots of privatisation - increase GDP and jobs
• 2017 - services e.g IT and telecommunications were the largest sector of economy - 53% of GDP
• Increasing middle class coming out of poverty and spending money on houses, food and clothes boosting economy
• Workforce of hundreds of millions is a huge advantage over other countries apart from China = lots of production = income = profit and investment
• Despite economic growth, millions remain very poor and many illiterate
• President Modi elected by democracy (largest democracy in the world)
• 5 year term
• Lots of national political and also regional parties around the country as it is so big, making national decisions very slow