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India is the second-most populous country in the world with an estimated 1.1 billion people in 2006. Language, caste and religion are determinants of social and political organization within the highly diverse population. Although 80.5% of the people are Hindus, India is also home to the second-largest population of Muslims in the world (16.2%), after Indonesia. Other religious groups include Sikhs (2%), Christians (2.43%), Buddhists (0.76%), Jains (0.40%), Jews, Zoroastrians, Ahmadis, and Bahá'ís. The national average literacy rate is around 64.4%(with males-75.6% and females-54.2%). The state of Kerala leads the country with a literacy rate of approximately 94%. India has three main ethnic groups. Seventy-Two percent of the population is Indo-Aryan, twenty-five percent of the population is Dravidian, and three percent of the rest of the population is primarily Mongoloid or part of another minority ethnic group. India's biggest metropolitan agglomerations are Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Delhi, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), Chennai (formerly Madras), Hyderabad and Bangalore. The national sex ratio is 933 females per 1,000 males and median age is 24.66. India's birth rate is 22.32 births per 1,000. The total fertility rate (TFR) for India is above the world average, however the growth rate is showing signs of decrease in South India. India is home to two major linguistic families: Indo-Aryan (spoken by about 74% of the population) and Dravidian (spoken by about 24%). Other languages spoken in India come from the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman linguistic families. The Indian constitution recognizes 23 official languages. Hindi and English are used by the Union Government of India for official purposes, wherein Hindi has a de jure priority. The classical languages native to the land are Sanskrit and Tamil. The number of dialects in India is as high as 1,652 |
India Information: Inside
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