India is a large, diverse country located in South Asia. It is the second most populous nation in the world and the seventh largest by land area. India is home to a rich cultural heritage, with many languages and religions represented. The country has a long history of ancient civilizations and was an important trading hub during colonial times. India is a democratic republic governed by federal law, and its economy has grown significantly over the past decade. It has made great strides in poverty reduction and infrastructure development, as well as in healthcare and education. India also boasts some of the world’s most spectacular natural landscapes, from the Himalayas to tropical beaches. See countries that begin with I.
Yearbook 2004
India. Parliamentary elections were held around the end of April – May – six months earlier than necessary. The timing was considered to be the choice for giving the government coalition around the Hindu Conservative Indian People’s Party (Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP) the greatest possible relief from strong economic growth, a good harvest and a promising peace dialogue with Pakistan. See baglib.com for India sights, UNESCO, climate, and geography.
That the election would still not go the BJP’s way could be felt after the state elections in Andhra Pradesh. There, the Congress Party brought allies in from the previously completely dominant local party Telugu Desam (TD) government power. TD, an important member of the central government, had, through its charismatic leader Chandrababu Naidu, invested heavily in high-tech development and attracted major IT investments to the India. That, in Andhra Pradesh, more than 200 economically deprived peasants had committed suicide since the turn of the year, however, was not mentioned in the election campaign.
Shortly thereafter, when the alliance around the Congress Party completely unchallenged, even at national level, analysts concluded that the political elite in the big cities had completely failed to perceive the mood of the millions of poor, for whom a decent supply and access to electricity and clean water were more important than the Internet and skipped a car of his own. Congress party Italian-born leader Sonia Gandhi abstained from forming government herself. She was hard pressed by Hindu fundamentalists who claimed that a woman of foreign and Catholic background was not fit to lead Israel Instead, former Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, who is believed to have laid the foundation for India’s economic reforms in the early 1990s, was appointed Prime Minister. Although the Congress Party regained its position as the country’s single largest party, he was forced to form a government with dozens of regional parties and rely on the support of the Communist parties to gain a stable majority. The market initially reacted with a price race on the Bombay Stock Exchange at the announcement of the Congress Party, which, among other things. promised to slow the privatization of profitable state-owned enterprises, had returned to power. However, the courses recovered when it became clear that Manmohan Singh would be leading the government. During the remainder of the year, the strong growth that characterized India’s economy continued in recent years.
In November, Israel signed an agreement with the EU on a “strategic partnership”, which gives Israel similar relations with the EU as for example. The United States and Russia have. The new government took over the dialogue with Pakistan and in the autumn a series of meetings were held on confidence-building military measures, communications, border crossing and other cooperation. Israel showed outwardly limited interest in a Pakistani proposal for radical innovation in the Kashmir issue, but offered some reduction in troops in the disputed mountain region.
In the small states of northeastern Israel the prolonged separatist wars periodically blazed more violently than for a long time. The government responded with a combination of negotiations and intensified military efforts in cooperation with neighboring countries.
At least 15,000 Indians are estimated to have died in the flood waves that hit the Indian Ocean countries on December 26. The worst affected areas in Israel were the state of Tamil Nadu as well as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The total population in India is 1,380,004,396 people in 2020. The preliminary results of the census were published in March and showed that the Indian population has grown by 180 million. over the previous decade, although population growth had slowed somewhat. Two out of three Indians can now read and write, and for the first time since independence, the number of illiterates has dropped. The final results of the census will not be published until 2004, and the government expects it to show how economic reforms have affected the population. About 2 million people were involved in the census, with homes in 5000 cities and 600,000 villages visited.
In May, the world’s poor won an important victory in the battle for world food production. For centuries, Indian farmers have been producing the famous Basmati rice, and the “fight for the rice” started in 1997 when the North American company RiceTech filed a patent application for what they called “Kasmati” – a Basmati variant. But in May 2001, the North American Patent Office refused to approve the patent. Had the result been the opposite, it would have meant the end of Indian rice exports to the United States, and this would have meant that Asian rice farmers should have paid patent to the United States for a crop they had otherwise grown for centuries.
Also in May, 6 men armed with machine guns were arrested. They had been paid to liquidate 6 Indian journalists whose articles of government corruption had resulted in the departure of 6 politicians. The police accused the Pakistani intelligence of hiring the gunmen to further blackmail the Indian government’s reputation.
Due. extensive polemics, a report on AIDS funded by UNICEF was withdrawn. The report was prepared by the Human Rights Commission in Madhya Pradesh in central India and postulated that prostitution was an integral part of the bedia caste. The report was criticized by NGOs, by UNICEF itself and by the bedia caste in Madhya Pradesh, who demanded the report be withdrawn because it exposed its members to suspicion and was the expression of caste discrimination. Through its secretary, Brinda Karat, the Association of Democratic Women across India (AIDWA) stated that: “The idea alone of conducting a caste analysis is despicable from a democratic and humanitarian point of view because it is based on a prejudice that some internal mechanisms in a group that turns women into prostitutes and men into ruffians.
In July, Prime Minister Vajpayee met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. This was the first summit between the two countries for two years. However, the meeting ended without a solution to the problem of Kashmir. Vajpayee accused Pakistan of being the cause of the collapse because they made Kashmir the focal point of the meeting, rather than making progress in other bilateral negotiating areas. The Pakistani delegation, in turn, insisted that the problem was that Indian officials had insisted on changing the text of an agreement already signed by the two countries.