This document provides a summary of key aspects of Indian culture and history in 3 sentences or less:
India has a long and rich history dating back over 70,000 years, with major empires like the Maurya and Gupta dominating the subcontinent between 500 BC and 500 AD. Major religious and philosophical traditions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated in India, and the country has over 80% Hindu population with significant Muslim, Christian, and other religious minorities. After gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1947, India established itself as the world's largest democracy and has seen rapid economic growth in recent decades but still faces challenges of poverty, inequality, and religious tensions.
2. History TIMELINE
ANNO DOMINI
BEFORE CHRIST
15th Aug. 1947
70000 BC 500 BC 300 – 500 1600 1858
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH EAST
FIRST HUMANS
TAKSHSHILA & GUPTA EMPIRE INDIA CO. BRITISH RAJ INDEPENDENCE
MIGRATE TO
NALANDA FORMED
INDIA
MAHABHARTA SANSKRIT
MOHANDAS
GAUTAM AKBAR “THE
& LATIN
GANDHI
BUDDHA GREAT” RULES
RAMAYANA GREEK
500 BC – 200 AD 1556 - 1605 1786 1869 - 1948
550 BC
Incredible India
4. GAUTAM BUDDHA • 5th Century BC
• Founder of Buddhism and
means “enlightened
ones”
• Born Siddharta Gautama,
a prince
• At age of 29, left to seek
religious enlightenment
• Reached enlightenment
in the village of Gaya,
later known as Bodhgaya
• Died at the age of 80
achieving parinirvana
(final nirvana)
TIMELINE
5. MAHABHARATA
• “The Great Tale of Bharatas”
• Composed of nearly 100,000
verses divided into 18 books
• One of the books discusses four
goals of life
• Artha (Wealth & Success),
• Kama (Desire & Pleasure),
• Dharma (Moral Principles),
• Moksha (Knowledge &
Liberation)
TIMELINE
6. History GUPTA EMPIRE
• 300 – 500 AD
• The Golden Age of India
• Advances in science, arts and literature
• Aryabhata proves earth went round the sun
• Came up with the concept of zero and pi
• Kamasutra , a treatise of love, dates back to this era
• Kama (Pleasure, desire) & Sutra (Earliest surviving
example of science of erotica genre)
Incredible India TIMELINE
7. SANSKRIT
History LATIN
GREEK
Sanskrit Latin Greek
PITAR PATER PATER
MATAR MATER METER
Incredible India TIMELINE
8. History BRITISH RAJ
• Began in 1858 under England’s Queen Victoria
• Transfer of administrative power from British East India Co.
• By 1910, India had 4th largest railway system in the world.
• Positive advances of social reforms were coupled with racism
and economic exploitation
• Lack of Indian representation in government and an economic
system perceived as drain on wealth lead to agitation
Incredible India TIMELINE
9. • Known as Mahatma
(“Great Soul”)
• Great political leader
and social reformer
• Founded India’s
nonviolent movement
against British Colonial
rule
• Studied law in London
and practiced in South
Africa
• Wrote Hind Swaraj, or
Freedom of India in
1909 as a means to end
British colonial rule
MOHANDAS GANDHI TIMELINE
10. INDEPENDENCE
History
• After a century long struggle
• Tens of thousands of lives sacrificed
• India and Pakistan gain
independence on 15th August, 1947
• British left and left English for us
Incredible India
11. Culture
Be ready to get mesmerized by the
Indian Culture...
Incredible India
12. Religions in India
Hindus Muslims Christians Sikhs Buddhists Jains Others
13%
1%
2%
2%
2%
1%
80% 1%
Incredible India
36. The Indian Flag
• Saffron stands for courage,
white for purity and truth,
and green for growth and
auspiciousness.
• ‘CHAKRA’ has 24 spokes,
denotes life in movement
and death in stagnation.
Incredible India
37. Constitution
• Constitution came into effect
on 26th Jan 1950.
• Longest written constitution
of any sovereign nation in
the world.
• Known in Hindi as “Bhartiya
samvidhan”.
• Parliamentary system based
on United Kingdom.
Incredible India
38. Government System
Central Government
governs
7 Union
28 States
Territories
State governs
government for
each state
Incredible India
39. Government System
President
Prime-Minister
Pratibha Patil
Manmohan Singh - Current
-First Citizen
-Main Seat of power
Selected from Nominated
elected candidates
545 Lower 250 Upper
house house
Member of Parliament
Elect Nominate
Elect
All Citizens above State
the age of 18 Representatives
40. Political Parties
• 8 national parties (represented in more than 4 states)
• More than 50 regional parties.
• Parties can form governments by attaining majority using
coalitions.
Indian National Congress Bhartiya Janta Party Communist Party of India
• Founded in 1885 • Founded in 1980 • Founded in 1920
• Never been in power
• In power for 50 of 60 • In power for 5 years
at central
years after
government.
independence
43. Indian Defence Forces
Indian Army Indian Navy Indian Air Force
World’s 2nd Largest 7th largest in the World’s 5th largest
world with 55,000 Air Force with 170,000
1,130,000 Active Active Troops Active Troops.
Soldiers and 1,800,000
reserve troops. 155 Vessels 1130 Combat (multi
including Aircraft role) and 1800 Non
Involvement in UN Carriers and Nuclear Combat aircrafts in
Peace Keeping Forces. Submarines. service.
Air Strike capability
through Sea (Nuclear
and Non – Nuclear)
44. Economy
GDP Composition
26%
54%
Services
20%
Agriculture
Industry
4th largest economy - $3.305 trillion in 2008.
•
3rd in income inequality index after Japan and Germany.
•
2nd most attractive FDI destination.
•
GDP growth above 7% for a decade, and above 9% for last 3 years.
•
Expected to growth above 5% in 2009.
•
Foreign reserves up from 2.2 to 130 billion dollars in 15 years.
•
45. Human Capital
• Young nation – median age will be 26 in 2025.
• Largest pool of English speaking scientific manpower.
• Fastest growing high income household group.
• Poverty declined from 55% to 26% in 20 years.
• More than 400,000 undergraduate (Science and Engineering)
and 80,000 (MBA and MS) graduates each year.
• Average 11.3 million jobs being created per annum till 2008.
48. Foreign Acquisition by Indian Firms
Total Value (billion $)
68
80 40
60 18
40
20
0
2005 2006 2007
Tata take over of Corus group for $12.2 billion.
•
Hindalco Industries acquired the Canadian aluminum company Novelis for
•
$6 billion .
Tata Motor takes over Jaguar and Land Rover for $1.5 billion.
•
UB group all-cash acquisition of Whyte & Mackay for 595 million pounds.
•
Average 400 firms are bought each year across US and Europe.
•
51. SOME OF ‘EM..
Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems,
Sabeer Bhatia, who founded Hotmail and sold it to Microsoft for
$400 million
Mother Teresa (1910 – 1997) Nobel Prize for peace (1979)
Dr. Amartya Sen Nobel Prize for Economics (1998)
V.S. Naipaul (1932- ) British writer of Indian origin; Nobel Prize for
Literature 2001
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941) Nobel Prize for Literature
(1913)
A.R Rehman recently won 2 Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire.
Incredible India
52. Few prominent Non
Resident Indians(NRI) -
BOBBY JINDAL -US Congressman,
Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District
LN MITTAL -Chairman and CEO,
Mittal Steel Company.
SALMAN RUSHDIE –Literary
great (Satanic Verses)
PADMA LAKSHMI- Top
international supermodel
BIKRAM CHOUDHARY- The Bill
gates of Yoga
KALPANA -First Indian American to
fly the US space shuttle
Incredible India
53. Did you know?
36% of NASA employees are
Indians.
One-third of the engineers in
Silicon Valley are of Indian
descent.
Incredible India
58. KAMASUTRA:
>Written by the Indian scholar
Vatsyayana
>Standard work on human sexual
behavior
>Kāma means sensual or sexual
pleasure, and sūtra are the
guidelines of yoga.
>Basically a practical advice on sex
and even dating!!
>Not a tantric text. No rites
involved.
Incredible India
59. World's first university in Takshila , India in 700BC.
More than 10,500 students from all over the world
More than 60 subjects.
Found the value of pi
Was first calculated by Budhayana,
Pythagoras Theorem.
Budhayana discovered the Pythagoras Theorem in
the 6th century long before the European
mathematicians.
Invented surgery 2600 years ago.
Sushruta - father of surgery.
Performed complicated surgeries like cesareans,
cataract, artificial limbs, fractures, urinary stones and
even plastic and brain surgery
Incredible India
64. BOLLYWOOD:
Largest number of film releases in an year,
with the largest cinema Audience in the world.
65. Bollywood Trivia
Indian Cinema is more than 100 years old.
Indian film industry:
Largest in the world in terms of ticket sales
Highest number of films produced/year.
In 2003: 877 feature films and 1177 short films were released
Bollywood: It’s not the whole Indian Film Industry but a part of it.
A Billion people watch Indian movies every 3
months…that’s almost 500,000 every day!!