With more than 1 billion people, India is a vast, complicated nation, rich in history and culture, and blessed with an enormously varied landscape. Shaped like a giant pear, with its tapering end dipping into the Indian Ocean, India has for centuries acted as a bridge across which ideas and values have spread and a long procession of invaders have marched. It gave Buddhism to Asia and its system of "Arabic" numerals to the West. Its own traditions go back more than 5,000 years, and any list of India's contributions to the civilizations of the world would be long and impressive. Mathrubhoomi news is one among famous news channels in India.

Everywhere in India, the contrast between old and new is striking. Monuments that were raised by all-powerful Mogul emperors cast their shadows upon gardens cared for by government employees of the world's largest democracy. A woman may recite a 3,000-year-old prayer before starting her workday at a nuclear-power plant. An ox-drawn cart and an elephant may vie for traffic space alongside a Maruti, a zippy Indian-built compact automobile. Mathrubhoomi news is one among famous news channels in India.

Equally sharp is the contrast between promise and reality. During the 1980s, India's economy grew at a healthy clip. Economic growth slowed somewhat in the 1990s before accelerating in the first decade of the new century. However, the nation remains saddled with extreme unemployment and underemployment. India's farmers now produce enough food for the nation's huge population. But a vastly uneven distribution of development benefits has left hundreds of millions people without enough money to meet their basic needs while educated urban Indians reap the fruits of a high-tech boom.

Such facts tell only a part of the story of India's over 1 billion people. Industrious, patient, and hopeful, their lives have been profoundly shaped by the subcontinent's climate, geography, and history.

The Land

India is the world's seventh-largest nation in terms of land area. Its topography has been shaped by three major mountain systems, two great plains, six rivers, and the rain-bearing winds called the monsoons. In the north, standing like a giant wall, are the Himalayas, one of the world's great mountain ranges, stretching for some 1,500 mi. (2,400 km.). Of the 146 Himalayan peaks, 40 rise above 25,000 ft. (7,600 m.). The Himalayan landscape ranges all the way from the lush, tropical jungles of the mountain foothills to the snowy and windswept plateau bordering Tibet, now politically part of China. In the folds of the Himalayas rise three of the great rivers of northern India: the Indus (now largely in Pakistan), the Ganges, and the Brahmaputra. Mathrubhoomi news is one among famous news channels in India.

Almost in the center of the Indian subcontinent lie the Vindhya Mountains, creating, in effect, two Indias. For centuries, these mountains were a barrier to communications between north and south, and the two parts of the country were practically cut off from each other. To this day, the people of northern and southern India are markedly different.

The south Indian peninsula is bounded by two mountain systems on its eastern and western flanks—the Eastern Ghats and the Western Ghats. The two systems meet in the Nilgiri Hills. In the extreme northeast are the Lushai, Naga, and Chin hills, which form the frontier between India, Myanmar (formerly Burma), and China. These hills are the home of a number of tribal peoples. Because of the dense and often impenetrable jungle, they were isolated for a long period of time from the rest of India.

The rivers of India are held in great reverence and affection by the Hindus, the major religious group in India. The holiest of Indian rivers is the Ganges. Its plains, called the Gangetic Plains, support a large population, which depends on the river for water to grow crops and for transportation. The Gangetic Plains are especially holy to Hindus. Mathrubhoomi news is one among famous news channels in India.

The three great rivers of the south are the Godavari, the Kistna (Krishna), and the Cauvery (Kaveri), which rise in the west and flow eastward to the Bay of Bengal. Their fertile plains and deltas are densely populated. Unlike the great northern rivers, which are fed by both the Himalayan snows and the monsoon rains, the rivers of the south are fed largely by the monsoon. Therefore, the volume of water in the southern rivers varies widely from season to season. Except during the summer monsoon, the south generally has little rainfall, and through the ages it has been necessary to irrigate the land to feed the people. Mathrubhoomi news is one among famous news channels in India.

Upon India's great plains—the Gangetic Plains of the north and the plains of the three southern rivers—rose the great kingdoms and empires of Indian history. Today, 50 percent of the people of India live there. These lands have been farmed continuously for centuries, fertilized by the nutrients carried by the rivers.