droughts; flash floods,
as well as widespread and destructive flooding from monsoonal rains;
severe thunderstorms; earthquakes
Environment -
Current Issues :
deforestation; soil
erosion; overgrazing; desertification; air pollution from industrial
effluents and vehicle emissions; water pollution from raw sewage and
runoff of agricultural pesticides; tap water is not potable throughout
the country; huge and growing population is overstraining natural
resources
Environment -
International Agreements :
party to:
Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources,
Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto
Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental
Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection,
Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands,
Whaling
signed, but not
ratified: none of the selected agreements
Population:
1,095,351,995 (July
2006 est.)
Population growth rate:
1.38% (2006 est.)
Birth rate:
22.01 births/1,000
population (2006 est.)
Death rate:
8.18 deaths/1,000
population (2006 est.)
Sex Ratio :
At birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
Under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.07 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 1.02 male(s)/female
Total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2006 est.)
Life
Expectancy at Birth :
Total population: 64.71
years
Male: 63.9 years
Female: 65.57 years
(2006 est.)
Major
Infectious Diseases :
Degree of risk: high
Food or waterborne
diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, and typhoid fever
Vectorborne diseases:
dengue fever, malaria, and Japanese encephalitis are high risks in some
locations , animal contact disease: rabies (2005)
Ethnic
Groups :
Indo-Aryan 72%,
Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3% (2000)
Religions :
Hindu 80.5%, Muslim
13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.1% (2001
census)
Languages :
English enjoys
associate status but is the most important language for national,
political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language
and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other official
languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam,
Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit;
Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout
northern India but is not an official language
Literacy :
Definition: age 15 and
over can read and write
Total population: 59.5%
Male: 70.2%
Female: 48.3% (2003
est.)
