The Republic of India
India, the seventh largest country in terms of geographical area, is situated in the south of Asia. India is surrounded by Indian Ocean, Arabian sea and the bay of Bengal on its south, southwest and south east respectively and shares borders in West with Pakistan, North east borders with China and Nepal, and Eastern border with Bangladesh and Burma. Sri Lanka & Maldives share India’s neighbourhood in the Indian Ocean. Andaman & Nicobar Islands share naval borders with Thailand & Indonesia.
With a population of over 1.2 billion people India is ranked world’s second most populated country. It is predicted that with the growth rate of 1.41%, India would surpass China and would become the most populated country in the world by 2050 with population exceeding 1.6 billion people.
Significant Features:

• After US, India is considered to have more water arable land and more water areas than any other countries in the world.
• India is the second most populated country with 17.5% of world’s population.
• In India lives are majorly dependent upon agricultural activities and similar works done in small villages.
• The census results conducted in 2001 show that 72.2% of India population lives in 638,000 villages and the remainder of population accounting to 27.8% live in around 5100 towns and 380 urban areas

Administrative divisions:

• India has 28 states and 7 union territories
• All states have governments and legislatures elected, based on the Westminster model. This system is followed in 2 territories, Puducherry and the National Capital Territory of Delhi; however the other 5 territories are governed by administrators appointed by the Centre.
• After the major reorganization of states based on the languages under the States Reorganisation Act in 1956, the structures have largely remained same.
• Each state and union territory is sub divided into administrative districts and these districts further segregated into tehsils and then into villages.