raining natural resources

Environment-international agreements:
party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic Treaty,
Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species,
Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Nuclear
Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83,
Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

Geography-note: dominates South Asian subcontinent; near important
Indian Ocean trade routes

@India:People

Population: 984,003,683 (July 1998 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 34% (male 174,578,403; female 164,755,937)
15-64 years: 61% (male 310,995,355; female 288,344,336)
65 years and over: 5% (male 23,051,278; female 22,278,374) (July 1998
est.)

Population growth rate: 1.71% (1998 est.)

Birth rate: 25.91 births/1,000 population (1998 est.)

Death rate: 8.69 deaths/1,000 population (1998 est.)

Net migration rate: -0.08 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1998 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.08 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 1.04 male(s)/female (1998 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 63.14 deaths/1,000 live births (1998 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 62.9 years
male: 62.11 years
female: 63.73 years (1998 est.)

Total fertility rate: 3.24 children born/woman (1998 est.)

Nationality:
noun: Indian(s)
adjective: Indian

Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3%

Religions: Hindu 80%, Muslim 14%, Christian 2.4%, Sikh 2%, Buddhist
0.7%, Jains 0.5%, other 0.4%

Languages: English enjoys associate status but is the most important
language for national, political, and commercial communication, Hindi
the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people, Bengali
(official), Telugu (official), Marathi (official), Tamil (official),
Urdu (official), Gujarati (official), Malayalam (official), Kannada
(official), Oriya (official), Punjabi (official), Assamese (official),
Kashmiri (official), Sindhi (official), Sanskrit (official),
Hindustani a popular variant of Hindu/Urdu, is spoken widely
throughout northern India
note: 24 languages each spoken by a million or more persons; numerous
other languages and dialects, for the most part mutually
unintelligible

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 52%
male: 65.5%
female: 37.7% (1995 es