nd use:
arable land: 55%
permanent crops: 1%
meadows and pastures: 4%
forest and woodland: 23%
other: 17%

Irrigated land: 430,390 sq km (1989)

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
rapidly growing population is overstraining natural resources
natural hazards: droughts, flash floods, severe thunderstorms common;
earthquakes
international agreements: party to - Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity,
Climate Change, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification,
Hazardous Wastes, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship
Pollution, Tropical Timber, Wetlands, Whaling; signed, but not
ratified - Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Desertification, Law of
the Sea

Note: dominates South Asian subcontinent; near important Indian Ocean
trade routes

@India:People

Population: 936,545,814 (July 1995 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 35% (female 159,921,309; male 168,812,255)
15-64 years: 61% (female 274,105,407; male 296,145,798)
65 years and over: 4% (female 18,870,762; male 18,690,283) (July 1995
est.)

Population growth rate: 1.77% (1995 est.)

Birth rate: 27.78 births/1,000 population (1995 est.)

Death rate: 10.07 deaths/1,000 population (1995 est.)

Net migration rate: 0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1995 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 76.3 deaths/1,000 live births (1995 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 59.04 years
male: 58.5 years
female: 59.61 years (1995 est.)

Total fertility rate: 3.4 children born/woman (1995 est.)

Nationality:
noun: Indian(s)
adjective: Indian

Ethnic divisions: 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), Sa