India

India is staggeringly diverse, with hundreds of languages and ethnic groups; Hindi and English serve as link languages alongside more than 20 other official tongues. It is now the world's most populous country.

Hinduism is the majority religion, with one of the world's largest Muslim populations, plus Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and others — a pluralism central to, and at times strained within, the secular republic.

Society

India has rising literacy and life expectancy and a youthful population that gives it a demographic advantage, though gaps persist between a prosperous urban middle class and the rural poor.