Trump Modi: MEA reacts to Trump remarks on PM Modi political career

But in the South, under the Pallava and Chola dynasties, sculpture in both stone and bronze had a sustained period of great achievement; the large bronzes with Shiva as Nataraja have become an iconic symbol of India. Over the following centuries a distinctly Indian style of sculpting the human figure developed, with less interest in articulating precise anatomy than ancient Greek sculpture but showing smoothly flowing forms expressing prana (“breath” or bet365 life-force). Almost all surviving ancient Indian art thereafter is in various forms of religious sculpture in durable materials, or coins. A very large majority of Indians have their marriages arranged by their parents or family elders.

India is one of the more successful cricket teams, having won two Cricket World Cups, two T20 World Cups, and three Champions Trophies. Parcheesi is derived from Pachisi another traditional Indian pastime, which in early modern times was played on a giant marble court by Mughal emperor Akbar. Chess is commonly held to have originated in India as chaturaṅga; There has been a rise in the number of Indian grandmasters. The diversity of Indian food served worldwide has been partially concealed by the dominance of Punjabi cuisine.

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This era was noted for creativity in art, architecture, and writing, but the status of women declined, and untouchability became an organised belief.l In South India, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian language scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia. By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest. On a day when the Supreme Court of India sought a progress report on the probe into an Air India plane’s June 2025 crash in Ahmedabad — 260 people were killed — an Italian newspaper came out with new claims citing sources in aviation agencies. India, a union of states, is a Sovereign, Secular, Democratic Republic with a Parliamentary system of Government.

After Nehru died in office in May 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri was unanimously chosen by the Congress to be parliamentary leader, and thus prime minister. The Congress is considered the ideological centre in Indian political culture; the BJP is right-wing. India hosts more than five hundred wildlife sanctuaries and eighteen biosphere reserves, four of which are part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves; its eighty-nine wetlands are registered under the Ramsar Convention. In 1972, India enacted the Wildlife Protection Act and Project Tiger to safeguard crucial wilderness; the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in 1980 and amendments added in 1988.

• The land of India—together with Bangladesh and most of Pakistan—forms a well-defined subcontinent, set off from the rest of Asia by the imposing northern mountain rampart of the Himalayas and by adjoining mountain ranges to the west and east.
• India has distinctive vegetarian cuisines, each a feature of the geographical and cultural histories of its adherents.
• By 1967, however, India was able to fend off Chinese excursions into Sikkim.
• India’s subsequent collision with Eurasia set off a mass exchange of species.
• Cave paintings from the Stone Age are found across India.

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During the 1930s, the British enacted slow legislative reform; the Indian National Congress won victories in the resulting elections. It was marked by British reforms but also repressive legislation, by more strident Indian calls for self-rule, and by the beginnings of a nonviolent movement of non-co-operation led by Mahatma Gandhi. After World War I, in which approximately one million Indians served, a new period began. The railway network provided critical famine relief, notably reduced the cost of moving goods, and helped nascent Indian-owned industry. There was an increase in the number of large-scale famines, and, despite the risks of infrastructure development borne by Indian taxpayers, little industrial employment was generated for Indians.

Since the end of the Cold War, India has increased its economic, strategic, and military cooperation with the United States and the European Union. After the 1965 war, India began to pursue close military and economic ties with the Soviet Union. The remaining five union territories are directly ruled by the central government through appointed administrators.

Indian authorities — including the AAIB, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the civil aviation ministry — did not respond to the newspaper’s questions, it noted. A final report could adopt a more cautious version to avoid strong national controversies, the outlet reported. This risked damaging the image of a country investing heavily in air transport, tourism and trade, it quoted sources as saying. There was already pressure on India from western countries in particular that, if the probe was not carried out with full facts, the security level of all Indian airlines could be re-evaluated, the news report noted.

The rush of technology and the commercialisation of agriculture in the second half of the 19th century was marked by economic setbacks, and many small farmers became dependent on the whims of faraway markets. After the rebellion was suppressed in 1858, the East India Company was disbanded, and the British government began to directly administer India. Fed by diverse resentments and perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, and summary treatment of some wealthy landowners and princes, the rebellion rocked many regions of northern and central India and shook the foundations of Company rule. By this time, with its economic power severely curtailed by the British parliament and having effectively been made an arm of British administration, the East India Company began more consciously to enter non-economic arenas, including education, social reform, and culture.

India’s nominal GDP per capita increased steadily from US$308 in 1991, when economic liberalisation began, to US$1,380 in 2010, to an estimated US$2,731 in 2024. India was the world’s second-largest textile exporter after China in the 2013 calendar year. In 2008, India’s share of world trade was 1.7%; in 2021, India was the world’s ninth-largest importer and the sixteenth-largest exporter. The 522-million-worker Indian labour force is the world’s second largest, as of 2017update.