India: The World’s Largest Democracy as a Rising Global Power

India has also a number of soft power instruments: Indian movies (Bollywood), music, and spiritual teachings have a privileged position in global culture. As an example of soft power, in 2015, the United Nations declared June 21 as the international yoga day.

India faces pressing problems that might hamper its aspirations: such as environmental degradation, extensive poverty, widespread corruption, insufficient health and sanitation, inefficient governmental bureaucracy, poor public infrastructure, substandard education and social cleavages.

The British rule in India started with the English East India Company.The East India Company was chartered in 1600 to trade in the Indian Ocean region

British rule established a sophisticated bureaucracy which replaced the corrupt and inefficient administration of the old East India Company.

Under the British Rule, India continued to be a colony whose raw materials were
exploited. Indian exports of agricultural products, such as cotton, jute, tea, coffee, wheat and oil seeds made Britain industrialists richer but made Indian peasants poorer.

Gandhi started a mass civil disobedience movement in 1942. The Quit India movement turned out to be the biggest civilian unrest in India since the great rebellion of 1857.

dawaharlal Nehru was the leader of the Indian National Congress at that time became the first Prime Minister of India.

No it is not. India is a parliamentary republic. India has a bicameral legislature: the lower house (Lok Sabha) which exercises most executive powers and the upper house (Rajya Sabha).

According to the Constitution, India is a union of states. The word federal is not used in the constitution. There are 28 states and 8 union territories in India.

A new phase of Indian politics started after 1967. The Congress Party continued to be successful in central government elections. But it faced important challenges from other parties.

1989 was a turning point in Indian politica history. Since then the weight of low-caste political parties and Hindu nationalism have increased in Indian politics. 1989-1998 period was marked by short lived minority governments. In the first
42 years of the republic there were nine prime ministers, in the 10 years after 1989 India was governed by seven different prime ministers

Yes it is.Hindu nationalism but also on economic nationalism. India’s increasing integration into the world economy since the 1990s had an extensive influence on Indian politics. India’s self-image started to change.

Gender inequality in India has improved significantly on many fronts for most women over the past decades yet important shortcomings still remain. Gender inequality is interwoven with many other inequalities including caste and class. Poverty is widespread but the women suffer the most.

India’s economic saga is one of a long-term decline. In the seventeenth century, when India was a unified state under Mughal rule it was home to around one-fourth of the world’s population and produced roughly one-fourth of the world’s
output. India was by far the largest manufacturing nation in the world. Indian textiles were widely admired and sought after by European consumers.

India has a diverse economic structure, encompassing traditional village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts and a wide range of modern industries and services.

Although high growth has lifted living standards for everyone, India still struggles with poverty. After independence, many governments have implemented various schemes to alleviate poverty. Rate of poverty measured in terms of the percentage of the population living on less than $1.90 a day at 2011 international prices was 62% in 1977. India accelerated its fight with poverty after 2009. The extreme poverty rate was reduced to 21% in 2011. Although the ratio of extreme poverty has somewhat come down, it is still an
important problem.

There are important economic challenges, including: inefficient power generation and distribution system, inconsistent supply of water and electricity, rigid labor laws, ineffective enforcement of intellectual property rights, pervasive informality, inadequate infrastructure, poor public services, limited nonagricultural employment opportunities, poorly targeted subsidies, substandard education system, housing shortages, air pollution sanitation and public health.

The end of the cold war produced dramatic economic and political changes within India. India’s foreign policy has also changed. India started to pursue a more expansive foreign policy

lthough India preferred to stay neutral during the Cold War, India developed close ties with the Soviet Union. India pursued close military and economic ties with the Soviet Union especially after the 1965 war with Pakistan. By the late 1960s, the Soviet Union was its largest arms supplier.

Notwithstanding its impressive economic power and defense capabilities, the country also faces many problems. Most of India’s problems are not because of some external factors but from policy failures.