Bharat
President: A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (2002)
Prime Minister: Manmohan Singh (2004)
Area: 1,269,338 sq mi (3,287,590 sq km)
Note: We give
the information above in the Christian Personals Primer
so that you will have a little background on the country before
you contact a perspective mate, just in case you don't know the
basics. Perhaps this info will give you something to talk about
Population (2004 est.): 1,065,070,607 (growth rate:
1.4%); birth rate: 22.8/1000; infant mortality rate: 57.9/1000;
life expectancy: 64.0; density per sq mi: 839
Capital (2003 est.): New Delhi, 17,037,900 (metro.
area), 10,203,700 (city proper)
Largest cities: Bombay (Mumbai), 17,012,100 (metro.area),
12,383,100 (city proper); Calcutta (Kolkata), 14,090,200 (metro.area),
4,760,800 (city proper); Bangalore, 4,461,100; Madras (Chennai),
4,382,100; Ahmedabad, 3,653,700; Hyderabad, 3,585,600; Kanpur,
2,631,800
Monetary unit: Rupee
Principal languages: Hindi (official), English
(official), Bengali, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi,
Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Kannada, Assamese,
Sanskrit, Sindhi (all recognized by the constitution). Dialects,
1,600+
Ethnicity/race: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%,
Mongoloid and other 3% (2000)
Religions: Hindu 81.3%, Islam 12%, Christian 2.3%,
Sikh 1.9%, other (including Buddhists, Jains, and Parsis) 2.5%