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India Portal

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Taj Mahal, Agra, India

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India (Hindi: Bhārat), officially the Republic of India (Hindi: Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.

Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago. Their long occupation, initially in varying forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human genetic diversity. Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE. By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest, unfolding as the language of the Rigveda, and recording the dawning of Hinduism in India. The Dravidian languages of India were supplanted in the northern regions. By 400 BCE, stratification and exclusion by caste had emerged within Hinduism, and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity. Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires based in the Ganges Basin. Their collective era was suffused with wide-ranging creativity, but also marked by the declining status of women, and the incorporation of untouchability into an organized system of belief. In south India, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian-languages scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of southeast Asia.

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Core area of Western Chalukya architectural activity in modern Karnataka state, India

Western Chalukya architecture (Kannada: ಪಶ್ಚಿಮ ಚಾಲುಕ್ಯ ವಾಸ್ತುಶಿಲ್ಪ), also known as Kalyani Chalukya or Later Chalukya architecture, is the distinctive style of ornamented architecture that evolved during the rule of the Western Chalukya Empire in the Tungabhadra region of modern central Karnataka, India, during the 11th and 12th centuries. Western Chalukyan political influence was at its peak in the Deccan Plateau during this period. The centre of cultural and temple-building activity lay in the Tungabhadra region, where large medieval workshops built numerous monuments. These monuments, regional variants of pre-existing dravida (South Indian) temples, form a climax to the wider regional temple architecture tradition called Vesara or Karnata dravida. Temples of all sizes built by the Chalukyan architects during this era remain today as examples of the architectural style.

Most notable of the many buildings dating from this period are the Mahadeva Temple at Itagi in the Koppal district, the Kasivisvesvara Temple at Lakkundi in the Gadag district, the Mallikarjuna Temple at Kuruvatti in the Bellary district and the Kallesvara Temple at Bagali in the Davangere district. Other monuments notable for their craftsmanship include the Kaitabheshvara Temple in Kubatur and Kedareshvara Temple in Balligavi, both in the Shimoga district, the Siddhesvara Temple at Haveri in the Haveri district, the Amrtesvara Temple at Annigeri in the Dharwad district, the Sarasvati Temple in Gadag, and the Dodda Basappa Temple at Dambal, both in the Gadag district.

The surviving Western Chalukya monuments are temples built in the Shaiva, Vaishnava, and Jain religious traditions. None of the military, civil, or courtly architecture has survived; being built of mud, brick and wood, such structures may not have withstood repeated invasions. The centre of these architectural developments was the region encompassing the present-day Dharwad district; it included areas of present-day Haveri and Gadag districts. In these districts, about fifty monuments have survived as evidence of the widespread temple building of the Western Chalukyan workshops. The influence of this style extended beyond the Kalyani region in the northeast to the Bellary region in the east and to the Mysore region in the south. In the Bijapur–Belgaum region to the north, the style was mixed with that of the Hemadpanti temples. Although a few Western Chalukyan temples can be found in the Konkan region, the presence of the Western Ghats probably prevented the style from spreading westwards. Read more...

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The Sidi Saiyyad Ni Jaali is the name given to the intricately carved stone window flanking the central aisle of the Sidi Saiyyed mosque in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Jaali is the Gujarati word for net. The name literally means "the net of Sidi Saiyyed". The design of intertwined tree and foliage, a palm and parasite motif has become an unofficial symbol of Ahmedabad.

Photo credit: User:L1CENSET0K1LL

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News

9 November 2019 – Ayodhya dispute: The Supreme Court of India rules in favor of Hindus over a place of worship that has been the center of disputes between them and the Muslim community in the country. (Reuters)
31 October 2019 –: India formally splits Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, dubbed Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Both entities will be directly governed from New Delhi. (BBC News)
28 September 2019 –: Flooding in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh kills at least 93 people and displaces thousands of others. Another 29 people were killed in Bihar. (BBC).
15 September 2019 –: A sightseeing boat capsizes on the Godavari River in India's East Godavari district, killing at least 12 people and leaving 35 others missing, all Indian nationals. (The Independent)
6 September 2019 –: The Indian Space Research Organization loses contact with Vikram moments before its planned soft landing on the Moon. India would have been the fourth nation to have explored the lunar surface, had Vikram successfully landed, and it would have deployed the Pragyan rover onto the surface. (NPR)
31 August 2019 –: An explosion followed by a fire at a chemical factory in Dhule, India kills at least 12 and injures at least 58. (CNN); India releases the final version of the National Register of Citizens for the state of Assam. Up to 1.9 million residents risk losing their citizenship if they are not on the list and can not prove their residency. The move is criticized for disproportionately affecting the local Bengali community. (BBC)

Did you know...

... that in Women's One Day International cricket, India has the fourth highest number of victories?
... that Steve Smith has scored seven of his twenty Test centuries against India?
... that Indian theatre actor Jahangir Pestonji Khambhata wanted to see Shakespeare's plays in England, but the ship he boarded went in the other direction?
... that Indian MP Sumedhanand Saraswati is also a Hindu monk?
... that India is creating the post of Chief of the Defence Staff twenty years after it was officially suggested?
... that the Indian organisation Poovulagin Nanbargal filed a case to prevent the commissioning of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant?
... that R. Hari Kumar took a staff course at the US Naval War College while serving in the Indian Navy?
... that Deepak Kumar was one of the first Indian condensed matter physicists to predict the experimental consequences of spin clusters near the percolation threshold?
... that World War II servicewoman Mary Greyeyes was incorrectly labeled as an "unidentified Indian princess" in a famous Canadian Women's Army Corps publicity photo?
... that the motto of the Supreme Court of India is Yato Dharma Tato Jaya – "There is no victory without justice"?
... that the Indian organisation Poovulagin Nanbargal filed a case to prevent the commissioning of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant?
... that the 2015 Indian epic historical romance film Bajirao Mastani spent eleven years in development hell before being revived in 2014?
... that Migrant Architects of the NHS recounts how doctors from the Indian subcontinent immigrated to Britain and became general practitioners?
... that HMS Stonehenge disappeared with all hands in the Indian Ocean in 1944, and her exact location is still unknown?