GDP: $576 billion (2003); $648 (2004E)
Real Growth rate: 8.2% 2003
Per Capita GDP: $543 (2003); $602 (2004E)
Natural Resources: Coal, iron ore, manganese, mica, bauxite, chromite, thorium, limestone, barite, titanium ore, diamonds, crude oil
Agriculture: 22.7% of GDP; Products--wheat, rice, coarse grains, oilseeds, sugar, cotton, jute, tea
Industry: 26.6% of GDP; Products--textiles, jute, processed food, steel, machinery, transport equipment, cement, aluminum, fertilizers, mining, petroleum, chemicals, computer software
Services and transportation: 50.7% of GDP
Trade: Exports--$62 billion; agricultural products, engineering goods, precious stones, cotton apparel and fabrics, gems and jewelry, handicrafts, tea; Software Exports-- $12.5 billion
Imports--$76 billion; petroleum, machinery and transport equipment, electronic goods, edible oils, fertilizers, chemicals, gold, textiles, iron and steel
Major trade partners--U.S., EU, Russia, Japan, Iraq

Indian industrial policy could be broadly divided into two phases. Before 1991, the need of the moment was seen to be the development of a machinery-producing sector with associated economic skills. The second part concentrated on creating a protected home market.

In 1991, India threw open the industrial sector to greater internationaland domestic competition. Financial systems have been strengthened and India are well developed. India in recent years has emerged as one of the leading destinations for investors from developed countries.

Supporting infrastructure facilities are also being made available. The country has the largest railway network in Asia and the second largest in the world under a single management. Roads are taking developmental changes to the most remote corners of the country. Nearly 85% of the villages have been electrified and there are nationwide grids for the transmission and distribution of power.

New areas like oceanography, space, electronics and non-conventional energy sources were developed. Her large scientific and technological personnel were contributing to research and development all over the world. Inter-university centers and consortia for advanced studies were fast becoming active centers of learning.

Their success, it has been observed, is based on a rare combination: scientific knowledge and the readiness to test and match it to folk wisdom. A large number of wells, for instance, have been dug with the help of space imagery! The Indian remote sensing program, perhaps the best in the world, sends out a special broadcast to fishermen who listen to this broadcast before getting their nets ready to bring home a range of seafood! When science was busy with research and applying its finds to traditional Indian life, artists of all genres were busy discovering new idioms, languages and expressions.

India’s newly acquired status as a nuclear power and a booming economy has thus brought under international limelight. Its internal problems notwithstanding, India has stepped into the new millennium with great confidence.

India therefore can be defined as a land where humanity has lived since ages; where different religions, societes, cultures, languages have interplayed with each other in harmony; a land which has seen the best and the worst of everything; a land where religion means more than their name; a place where nature has bestowed itself in all its colours… to end it all a land which shall remain itself till eternity.

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