Madras to Bombay (Jan/Feb 1997)

		This is the record in pictures and words of an overland journey through Southern India during January and February 1997 by Laurence Rogerson & Sue Powell (of Sue's Recipe Server fame). The pictures were taken on 35mm film and scanned from standard sized prints at 100 dpi. The web pages have been designed and hosted by HubCom (in London UK).
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Location:
South Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Bangladesh and Pakistan
Total Area:
3,287,590 km2
Land Area:
2,973,190 km2
Comparative Area:
slightly more than one-third the size of the US
Land Boundaries:
total 14,103 km, Bangladesh 4,053 km, Bhutan 605 km, Burma 1,463 km, China 3,380 km, Nepal 1,690 km, Pakistan 2,912 km
Coastline:
7,000 km
International Disputes:
boundaries with Bangladesh and China in dispute; status of Kashmir with Pakistan; water-sharing problems with downstream riparians, Bangladesh over the Ganges and Pakistan over the Indus (Wular Barrage)
Climate:
varies from tropical monsoon in south to temperate in north
Terrain:
upland plain (Deccan Plateau) in south, flat to rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts in west, Himalayas in north
Natural Resources:
coal (fourth-largest reserves in the world), iron ore, manganese, mica, bauxite, titanium ore, chromite, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum, limestone
Environment:
current issues: deforestation; soil erosion; overgrazing; desertification; air pollution from industrial effluents and vehicle emissions; water pollution from raw sewage and runoff of agricultural pesticides; tap water is not potable throughout the country; huge and rapidly growing population is overstraining natural resources natural hazards: droughts, flash floods, severe thunderstorms common; earthquakes

India - People

Population:
952,107,694 (July 1996 est.)
Population Growth Rate:
1.64% (1996 est.)
Infant Mortality Rate:
71.1 deaths/1,000 live births (1996 est.)
Life Expectancy at Birth:
59.71 years
Ethnic Divisions:
Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3%
Religions:
Hindu 80%, Muslim 14%, Christian 2.4%, Sikh 2%, Buddhist 0.7%, Jains 0.5%, other 0.4%
Languages:
English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication, Hindi the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people, Bengali (official), Telugu (official), Marathi (official), Tamil (official), Urdu (official), Gujarati (official), Malayalam (official), Kannada (official), Oriya (official), Punjabi (official), Assamese (official), Kashmiri (official), Sindhi (official), Sanskrit (official), Hindustani a popular variant of Hindu/Urdu, is spoken widely throughout northern India
note: 24 languages each spoken by a million or more persons; numerous other languages and dialects, for the most part mutually unintelligible
Literacy:
52% age 15 and over can read and write (1995 est.)
Labor force:
284.4 million (agriculture 67%)

India - Government

Type:
federal republic
Capital:
New Delhi
Administrative Divisions:
25 states and 7 union territories; Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar, Haveli, Daman and Diu, Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Pondicherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal
Independence:
15 August 1947 (from UK)
Constitution:
26 January 1950
Legal system:
based on English common law; limited judicial review of legislative acts; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with reservations
Flag:
three equal horizontal bands of orange (top), white, and green with a blue chakra (24-spoked wheel) centered in the white band; similar to the flag of Niger, which has a small orange disk centered in the white band

India - Economy

Overview:
India's economy is a mixture of traditional village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industries, and a multitude of support services. Faster economic growth in the 1980s permitted a significant increase in real per capita private consumption. A large share of the population, perhaps as much as 40%, remains too poor to afford an adequate diet. Financial strains in 1990 and 1991 prompted government austerity measures that slowed industrial growth but permitted India to meet its international payment obligations without rescheduling its debt. Policy reforms since 1991 have extended earlier economic liberalization and greatly reduced government controls on production, trade, and investment.
National Product:
GDP - exchange rate conversion - $240 billion (FY93 est.)
GDP Per Capita:
$1,500 (1995 est.)
Inflation Rate (consumer prices):
9% (1995)
Industries:
textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery
Industrial production growth rate:
10% (1995 est.)
Agriculture:
rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes; cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, poultry; fish catch of about 3 million metric tons ranks India among the world's top 10 fishing nations
Illicit Drugs:
licit producer of opium for the pharmaceutical trade, but an undetermined quantity of opium is diverted to illicit international drug markets; major transit country for illicit narcotics produced in neighboring countries; illicit producer of hashish and methaqualone; produced 70 metric tons of illicit opium in 1995
Exports:
clothing, gems and jewelry, engineering goods, chemicals, leather manufactures, cotton yarn, and fabric
Imports:
crude oil and petroleum products, machinery, gems, fertilizer, chemicals
External debt:
$97.9 billion (March 1995)
Currency:
1 Indian rupee (Re) = 100 paise
Exchange rates:
Indian rupees (Rs) per US$1 - 35.766 (January 1996), 32.427 (1995), 31.374 (1994), 30.493 (1993), 25.918 (1992), 22.742 (1991)

India - Transportation

Railroads:
62,462 km (11,793 km electrified; 12,617 km double track)
Highways:
total: 2.037 million km, paved: 981,834 km, unpaved: 1,055,166 km (1995 est.)
Inland Waterways:
16,180 km; 3,631 km navigable by large vessels
Ports:
Calcutta, Cochin, Jawaharal Nehru, Kandla, Madras, Mumbai (Bombay), Vishakhapatnam
Airports:
total: 288

India - Communications
Telecommunications:
probably the least adequate telephone system of any of the industrializing countries; three of every four villages have no telephone service; only 5% of India's villages have long-distance service; poor telephone service significantly impedes commercial and industrial growth and penalizes India in global markets; slow improvement is taking place with the recent admission of private and private-public investors, but demand for communication services is also growing rapidly

Source: The CIA World Factbook

If you have any comments or suggestions about these pages then drop us a line.

If you are interested in South Indian Food then why not visit Sue's Recipe Server, our other Web site.

North India & Nepal is the record of our overland journey from Delhi to Kathmandu during January 1998.

Exploring Vietnam is the record of a journey through Vietnam from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and beyond during March and April of 1999.

Copyright © Laurence Rogerson & Sue Powell 1997. South India Overland is designed and hosted by HubCom (UK).