India (WOWWR)

India, officially the Indian Empire or the Empire of India is country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the most populous country (with over 1.5 billion people) and also the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal to the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; the People's Republic of the East and Nepal to the north-east; Laos to the east and Thailand to the south-east. In the Indian Ocean, India is vicinity of the Maldives and in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.

Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.

Currently, the Indian economy is the sixth-largest by nominal GDP and third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the fastest-growing major economies; it is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition and inadequate public healthcare, although these problems slowly started to get solved after the declaration of the Indian Empire. A former-nuclear weapons state (one of the signers of the Nuclear Removal Treaty) and a regional power, it has the second-largest standing army in the world and ranks fourth in military expenditure among nations. India is a semi-absolute monarchy governed under a imperial-parliamentary system and consists of 43 states and 4 territories. India is a pluralistic, multilingual, and multi-ethnic society. It is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats.

Etymology
The name India is derived from indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Sindhi. The latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi (Ινδοί), which translates as "The people of the Indus".

The geographical term Bharat (Bhārat, pronounced [ˈbʱaːrət̪]), which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. It is a modernisation of the historical name Bharatavarsha, which gained increasing currenc from the mid-19th century onward as a native name of India. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B.C.E. It is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Recently, the term Bharata began to be used more often instead of Bharat because of the creation of the Empire and its goal to unite the Indian subcontinent, which is what the word Bharata is used for. Raj is Sanskrit/Hindi term for "empire" and was also used during the British colonial rule after 1857 rebellion, called British Raj.

Hindustan ([ɦɪnd̪ʊˈst̪aːn]) is an ancient Persian name for India dating to 3rd century BCE. It was introduced into into by the Mughals and widely used since then, often being thought as the "Land of the Hindus." Its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety. It was also the alternate official name of the Empire that was used during the proclamation, with it being changed to Indian Empire in 2017.