Best of India

Historically, the Indian subcontinent was a region of trade routes and vast empires, identified with its commercial and cultural wealth. For many centuries, the land was the setting of battles where foreign empires like the Aryan, Moorish, Portuguese, Dutch, and British have taken control. Four world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, originated here, whereas Christianity and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium and also helped shape the region cultural diversity. Today, India is home to 18% of the world’s population crowded together in 2.5% of the world’s land mass. The Indian economy is the world’s tenth largest by nominal gross domestic product and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the fastest growing major economies and it is considered a newly industrialized country. However, the nation continues to face the challenges of poverty, illiteracy, corruption, malnutrition, and inadequate public healthcare. The country has major environmental problems, as well as the fastest growing population on earth. Noise pollution in major cities has been measured at over 90 decibels, more than one and a half times the recognized “safe” limit. Sadly, littering is a recurrent issue all over the country, and people seem to be extremely used to throwing everything anywhere. At least 70% of the freshwater sources in India are now polluted in some way. The downstream of the Ganges for example, is a black septic river with 3000 times the acceptable limit of fecal coliform bacteria. Regardless of its level of pollution, this river continues to be a main center of life and spirituality in Varanasi. Literally everything happens in the Ganges from swimming, fishing, bathing, washing clothes, drinking water, and incineration of corpse right before letting the ashes and body remains go into the river.