INDIA A to Z
Amitabh Bachchan (Xenia), also known as “Big B“ and born in 1942 in India, is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema.He first gained popularity in the early 1970s and appeared from then on as the star actor in over 180 Bollywood films winning lots of major awards in his career. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer, television presenter and politician. In2013 he is going to star in his first Hollywood film, “The Great Gatsby”.
animals These are some of the animals unique to India: the Indian elephant , the Great Indian rhinoceros, the leopard , the Bengal tiger; they are all endangered species. However, the most visible animal in Indian life is the cow, which is simply everywhere! As the cow is respected as a sacred animal, it's allowed to roam and graze on or along the streets in cities freely, seemingly not minding the traffic (“the sacred cows”).
arranged marriage (Hannah A.) Arranged marriages are an old tradition in south Asian society. The overwhelming majority of marriages in India (90%) are arranged marriages and are based on the belief that true love has to grow after the marriage. A common way of paving the way to a marriage is that the parents of a young lady invite men who are suitable to marry their daughter to a party (They often find them with the help of newspaper adverts – so-called “matrimonial” - or professional matchmakers.). Afterwards the daughter decides who she wants to marry; sometimes her parents help her with the decision either through advice or gentle pressure. Usually, the partners meet only a few times before the wedding day and the bride`s father is expected to pay a dowry (Mitgift).
In this system, free dating is taboo and the divorce rate is just about 1%. It works because children obey their parents, who look for suitable partners for their children from families of their own religion, caste and social status. The higher the parents status the more popular are arranged marriages.
BangaloreBangalore is well known as a centre for India's information technology. It is among the top 10 preferred business locations in the world. As a growing metropolitan city in a developing country, Bangalore confronts substantial pollution and other logistical and socio-economic problems. Bangalore is home to many well-recognized colleges and research institutions in India. Numerous technology companies, aerospace, telecommunications, and defence organisations are located in the city. Bangalore is known as the Silicon Valley of India because of its position as the nation's leading IT exporter.
bindi The red dot between the eyebrows. Traditionally, it was worn by Hindu women as a religious sign and connected with wisdom, energy or protection. However, today this sign is worn in many variations more as a fashion statement by almost everybody in India regardless of age, gender, class or marital status.
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), India. Bollywood is the largest film producer in India and one of the largest centres of film production in the world. Interestingly, it is common to see films that have dialogue with English words (also known as Hinglish), phrases, or even whole sentences.
Bollywood films are mostly musicals and are expected to contain catchy music in the form of song-and-dance numbers woven into the script. A film's success often depends on the quality of such musical numbers.Indian audiences expect full value for their money, with a good entertainer , songs and dances, love triangles and comedy are all mixed up in a three-hour extravaganza with an intermission. These movies are a mixture of action, comedy, romance and so on.
Bollywood plots have tended to be melodramatic. They frequently employ star-crossed lovers and angry parents, corrupt politicians, kidnappers, villains, ladies with hearts of gold, long-lost relatives and siblings separated by fate, dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences.
Brahminsthe highest caste: intellectual and religious leaders such as priests and philosophers
Calcutta As of 2011, the urban area, which comprises the city and its suburbs, was home to approximately 14.1million inhabitants, in third position behind Mumbai and Delhi.[6] As a growing metropolitan city in a developing country, Kolkata confronts substantial urban pollution, traffic congestion, poverty, overpopulation, and other logistic and socioeconomic problems.
call centresin new-age India (Anna):
The call center service industry in India is well established with years of experience. The first reason for India`s success in this market is firstly the fact that it has a large English-speaking population. Secondly, more than a million highly qualified students graduate every year from university and enter the job market. Thirdly, Indian call center employees are cheap by international standards: they earn about $3000 to $5000 a year (in a nation where the average income is below $500 a year).
caste system the original four castes are a hierarchy of four classes linked to the roles individuals had in society and allowed almost no mobility between the castes; the Brahmins as spiritual and intellectual guides were at the top, the warriors and rulers came next, the third caste were the traders and businessmen, and the lowest caste the manual workers. For fear of pollution, these four castes had to avoid any contact with the “untouchables”, people who did the dirty work.
ConstitutionSince 1949 the Constitution of India has granted all its citizens equal rights, but social change has been slow. The Industrial Revolution and today`s economic boom have done much more to weaken the caste system, and especially in the big cities it is losing influence. It has become possible to improve status through professional and financial success. The majority of the former “untouchables”, who now call themselves Dalits (the oppressed), are still underprivileged, but as their numbers are strong (20% of the population) democracy has given them more rights and support.
democracy India is the seventh largest (by area) and the second most populous country in the world (1.2 billion people). With roughly one-sixth of the world`s population, it is the world's largest democracy and a constitutional republic with an elected parliament, a prime minister and a president as head of state. New Delhi is the nation's capital. Since independence from Britain in 1947, the country has been ruled most of the time by the Indian National Congressparty.
foodIndian food is famous for its diversity of recipes and variety of spices. In Britain, Indian take-aways are to be found in almost every village and dishes like Chicken Tikka Masala and Chicken Korma have become as popular as fish and chips.
GangesThe longest river in India is sacred to Hindus but heavily polluted.
geography (Nicholas) There are 28 different states and 7 union territories in India, which is 3.29 million square kilometres big. From north to south the country is divided into three main areas. The mountain ranges of the Himalaya, which then splits up into the eastern and the western ghats, also mountain chains, which go along the east and the west coast of India. The basin delta with its three main great streams, the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, and the highlands of Dekhan which captures the whole of South-India apart from the coast line and reaches his highest points along the west and east coast. Therefore India has to offer all extremes, the highest mountain range in the north with one mountain over 8000 metres high, the Nanga Parbat, on the Indian side, the Indian ocean all around the southern side with flat, sandy beaches, and deserts or steppe landscapes in central India. In the north with its moderate climate snow is certain in winter, in the subtropical south it will never snow. Also, the north-east is very fertile. India has frontiers to Pakistan in the west, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet in the north, Myanmar and Bangladesh in the east.
image of India Until recently, Germany`s image of India was simple. Germans perceived India as “underdeveloped” and associated poverty and illiteracy. Religion was believed to be the dominant influence and India was often humorously looked down upon as the “land of the holy cow”. Recently, the stereotype of the Indian as IT specialist as emerged.
independence Following Mahatma Gandhi`s movement of nonviolent resistance, which was later overshadowed by an uncontrollable escalation of violence, in 1947 the British withdrew from India and gave up their biggest colony. India became independent but was divided into two separate states: India and Pakistan (the “partition” of India).
information technology (Maurice )In the 1980s the Indian government decided to make the country “computer literate”, to open the market to foreign computer products and to develop the education system. As a result, global IT companies invested heavily in India, recruiting computer specialists for low wages. For the young generation, the IT sector has become a gateway to success. School for middle-class children begins at the age of three or four. Private tuition in subjects considered economically important such as English, mathematics and computer skills is widespread if the parents can afford to send their children to elite schools, which are often partly financed by computer companies. The up-to-date infrastructure and high-standard system of education led multi-national IT companies to settle down in Bangalore, which is known as the Indian “Silicon Valley”. The need for vast numbers of cheap IT experts led to the recruitment of (unmarried) Indian women in their twenties. These young women usually continue living with their parents, do flexible working hours and are no longer dependent on marriage for status or income.
Kashmir a northwestern region of India, which is best known for the conflict between India and Pakistan over its borders , and which has seen several military confrontations between these two countries in recent years
languages Over 1,600 languages and dialects are spoken in India; apart from English , which is widely spoken due to British colonialism, the most important are Hindi, Bengali and Urdu.
Mahatma Gandhi (Lina)was born in 1869 in Porbandar, India, and later became one of the major political and spiritual leaders of his time. Gandhi studied law in London and went to South Africa in 1893, where he spent 20 years opposing legal discrimination against Indians. In 1914, Gandhi returned to India and became a leader of India's independence movement. To achieve independence, he organized boycotts against British institutions in peaceful forms of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance with the aim of self-rule for India. He also struggled to reduce poverty, promoted women`s rights and worked to end caste discrimination. After India`s independence (1947), he tried to stop the Hindu-Muslim conflict in Bengal and got killed in Delhi by a Hindu fanatic.
Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total area population of approximately 20.5million. It is the wealthiest city in India, and has the highest gross domestic product (GDP: the total value of all goods and services; the GDP per capita is an indicator of the standard of living in a country) of any city in South, West or Central Asia.
New Delhi The capital of India.
outsourcing A recent development among top global companies in Europe and America is to outsource services (especially call centres) to developing countries, especially India. These companies save anything from 30% to 60% by outsourcing their call center services and can focus on their core business to become more productive.
PartitionThe division of India into two states (Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan) after independence in 1947.
populationAbout 1.2 billion; 17% of the world`s population.
prostitution (Hannah H.)In India, prostitution (the exchange of sexual services for money) is is widespread and legal, but a number of related activities, including owning or managing a brothel or pimping (finding customers for a prostitute) are crimes.In 2007, the “Ministry of women and child development” reported over 3 million female sex workers in India, with 35 percent of them entering the trade before the age of 18 years. Human Rights Watch puts the figure of sex workers in India at around 20 million, with Mumbai alone being home to 200,000 sex workers, the largest sex industry in Asia. The number of prostitutes rose by 50% between 1997 and 2004. In India, the federal police say that around 1.2 million children are believed to be involved in prostitution. A CBI statement said that studies and surveys sponsored by the ministry of women and child development estimated that about 40% of all people in prostitution in India are children.
A study of the “red light area” reflects the dehumanizing situation that the commercially sexually exploited women face every day. They are pushed into the trade at a young age, at times even before they attain puberty and thus are not aware of the trap they are falling into. Once in the trade, there is no escape till the brothel keeper has earned well enough through them. Here they are subjected to physical and mental torture if they refuse to follow the wishes of the keeper. As most women have no formal education, they have no knowledge of how much they earn. When they are allowed to leave, they are most probably a victim of life-threatening diseases like AIDS and without any place to go to.
religion(Vivienne)In India 80% of the population are Hindus. Another 13% are Muslims while the remaining 7% consist of Christians (2.3%), Sikhs (1.9%), Buddhists (0.8%) and other religions. Hinduism has more than 900 million followers worldwide which are 13% of the world`s population. Because of its old age of more than 5000 years some people even consider Hinduism as the mother of all religions. The special thing about Hinduism is that it doesn't have a founding father like Christianity has but consists of many old traditions. Generally Hindus can make anything divine like, for example, animals and the number of gods and demons is uncountable (the most famous ones are Brahma, Vishnu and Shive and the elephant-headed Ganesha). Furthermore, Hindus believe in the concept of rebirth. The highest aim is to break the circle of being born, living, dying, and being reborn but they believe that the soul is eternal so that everything you did in your last life has an effect on your current life and everything you do now will affect your next life. This may mean for example that if you are an evil person in this life you will get punished for it by being reborn with a disease or as an animal in your next life. All in all, Hinduism is probably the most tolerant religion when it is about what you believe in and what way you choose to reach the aim of breaking the circle of rebirth. If you want be a happy person in your next life you have to live up to certain values like meeting your duties to society and your family. To summarize, Hinduism is a peaceful, tolerant and, at any rate, diverse religion with many different ways to liveand to believe.
salwar-kameez (Luisa)A two-piece clothing popular with Indian women and men in all regions of India. The salwar looks like pyjama-like trousers drawn tightly in at the waist and the ankles. The kameez is a long wide shirt. Both pieces of clothing give generous freedom of movement.
sari (Luisa)A traditional piece of clothing which has become the national dress of Indian women. A sari is one rectangular piece of cloth which is five to six yards in length. The sari may be made from cotton, silk or any other man-made materials and can fit any size of women and if worn properly can highlight or conceal the body. Its manner of wearing as well as its color and texture may indicate the status, age, occupation and religion of a woman.
social problems(Felix) In India, there are extreme social problems. One of them is the poverty, or the huge gap between rich and poor. Surveys prove that poverty in India is appallingly high these days. It's a proven fact that 44% of India's population has to live with not more than 1 US-Dollar a day. More than one quarter of its citizens have not enough money to make a living. Undernourishment is a widespread problem, especially in the rural areas of India. A survey of UNICEF says that 2.1 million children in India are dying each year, having lived less than five years. The aftermath of the poverty is to let the children work, again more in the rural areas than in towns. There the families have not enough money to live. In 2006 approximately 17.000 Indians committed suicide because they felt to be a financial burden to their family. Migration into the cities is a logical consequence of the bad living conditions on the land. But in the cities there often are no jobs for the countrymen because they are already overcrowded. The consequence is a high rate of unemployment and underemployment. The poorest of the poor of the lowest caste, the so called untouchables, make up around 24.4% of the whole Indian population.