The Other Half of Chindia

Our team snaps a photo of the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. Completed in the mid-17th century under Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, more than 2 million visitors a year come to see what’s been voted one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World.”

India has the second-largest labor force in the world with nearly 500 million workers. This workforce is also young with the median age of the population being only 26 years.

India has one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Over the past decade, the country has been one of the world’s leaders in GDP growth, averaging a growth rate of 7.45 percent.

GDP growth has been fueled by a strong increase in exports to countries like the United States, United Arab Emirates and China. In 2010 the country exported $225.6 billion worth of goods.

There is no official number for India’s growing middle class, but estimates range from 30 million to roughly 300 million Indians, according to Deutsche Bank Research. Nearly half of the country’s population works in agriculture but services account for more than half of India’s output, says The World Factbook.

India is a melting pot of religions and languages. Just over 80 percent of the population is Hindu, while roughly 13 percent is Muslim. Hindi is the most widely spoken language outside of English but there are 14 other official dialects of India.

India has high rates of unemployment with as many as 400 million Indians living on less than $2 dollars a day. Nearly 32 percent of India’s population lives below the poverty line, well below its Asian neighbors like China (3 percent) and Indonesia (13 percent).

India’s roads are some of the most dangerous in the world. In 2008, there were more than 100,000 driving related fatalities due to poor road planning, inadequate law enforcement and untrained drivers.