the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
The Po River is the longest river in Italy.
It flows through 5 cities: Turin, Piacenza, Cremona, and Ferrara.
The Tiber River runs through the city of Rome.
Northern Italy has some of the biggest lakes in the country, such as Lake Garda, Lake Como, Lake Maggiore and Lake Iseo.
Because it is surrounded by the sea, Italy has many kilometers of coast, which brings tourists from all over the world.
Tourists also come to see Italy's historical places.
The country has a number of islands, the biggest of which are Sicily and Sardinia, which can be reached by ship or aircraft.
Italy shares maritime borders with Libya to the south.
That is where the Roman Empire started.
Other cities in Italy are Milan, Turin, Florence, Genoa, Naples, Palermo, and Venice.
Two enclaves (separate countries) are located within Italy.
They are San Marino, which is surrounded by part of Northern Italy, and the Vatican City, which is inside Rome.
People from Italy are called Italians.
Even if an Italian were to leave Italy, it is possible that their descendants could also claim Italian citizenship.
This is because of Italian nationality law relying mostly on ius sanguinis or "right of blood" in Latin.
Almost all Italians are Christians.
Most of these are Roman Catholics.
Roman Catholicism is based in the Vatican City, which is home to its leader, the Pope.
The population of Italy is a little over 60 million.
About 2.7 million of them live in Rome, and 1.3 million in Milan.
As of 31 December 2015, over 5 million foreigners were living in Italy, which is 8.3% of the total population.
The official language of Italy is Italian.
German, Slovenian, French, and a few others are also recognized.
People also speak dialects of Italian such as Sicilian and Sardinian.
There are many different dialects spoken in Italy.
They vary between regions and sometimes between provinces.
Italy is home to more World Heritage Sites than any other country in the world.
These sites are culturally important and valued according to UNESCO.
About 60% of the works of art of the world are in Italy.
Italy is also a big wine producer.
In 2005 it made over 5 million tonnes.
Famous Italian foods include pasta or pizza.
Many notable artists were from Italy.
Donatello, sculptor
Leonardo da Vinci, painter
Michelangelo, sculptor and painter
Amedeo Modigliani, painter
Italy has a modern social welfare system.
The labor market is relatively strength.
Many foreigners, especially from Romania, work in Italy where the wages are much higher.
But there could have been much more workers on the labor market because men and women already retired in the age of 57 and the unemployment rate is relatively high at 8.2 percent.
Italy's modern society has been built up through loans.
Now the country has a very high debt of 1.9 trillion euros or 120 percent of the country's total GDP.
The government cannot pay back the loans during the time period the EU wants.
Most people in Italy are Roman Catholics, but the Catholic Church is no longer officially the state religion.
87.8% of the people said they were Roman Catholic.
Only about a third said they were active members (36.8%).
There are also other Christian groups in Italy, more than 700,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians.
180,000 of them belong to the Greek Orthodox Church.
550,000 are Pentecostals and Evangelicals (0.8%).
235,685 Jehovah's Witnesses (0.4%), 30,000 Waldensians, 25,000 Seventh-day Adventists, 22,000 Mormons, 20,000 Baptists, 7,000 Lutherans, 4,000 Methodists.
The country's oldest religious minority is the Jewish community.
It has roughly 45,000 people.
It is no longer the largest non-Christian group.
About 825,000 Muslims live in Italy.
Most of them immigrated. (
1.4% of the total population) Only 50,000 are Italian citizens.
In addition, there are 50,000 Buddhists 70,000 Sikh and 70,000 Hindus in Italy.
Major cities
Italy has 20 regions ().
Every region is divided into provinces.
There are 20 regions.
Five of them have a special status, called autonomous.
This means that they can make certain local laws more easily.
These regions are marked with an asterisk (*) below.
The head of state is Sergio Mattarella.
He became President of the Italian Republic in February 2015.
The first president was Enrico De Nicola.
The head of government is Mario Draghi.
He became Prime Minister on February 13, 2021.
He succeeded Giuseppe Conte.
Conte's cabinet, fell after a political crisis caused by Italia Viva, a liberal political party.
Italy was one of the first members of the European Union.
In 2002 along with 11 other European countries, it changed to using the euro as its official currency.
Before this, the Italian lira had been used since 1861.
In ancient times, the capital of Italy was Rome.
Rome was founded in 753 BC.
It  was a separate state well known as Roman Kingdom firstly, Roman Republic and Roman Empire later.
Before 1861, Italy was not a state.
The area included a group of separate states that were ruled by other countries (such as Austria, France, and Spain).
In the 1850s, the Earl of Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour was the head of government of the "State of Sardinia".
He talked to the Austrians in Lombardy and Veneto and said they should create a Northern Italian state.
This happened, but other Central and Southern Italian states also joined Piedmont to create a bigger state.
Kingdom of Italy
In 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi took control of Sicily, creating the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
Victor Emmanuel II was made the king.
In 1861, Latium and Veneto were still not part of Italy, because they were ruled by the Pope and Austrian Empire.
Veneto was made part of Italy in 1866 after a war with Austria.
Italian soldiers won Latium in 1870.
That was when they took away the Pope's power.
The Pope, who was angry, said that he was a prisoner to keep Catholic people from being active in politics.
That was the year of Italian unification.
Italy participated in World War I. It was an ally of Great Britain, France, and Russia against the Central Powers.
Almost all of Italy's fighting was on the Eastern border, near Austria.
After the "Caporetto defeat", Italy thought they would lose the war.
But, in 1918, the Central Powers surrendered.
Italy gained the Trentino-South Tyrol, which once was owned by Austria.
Fascist Italy
In 1922, a new Italian government started.
It was ruled by Benito Mussolini, the leader of Fascism in Italy.
He became head of government and dictator, calling himself "Il Duce" (which means "leader" in Italian).
He became friends with German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Germany, Japan, and Italy became the Axis Powers.
In 1940, they entered World War II together against France, Great Britain, and later the Soviet Union.
During the war, Italy controlled most of the Mediterranean Sea.
On July 25, 1943, Mussolini was removed by the Great Council of Fascism.
On September 8, 1943, Badoglio said that the war as an ally of Germany was ended.
Italy started fighting as an ally of France and the UK, but Italian soldiers did not know whom to shoot.
In Northern Italy, a movement called Resistenza started to fight against the German invaders.
On April 25, 1945, much of Italy became free, while Mussolini tried to make a small Northern Italian fascist state called the Republic of Salò.
The fascist state failed and Mussolini tried to flee to Switzerland and escape to Francoist Spain, but he was captured by Italian partisans.
On 28 April 1945 Mussolini was executed by a partisan.
After World War Two
The state became a republic on June 2, 1946.
For the first time, women were able to vote.
Italian people ended the Savoia dynasty and adopted a republic government.
In February 1947, Italy signed a peace treaty with the Allies.
They lost all the colonies and some territorial areas (Istria and parts of Dalmatia).
Since then Italy has joined NATO and the European Community (as a founding member).
It is one of the seven biggest industrial economies in the world.
The railway network in Italy totals .
It is the 17th longest in the world.
High speed trains include ETR-class trains which travel at .
Italian Tourism Official Website
Italian-speaking countries
We can call this true if there is proof.
We will play outside if it does not rain.
If — is a poem written by Rudyard Kipling.
It appeared in the Brother Square Toes chapter of Kipling's book Rewards and Fairies.
In a 1995 BBC opinion poll, it was voted Britain's favourite poem.
It is arguably Kipling's most famous poem.
An island is a piece of ground that is surrounded by a body of water such as a lake, river or sea.
Islands are smaller than continents.
Greenland and Australia are huge islands, but they are built of continental rock.
The most ancient part of continental rock is far older and chemically more complex than the rock of the sea floor.
The heart of continents is their cratons, which are the most ancient and stable parts of the Earth's crust.
In the cratons are all the rare elements needed for electronic equipment.
They were swept up as the Sun moved through areas where supernovae had exploded.
The rare elements we need were all got indirectly from supernovae explosions.
The Sun's energy  comes from turning hydrogen into helium..
There are some islands which do have rare elements, and that is a sign that they were once part of a large supercontinent.
So Great Britain was once part of a supercontinent.
The oldest rocks are 2,700 million years old, and include many rare elements only found in cratons.
Britain is a snapped-off piece of the Old Red Sandstone continent, now known as Laurasia.
Other islands that were formed from the ocean floor, as Japan, and Hawaii were, lack most of the rare elements.
Japan has for many years since WWII imported iron ore from Australia.
Its seizing of Manchukuo (~Manchuria) and the infamous attack on Pearl Harbour no doubt had many reasons.
Lack of raw materials was one of these
Big islands
Great Britain 218,995 km²
Iceland 101,826 km²
Ireland 81,638 km²
The island in the north of Novaja Zemlja 47,079 km²
Spitsbergen 38,981 km²
The island in the south of Novaja Zemlja 33,246 km²
Sicily 25,662 km²
Sardinia 23,812 km²
Nordaustlandet (archipelago of Svalbard, Norway) 14,247 km²
Cyprus 9,234
Corsica 8,741 km²
Other places
Greenland 2,130,800 km²
New Guinea 785,753 km²
Borneo 748,138 km²
Madagascar 587,041 km²
Baffin 507,451 km²
Sumatra 677,658 km²
An interim report is a report on the how some work is going.
An interim document is a piece of writing that is not finished.
An interim official is a person who is doing a job temporarily.
This can be in between two other people having the job, or when the normal person is temporarily unable to do it.
Idioms are difficult for someone not good at speaking the language.
Some idioms are only used by some groups of people or at certain times.
The idiom shape up or ship out, which is like saying improve your behavior or leave if you don't, might be said by an employer or supervisor to an employee, but not to other people.
Idioms are not the same thing as slang.
Idioms are made of normal words that have a special meaning known to almost everyone.
Slang is usually special words, or special meanings of normal words that are known only to a particular group of people.
To learn a language a person needs to learn the words in that language, and how and when to use them.
But people also need to learn idioms separately because certain words together or at certain times can have different meanings.
In order to understand an idiom, one sometimes needs to know the culture from which the idiom comes.
To know the history of an idiom can be useful and interesting.
For example, most native British English speakers know that "No room to swing a cat" means "there was not much space" and can use the idiom properly.
However, few know this is because 200 years ago sailors were punished by being whipped with a "cat o' nine tails".
A big space was cleared on the ship so that the person doing the whipping had room to swing the cat.
An idiom is a phrase whose meaning cannot be understood from the dictionary definitions of each word taken separately.
The linguist's term for the real meaning of an idiom is the subtext.
Some common idioms
A way to wish someone good luck.
To live it up
To enjoy life, to live widely
To kick the bucket
To die.
Used to tell someone that they should leave if they don't improve their behavior or performance
To shed crocodile tears
To cry about something but without actually caring.
Wild goose chase
A useless journey or pursuit.
There's no room to swing a cat
There is not a lot of space.
To pay through the nose
To pay a lot of money, more than is normal.
To bark up the wrong tree
To choose the wrong course of action.
To spill the beans
To tell a secret.
It's raining cats and dogs
To get into hot water
To get into trouble.
Chicken-hearted
Frightened or cowardly
To chicken out
Not doing a thing, because of fear.
Top dog
Leader.
To smell a rat
To think that something is wrong.
To give up
To quit.
To give up on
To stop believing in something or someone.
I could eat a horse
To be on top of the world
To be really happy.
Once in a blue moon
Idioms which have unclear meaning
Articles by Oxfam and the BBC have said that many idioms in English are unclear, or ambiguous.
Many are understood differently in different countries.
Many of the examples are taken from face-to-face talk, but may also apply in written reports.
Satisfactory (in a report, or in an assessment) might mean not satisfactory.
I hear what you say.
Might mean I'm listening, but more likely I totally disagree.
With the greatest respect.
May mean You are quite wrong.
68% of British thought it meant "I think you are an idiot", whereas 49% of Americans thought it meant "I am listening to you".
In a survey 55% of British thought it meant I've forgotten it already.
43% of Americans thought it meant I will probably do it.
Vocables are sounds that are not proper words, but mean something, and are often ambiguous.
One is a long drawn-out sound hmmmmmm.
One suggestion is that these idioms are used to smooth over difficult areas in social interaction.
They cover passive-aggressive statements which might cause more conflict if openly expressed.
The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) tests how fluent you are in the English language.
People who take the test take the Academic Module or the General Training Module.
The academic one is for people who want to go to university.
The general one is for people who want to do other training or want to get work experience.
People who want to emigrate to a country that uses English also take the general one.
Most universities in Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States accept the IELTS.
Many professional companies do as well.
IELTS Web Site
IELTS Exams
Ink is a liquid that is used to write, draw, print, or make marks.
The word ink is from Latin and means "colored water".
Ink is used in pens, in some computer printers, and in printing presses.
In some countries, people write by using ink and brushes.
People usually write or print using black ink, but ink can be any color.
The first ink was used in Egypt about 2600 BC.
The first inks were carbon inks, made from soot, which is 80% carbon, water and gum arabic.
Red ink would need iron oxide (such as haematite) from ground rocks instead of soot.
Later, in Europe, people used iron gall ink.
This is the kind of ink Johann Sebastian Bach and Leonardo da Vinci used.
Now ink colours are produced by man-made dyes.
A disadvantage of many kinds of ink is that they may smudge when wet, spoiling the picture or writing.
If water-based ink is used, the writing situation needs to be stable, with the writer seated at a table.
Ink in a ballpoint pen (biro) is a kind of gel.
It is held in a thin long cylinder (tube) inside the pen.
The ink does not fall out of the cylinder as it sticks to the sides of the tube.
Therefore, ballpoint pens can be used in a wider range of circumstances compared to water-based inks.
Writing tools
Art materials
The inch is a unit of length in the Imperial system and the United States customary system.
The abbreviation for inches is in or ".
There are 12 inches in a foot.
One inch is equal to 2.54 centimetres.
The word "inch" came from Middle English unche, which came from Old English ynce, from Latin uncia meaning "a twelfth part".
The inch was originally defined as 3 barleycorns.
The inch was finally standardised in the International Yard and Pound Treaty in 1959 between the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
The international yard was made equal to 0.9144 metres.
From this, subdivisions and multiples of the yard were specifically defined.
In Britain and the United States, people use inches more than they use millimetres or centimetres.
In the rest of the world, international units are almost always used.
The inch is not used by scientists.
In the United Kingdom, road signs that show how high a vehicle can be in order to pass through a tunnel are required to be in feet and inches.
Theme parks and drive thru signs usually show it in metres.
People regularly measure their height in feet and inches.
Official medical records, however, are required to record people's height in metric measurements only.
In Canada, a mix of centimetres and inches are used in height.
Older generations, especially, use Imperial units.
A lot of exposure to Americanized phrases leads to younger generations often having a good understanding of both the Imperial and metric systems.
In the United States, height is always in feet and inches.
Science is the only field to use metric measurements.
Other Commonwealth countries, including Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Jamaica use inches to varying degrees.
From every day use to exclusively the older community.
Units of length
The pint (abbreviated pt) is a unit of volume in imperial units and United States customary units.
There are three types of pints used in different countries.
An imperial pint and US pint both equal  of a quart and  of a gallon.
Imperial Pint
The imperial pint is the pint used in England, Canada, Ireland, and Burma.
The unit may appear in other Commonwealth.
Confusion in Canada often arises as liquids are occasionally sold in U.S. pints, near the border, although the official and only pint that is legal in Canada is the imperial pint.
The imperial system has no dry pint and volume in dry units, since solid objects are measured by mass.
1 imperial pint equals 568,261.25 mm3.
US Wet Pint
The US wet pint, or more commonly 'pint', is the unit used to measure volume in the United States.
It is more common than the dry pint which is used for non-liquid volume measurements.
1 US pint is exactly equal to 473,176.473 mm3, defined by the international yard and pound agreement.
US Dry Pint
The wet U.S. pint is still commonly used in the United States.
In Canada, it is commonly used for alcohol although a pint can vary from 12 fl oz to 20 fl oz and is sometimes incorrectly given in US fl oz.
In England and Ireland, only milk and pure ethanol are sold in pints; however, milk must have litres next to pints.
In England, milk is often sold in metric quantities near to imperial pints.
Anything related to the country of Italy
Italians, people of Italy
Italian cuisine, food of Italy
ISO 19011 is the new global accounting standard, replacing accounting standards that were part of ISO 14001 and ISO 9001.
It is the most likely basis for accounting reform which could put an end to accounting scandals.
19011
India (Hindi: ), officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ) is a country in South Asia.
It is second largest country in population and seventh largest country by land area.
It is also the most populous democracy in the world, bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast.
It has seven neighbors: Pakistan in north-west, China in north, and Myanmar in east and Sri Lanka in south.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a union territory of India, is also near Thailand and Indonesia along with Myanmar.
India is a peninsula, bound by the Indian Ocean in the south, the Arabian Sea on the west and Bay of Bengal in the east.
The coastline of India is of about  long.
India has the third largest military force in the world and is also a nuclear weapon state.
India's economy became the world's fastest growing in the G20 developing nations during the last quarter of 2014, replacing the People's Republic of China.
India's literacy and wealth are also rising.
According to New World Wealth, India is the seventh richest country in the world with a total individual wealth of $5.6 trillion.
However, it still has many social and economic issues like poverty and corruption.
India is a founding member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and has signed the Kyoto Protocol.
India has the fourth largest number of spoken languages per country in the world, only behind Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Nigeria.
People of many different religions live there, including the five most popular world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam, and Christianity.
The first three religions originated from the Indian subcontinent along with Jainism.
National Symbols of India
The National emblem of India shows four lions standing back-to-back.
The lions symbolise power, pride, confidence, and courage (bravery).
Only the government can use this emblem, according to the State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act, 2005
The name India comes from the Greek word, Indus.
This came from the word sindhu, which in time turned into Hind or Hindi or Hindu.
The preferred native name or endonym is "Bharat" in Hindi and other Indian languages as contrasted with names from outsiders.
Some of the national symbols are:
National anthem: Jana Gana Mana
National song: Vande Mataram
National animal: Bengal tiger
National bird: Peacock
National flower: Lotus
National tree: Banyan
National river: Ganges (Ganga)
National fruit: Mango
National heritage animal: Elephant
National heritage bird: Indian eagle
Two of the main classical languages of the world Tamil language and Sanskrit language were born in India.
Both of these languages are more than 3000 years old.
The country founded a religion called Hinduism, which most Indians still follow.
Later, a king named Chandragupt Maurya built an empire called  the Maurya Empire in 300 BC.
It made most of South Asia into one whole country.
From 180 BC, many other countries invaded India.
Even later (100 BC  AD 1100), other Indian dynasties (empires) came, including the Chalukyas, Cholas, Pallavas, and Pandyas.
Southern India at that time was famous for its science, art, and writing.
The Cholas of Thanjavur were pioneers at war in the seas and invaded Malaya, Borneo, Cambodia.
The influence of Cholas are still well noticeable in SE Asia.
Many dynasties ruled India around the year 1000.
Some of these were the Mughal, Vijayanagara, and the Maratha empires.
In the 1600s, European countries invaded India, and the British controlled most of India by 1856.
In the early 1900s, millions of people peacefully started to protest against British control.
One of the people who led the freedom movement was Mahatma Gandhi, who only used peaceful tactics, including a way called "ahimsa", which means "non-violence".
On 15 August 1947, India peacefully became free and independent from the British Empire.
India's constitution was founded on 26 January 1950.
Every year, on this day, Indians celebrate Republic Day.
The first official leader (Prime Minister) of India was Jawaharlal Nehru.
After 1947, India had a socialist planned economy.
It is one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations.
It has fought many wars since independence from Britain, including the wars in 1947-48, 1965, 1971, and 1999 with Pakistan and in 1962 with China.
It also fought a war to capture Goa, a Portuguese-built port and a city that was not a part of India until 1961.
The Portuguese refused to give it to the country, and so India had to use force and the Portuguese were defeated.
India has also done nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998, and it is one of the few countries that have nuclear bombs.
Since 1991, India has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
The legislative branch is made up of the Parliament of India, which is in New Delhi, the capital of India.
The Parliament of India is divided into two houses: the upper house, Rajya Sabha (Council of States); and the lower house, Lok Sabha (House of People).
The Rajya Sabha has 250 members, and the Lok Sabha has 552 members.
The executive branch is made up of the President, Vice President, Prime Minister, and the Council of Ministers.
The President of India is elected for a period of five years.
The President can choose the Prime Minister, who has most of the power.
The Council of Ministers, such as the Minister of Defence, helps the Prime Minister.
Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India on May 16, 2014.
He is the 19th Prime Minister of India.
The president has less power than the prime minister.
The judicial branch is made up of the courts of India, including the Supreme Court.
The Chief Justice of India is the head of the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court members have the power to stop a law being passed by Parliament if they think that the law is illegal and contradicts (opposes) the Constitution of India.
In India, there are also 24 High Courts.
India is the seventh biggest country in the world.
It is the main part of the Indian subcontinent.
The countries next to India are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, Bhutan, and Nepal.
It is also near Sri Lanka, an island country.
India is a peninsula, which means that it is surrounded on three sides by water.
One of the seven wonders of the world is in Agra: the Taj Mahal.
In the west is the Arabian Sea, in the south is the Indian Ocean, and in the east is the Bay of Bengal.
The northern part of India has many mountains.
The most famous mountain range in India is the Himalayas, which have some of the tallest mountains in the world.
The main rivers are the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Yamuna, the Godavari, the Kaveri, the Narmada, and the Krishna.
India has different climates.
In the South, the climate is mainly tropical, which means it can get very hot in summer and cool in winter.
The northern part, though, has a cooler climate, called sub-tropical, and even alpine in mountainous regions.
The Himalayas, in the alpine climate region, can get extremely cold.
There is very heavy rainfall along the west coast and in the Eastern Himalayan foothills.
The west, though, is drier.
Because of some of the deserts of India, all of India gets rain for four months of the year.
That time is called the monsoon.
That is because the deserts attract water-filled winds from the Indian Ocean, which give rain when they come into India.
When the monsoon rains come late or not so heavily, droughts (when the land dries out because there is less rain) are possible.
Monsoons normally come around July - August.
The Indian Armed Forces is the military of India.
It is made up of an Army, Navy and Air Force.
There are other parts like Paramilitary and Strategic Nuclear Command.
The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief.
However, it is managed by the Ministry of Defence.
In 2010, the Indian Armed Forces had 1.32 million active personnel.
This makes it one of the largest militaries in the world.
The Indian Army is becoming more modern by buying and making new weapons.
It is also building defenses against missiles of other countries.
In 2011, India imported more weapons than any other nation in the world.
Indian states
For administration purposes, India has been divided into smaller pieces.
Most of these pieces are called states, some are called union territories.
States and union territories are different in the way they are represented.
Most union territories are ruled by administrators (called Lieutenant Governors) sent by the central government.
All the states, and the territories of Delhi, and Puducherry elect their local government themselves.
In total, there are twenty-eight states and nine union territories.
Trouble with the borders
There are disputes about certain parts of the Indian borders.
Countries do not agree on where the borders are.
Pakistan and China do not recognise the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Indian government claims it as an Indian state.
Similarly, the Republic of India does not recognise the Pakistani and Chinese parts of Kashmir.
In 1914, British India and Tibet agreed on the McMahon Line, as part of the Simla Accord.
In July 1914, China withdrew from the agreement.
Indians and Tibetans see this line as the official border.
China does not agree, and both mainland China and Taiwan do not recognize that  Arunachal Pradesh belongs to India.
According to them, it is a part of South Tibet, which belongs to China.
The economy of the country is among the world's fastest growing.
It is the 7th largest in the world with a nominal GDP of $2,250 billion (USD), and in terms of PPP, the economy is 3rd largest (worth $8.720 trillion USD).
The growth rate is 8.25% for fiscal 2010.
However, that is still $3678 (considering PPP) per person per year.
India's economy is based mainly on:
Service sector: 43%
Industries: 41%
Information technology: 7%
Farming: 7%
Outsourcing: 2%.
India's economy is diverse.
Major industries include automobiles, cement, chemicals, consumer electronics, food processing, machinery, mining, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, steel, transportation equipment, and textiles.
However, despite economic growth, India continues to suffer from poverty.
27.5% of the population was living in poverty in 2004–2005.
In addition, 80.4% of the population live on less than USD $2 a day, which was lowered to 68% by 2009.
There are 1.21 billion people living in India.
India is the second largest country by the number of people living in it, with China being the first.
Experts think that by the year 2030, India will be the first.
About 65% of Indians live in rural areas, or land set aside for farming.
The largest cities in India are Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad.
India has 23 official languages.
Altogether, 1,625 languages are spoken in India.
There are many different languages and cultures in India.
The only geographical place with more different languages and cultures is the African continent.
There are two main language families in India, the Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian languages.
About 69% of Indians speak an Indo-Arayan language, about 26% speak a Dravidian language.
Other languages spoken in India come from the Austro-Asiatic group.
Around 5% of the people speak a Tibeto-Burman language.
Hindi is the official language in India with the largest number of speakers.
It is the official language of the union.
Native speakers of Hindi represent about 41% of the Indian population (2001 Indian census).
English is also used, mostly for business and in administration.
It has the status of a 'subsidiary official language'.
The constitution also recognises 21 other languages.
Either many people speak those languages, or they have been recognized to be very important for Indian culture.
The number of dialects in India is as high as 1,652.
In the south of India, many people speak Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam.
In the north, many people speak Chhattisgarhi, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati, and Marathi, Odia, and Bihari.
India has 27 official languages.
Its constitution lists the name of the country in each of the languages.
Hindi and English (listed in boldface) are the "official languages of the union" (Union meaning the Federal Government in Delhi); Tamil,Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia are officially the "classical languages of India."
Cave paintings from the Stone Age are found across India.
They show dances and rituals and suggest there was a prehistoric religion.
During the Epic and Puranic periods, the earliest versions of the epic poems Ramayana and Mahabharata were written from about 500–100 BCE, although these were orally transmitted for centuries before this period.
Other South Asian Stone Age sites apart from Pakistan are in modern India, such as the Bhimbetka rock shelters in central Madhya Pradesh and the Kupgal petroglyphs of eastern Karnataka, contain rock art showing religious rites and evidence of possible ritualised music.
Several modern religions are linked to India, namely modern Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism.
All of these religions have different schools (ways of thinking) and traditions that are related.
As a group they are called the Eastern religions.
The Indian religions are similar to one another in many ways: The basic beliefs, the way worship is done and several religious practices are very similar.
These similarities mainly come from the fact that these religions have a common history and common origins.
They also influenced each other.
It's the first time ever since independence that the Hindu population percentage fell below 80%.
India sent a spacecraft to Mars for the first time in 2014.
That made it the third country and only Asian country to do so, successfully.
India is the only country to be successful in its very first attempt to orbit Mars.
It was called the Mars Orbiter Mission.
ISRO launched 104 satellites in a single mission to create a world record.
India became the first nation in the world to have launched over a hundred satellites in one mission.
That was more than the 2014 Russian record of 37 satellites in a single launch.
Pop culture
India has the largest movie industry in the world.
It is based in Bombay which is now known as Mumbai, the industry is also known as Bollywood.
It makes 1,000 movies a year, about twice as many as Hollywood.
Indians have excelled in Hockey.
They have also won eight gold, one silver, and two bronze medals at the Olympic games.
However, cricket is the most popular sport in India.
The Indian cricket team won the 1983 and 2011 Cricket World Cup and the 2007 ICC World Twenty20.
They shared the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy with Sri Lanka and won the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy.
Cricket in India is controlled by the Board of Control for Cricket in India or BCCI.
Domestic tournaments are the Ranji Trophy, the Duleep Trophy, the Deodhar Trophy, the Irani Trophy, and the Challenger Series.
There is also the Indian cricket league and Indian premier league Twenty20 competitions.
Tennis has become popular due to the victories of the India Davis Cup team.
Association football is also a popular sport in northeast India, West Bengal, Goa and Kerala.
The Indian national football team has won the South Asian Football Federation Cup many times.
Chess, which comes from India, is also becoming popular.
This is with the increase in the number of Indian Grandmasters.
Traditional sports include kabaddi, kho kho, and gilli-danda, which are played throughout India.
Official entry portal of the Government of India
Official directory of Indian Government websites
Encyclopædia Britannica entry on India
BBC country profile of India
Library of Congress Country Studies entry on India
Quick Refresher About India
1950 establishments in Asia
An insult is a description of someone that will offend them.
It is called derogatory language.
Terms like foolish, stupid, idiot and moron are insults, because they say that a person's mind is not quick or smart.
Ritual insults are part of many cultures.
For example, they can be found in sports and military training.
They are also very common in jargons.
For example, the word newbie is a part of net jargon.
Calling someone a newbie is usually insulting.
Usually, someone insults others because they want to feel like they are better or have more power (influence) than the people they insult.
They may want this because they are actually afraid that they are worse or less powerful than the people they are insulting.
When someone is insulted, their pride is hurt.
They may want to fight back by insulting the person who insulted them, or by telling someone who is older.
Immunology is the study of the immune system.
The immune system is the parts of the body which work against infection and parasitism by other living things.
Immunology deals with the working of the immune system in health and diseases, and with malfunctions of the immune system.
An immune system is present in all plants and animals.
We know this because biologists have found genes coding for toll-like receptors in many different metazoans.
These toll-like receptors can recognise bacteria as 'foreign', and are the starting-point for immune reactions.
The type of immunity which is triggered by the toll-like receptors is called innate immunity.
This is because it is entirely inherited in our genome, and is fully working as soon as our tissues and organs are properly developed.
Vertebrates, and only vertebrates, have a second type of immunity.
This is called adaptive immunity, because it 'remembers' previous infections.
Then, if the same infection occurs again, the reaction is much stronger and faster.
This immunological memory "confers a tremendous survival advantage" and with it vertebrates "can survive over a long lifetime in a pathogen-filled environment".
Types of immunity in vertebrates
Innate immune response
Adaptive immune response
The adaptive immune system includes cells and systems that do require previous exposure to a pathogen.
It explains the unique ability of the mammalian immune system to remember previous infections and mount a rapid and robust reaction to secondary infections.
This immunological memory is due to the biology of T-cells and B-cells.
Other aspects of immunity
Vaccines boost the acquired immune system by offering weak forms of infection that the body can fight off.
The system remembers how to do it again when a stronger infection happens.
If the vaccine works, the body can then fight off a serious infection.
The distribution of vaccines and other immune system affecting cures can be considered another level of acquired immune system, one governed by access to vaccination and medicine in general.
The intersection of this with the spread of disease (as studied in epidemiology) is part of the field of public health.
Errors and weaknesses
Errors of the immune system may cause damage.
In autoimmune diseases, the body attacks parts of itself because the system mistakes some parts of the body as 'foreign'.
Some kinds of arthritis are caused this way.
Sometimes serious pathogens slip in because their surface is disguised as something the host cell walls can accept.
That is how viruses work.
Once inside a cell, their genetic material controls the cell.
Infections like HIV get in this way, and then attack cells which are the basis of the immune system.
Artificial means are often used to restore immune system function in an HIV-challenged body, and prevent the onset of AIDS.
This is one of the most complex issues in immunology as it involves every level of that system.
This research during the 1980s and 1990s radically changed the view of the human immune system and its functions and integration in the human body.
History of immunology
Immunology is a science that examines the structure and function of the immune system.
It originates from medicine and early studies on the causes of immunity to disease.
The earliest known mention of immunity was during the plague of Athens in 430 BC.
Thucydides (460–395 BC) noted that people who had recovered from a previous bout of some diseases could nurse the sick without contracting the illness a second time.
In the 18th century, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis made experiments with scorpion venom and observed that certain dogs and mice were immune to this venom.
This and other observations of acquired immunity led to Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) developing vaccination and the germ theory of disease.
Pasteur's theory was in direct opposition to contemporary theories of disease, such as the miasma theory.
It was not until the proofs Robert Koch (1843–1910) published in 1891 (for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1905) that microorganisms were confirmed as the cause of infectious disease.
Viruses were confirmed as human pathogens in 1901, when the yellow fever virus was discovered by Walter Reed (1851–1902).
Immunology made a great advance towards the end of the 19th century, through rapid developments, in the study of humoral immunity and cellular immunity.
Particularly important was the work of Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915), who proposed the side-chain theory to explain the specificity of the antigen-antibody reaction.
The Nobel Prize for 1908 was jointly awarded to Ehrlich and the founder of cellular immunology, Ilya Mechnikov (1845–1916).
Sometimes, it is also written .
Infinity means many different things, depending on when it is used.
The word is from Latin origin, meaning "without end".
Infinity goes on forever, so sometimes space, numbers, and other things are said to be 'infinite', because they never come to a stop.
Infinity is usually not an actual number, but it is sometimes used as one.
Infinity often says how many there is of something, instead of how big something is.
For example, there are infinitely many whole numbers (called integers), but there is no integer which is infinitely big.
But different kinds of math have different kinds of infinity.
So its meaning often changes.
There are two kinds of infinity: potential infinity and actual infinity.
Potential infinity is a process that never stops.
For example, adding 10 to a number.
No matter how many times 10 is added, 10 more can still be added.
Actual infinity, on the other hand, refers to objects that are accepted as infinite entities (such as transfinite numbers).
Infinity in Mathematics
Counting infinity
The number of things, beginning with 0, 1, 2, 3, ..., to include infinite cardinal numbers.
There are many different cardinal numbers.
Infinity can be defined in one of two ways: Infinity is a number so big that a part of it can be of the same size; Infinity is larger than all of the natural numbers.
There is a smallest infinite number, countable infinity.
It is the counting number for all of the whole numbers.
It is also the counting number of the rational numbers.
The mathematical notation is the Hebrew letter aleph with a subscript zero; .
It is spoken "aleph naught".
It was a surprise to learn that there are larger infinite numbers.
The number of real numbers, that is, all numbers with decimals, is larger than the number of rational numbers, the number of fractions.
This shows that there are real numbers which are not fractions.
The smallest infinite number greater than  is  (aleph one).
The number of mathematical functions is the next infinite cardinal number, .
Ordering infinity
A different type of infinity are the ordinal numbers, beginning "first, second, third, ...".
The order "first, second, third, ..." and so on to infinity is different from the order ending "..., third, second, first".
The difference is important for mathematical induction.
The simple first, second, third, ...  has the mathematical name: the Greek letter omega with subscript zero: . (
Or simply omega .)
The infinite series ending "... third, second, first" is .
The real line and complex plane
The third type of infinity has the symbol .
This is treated as addition to the real numbers or the complex numbers.
It is the result of division by zero, or to indicate that a series is increasing (or decreasing) without bound.
The series 1, 2, 3, ... increases without upper bound.
This is written: the limit is .
In calculus, the integral over all real numbers is written:
The arithmetic of infinity
Addition, multiplication, exponentiation
Addition with "alephs" is commutative.
Multiplication with "alephs" is commutative.
Addition with "omegas" is not commutative.
Multiplication with "omegas" is not commutative.
Subtraction, division
Otherwise, division by infinity is not meaningful.
Subtraction with infinity is not meaningful.
Riemann sphere, complex plane with a point at infinity
A Crash Course in the Mathematics of Infinite Sets , by Peter Suber.
From the St. John's Review, XLIV, 2 (1998) 1-59.
The stand-alone appendix to Infinite Reflections, below.
A concise introduction to Cantor's mathematics of infinite sets.
Infinite Reflections , by Peter Suber.
How Cantor's mathematics of the infinite solves a handful of ancient philosophical problems of the infinite.
Infinity, Principia Cybernetica
Hotel Infinity
The concepts of finiteness and infinity in philosophy
January (Jan.) is the first month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, coming between December (of the previous year) and February (of the current year).
January begins on the same day of the week as October in common years, and April and July in leap years.
January ends on the same day of the week as February and October in common years, and July in leap years.
January and February were put on the calendar after all the other months.
This is because in the original Roman calendar, winter did not have months.
Although March was originally the first month, January became the new first month because that was when people chose the new consuls (Roman leaders).
The month has 31 days.
January is a winter month in the Northern Hemisphere and a summer month in the Southern Hemisphere.
In each hemisphere, it is the seasonal equivalent of July in the other.
Perihelion, the point in its orbit where the Earth is closest to the Sun, also occurs in this month, between January 2 and January 5.
January begins on the same day of the week as October in common years and on the same day of the week as April and July in leap years.
January ends on the same day of the week as February and October in common years and on the same day of the week as July in leap years.
January is the only month of the year that always has a "twin" - a month that both begins and ends on the same day of the week as it does.
In a common year, this is October, and in a leap year, July.
In common years immediately before other common years, January starts on the same day of the week as April and July of the following year, and in leap years and years immediately before that, September and December of the following year.
In common years immediately before other common years, January finishes on the same day of the week as July of the following year, and in leap years and years immediately before that, April and December of the following year.
January's flower is the carnation with its birthstone being the garnet.
The first day of January is called New Year's Day.
It is said that it became this date when Roman consuls took office on this day in 153 BC.
Different calendars across Europe made this the start of the New Year at different times, as some observed it on March 25.
Reaching over from December, the Christmas season in Christianity also extends into this month.
Eastern churches celebrate Christmas on January 6 or January 7, and Epiphany on January 18 or January 19 - In Western Christianity this occurs on January 6, with Christmas occurring on December 25.
January 1 - New Year's Day
January 1 - Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God
January 1 - World Day of Peace
January 1 - Founding Day (Republic of China)
January 1 - Independence Day in Brunei, Haiti and Sudan
January 1 - Triumph of the Revolution (Cuba)
January 1 - Constitution Day (Italy)
January 2 - New Year's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland)
January 2 - Ancestry Day (Haiti)
January 2 - Berchtold's Day (Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Alsace
January 3 - Statehood Day (Alaska)
January 4 - Independence Day (Burma)
January 4 - Day of the Fallen Against Colonial Repression (Angola)
January 4 - Day of the Martyrs (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
January 5 - Twelfth Night in Western Christianity - night to January 6
January 6 - Epiphany in Western Christianity.
January 6 - Christmas in the Armenian Apostolic Church
January 7 - Christmas in Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
January 7 - Tricolour Day (Italy)
January 7 - Victory from Genocide Day (Cambodia)
January 8 - Commonwealth Day (Northern Mariana Islands)
January 8 - Celebration of Elvis Presley's birthday at Graceland
January 8 - Kim Jong-un's birthday (North Korea)
January 9 - Martyrs' Day (Panama)
January 11 - Kagami Biraki (Japan)
January 11 - Republic Day (Albania)
January 11 - Day of National Unity (Nepal)
January 12 - Memorial Day (Turkmenistan)
January 12 - National Youth Day (India)
January 12 - Zanzibar Revolution Day (Tanzania)
January 13 - Korean American Day
January 13 - Old New Year (parts of Eastern Europe)
January 13 - St. Knut's Day (Norway, Finland, Sweden)
January 14 - New Year's Day (Eastern Orothodox Church)
January 14 - National Flag Day in Georgia