Location: The country is surrounded by the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west, and the Indian Ocean to the south. India occupies a major portion of the Indian subcontinent.
Geographic Coordinates: Lying entirely in the Northern Hemisphere, the country extends between 8° 4' and 37° 6' latitudes north of the Equator, and 68°7' and 97°25' longitudes east of it.
Indian Standard Time: GMT + 05:30
Telephone Country Code: +91
Capital: New Delhi
Border Countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan to the north-west; China, Bhutan and Nepal to the north; Myanmar to the east; and Bangladesh to the east of West Bengal. Sri Lanka is separated from India by a narrow channel of sea, formed by Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar.
Coastline : 7517 km encompassing the mainland, Lakshadweep Islands, and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
Climate: The climate of India can broadly be classified as a tropical monsoon one. But, in spite of much of the northern part of India lying beyond the tropical zone, the entire country has a tropical climate marked by relatively high temperatures and dry winters. There are four seasons - winter (December-February), (ii) summer (March-June), (iii) south-west monsoon season (June-September), and (iv) post monsoon season (October- November)
Terrain: The mainland comprises of four regions, namely the great mountain zone, plains of the Ganga and the Indus, the desert region, and the southern peninsula.
Natural Resources: Coal, iron ore, manganese ore, mica, bauxite, petroleum, titanium ore, chromite, natural gas, magnesite, limestone, arable land, dolomite, barytes, kaolin, gypsum, apatite, phosphorite, steatite, fluorite, etc.
Asian Development Bank predicts India's gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by 6 per cent for 2013-14. Moreover, World Bank sees 6.7 per cent GDP growth for India by 2015.
The Indian growth story seems to be on a roll and India has emerged as the fourth largest economy in the world on a purchasing power parity basis. The quality of business environment in India has improved manifolds in the recent years. The strong fundamentals underlying the Indian economy make it an obvious choice for investors all over the world.
There is ample reason for India's viability as a destination for foreign investment. In addition to the above-mentioned macroeconomic indicators, higher disposable incomes, emerging middle class, low cost competitive workforce, investment friendly policies and progressive reform process all contribute towards India being an appropriate choice for investors.
The government of India has put in place a liberal and transparent FDI policy. In the post liberalization era, a number of initiatives have been taken to attract FDI in several sectors. This includes opening of many new sectors to FDI, raising FDI equity caps in sectors already opened and procedural simplification. Today, the FDI policy in India is widely reckoned to be among the most liberal in the emerging economies and FDI up to 100% is allowed under the automatic route in most sectors and activities.
The Indian Government is committed in its efforts to maintain a healthy growth rate and provide a conducive policy environment to the enterprises, both public and private, to invest and grow their business in the country. To this end, the Government has liberalized the foreign investment regime substantially over the last decade. Today, foreign direct investment is allowed in almost all sectors barring a few sensitive areas such as defence. Further, FDI is allowed in most of the sectors under the automatic route, except a few, where approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) is required. India's foreign trade policy has been formulated with a view to invite and encourage FDI in India. The process of regulation and approval has been substantially liberalized. The Reserve Bank of India has prescribed the administrative and compliance aspects of FDI.
FDI can be divided into two broad categories: investment under automatic route and investment through prior approval of Government. The pickup in FDI inflows further reflects growing investor interest in the Indian economy on the back of strong fundamentals and simplified procedures. The FDI policy rationalization and liberalization measures taken by the Government have resulted in increased inflows of FDI over the years.