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"Unity in Diversity" was the slogan chosen when India celebrated fifty years of Independence in 1997, a declaration replete with as much optimism as pride. Stretching from the frozen barrier of the Himalayas to the tropical greenery of Kerala, and from the sacred Ganges to the sands of the Thar desert, the country's boundaries encompass incomparable variety. Walk the streets of any Indian city and you'll rub shoulders with representatives of several of the world's great faiths, a multitude of castes and outcastes, fair-skinned, turbanned Punjabis and dark-skinned Tamils. You'll also encounter temple rituals that have been performed since the time of the Egyptian Pharaohs, onion-domed mosques erected centuries before the Taj Mahal was ever dreamt of, and quirky echoes of the British Raj on virtually every corner.

That so much of India's past remains discernible today is all the more astonishing given the pace of change since Independence in 1947. Spurred by the free-market reforms of the early 1990s, the economic revolution started by Rajiv Gandhi has transformed the country with new consumer goods, technologies and ways of life. Now the land where the Buddha lived and taught, whose religious festivals are as old as the rivers that sustain them, is the second-largest producer of computer software in the world, with its own satellites and nuclear weapons.

However, the presence in even the most far-flung market towns of internet cafes and Japanese hatchbacks has thrown into sharp relief the problems that have bedevilled the subcontinent since long before it became the world's largest secular democracy. Rooted in the monolithic hierarchy of caste, poverty remains a harsh fact of life for around forty percent of India's inhabitants. No other nation on earth has slum settlements on the scale of those in Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta, nor so many malnourished children, uneducated women and homes without access to clean water and waste disposal.

Many first-time visitors find themselves unable to see past such glaring disparities. Others come expecting a timeless ascetic wonderland and are surprised to encounter one of the most materialistic societies on the planet. Still more find themselves intimidated by what may seem, initially, an incomprehensible and bewildering continent. But for all its

jarring juxtapositions, intractable paradoxes and frustrations, India remains an utterly compelling destination. Intricate and worn, its distinctive patina - the stream of life in its crowded bazaars, the ubiquitous filmi music, the pungent melange of beedi smoke, cooking spices, dust and cow dung - casts a spell that few forget from the moment they step off a plane. Love it or hate it - and most travellers oscillate between the two - India will shift the way you see the world.

Your Tips For India

• Varanasi India Travel Videos
  India Travel Itinerary
  Older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together . - India
  

• Goa India Travel Videos
  India Travel Itinerary
  If one word could be said to encapsulate the essence of GOA , it would have to be the Portuguese sossegarde , meaning "carefree". - India
  

• Agra India Travel Videos
  India Travel Itinerary
  The splendour of AGRA - capital of all India under the Moghuls - remains undiminished, from the massive fort to the magnificent Taj Mahal . - India
  

• Delhi India Travel Videos
  India Travel Itinerary
  Delhi is the symbol of old India and new ? even the stones here whisper to our ears of the ages of long ago and the air we breathe is full of the dust and fragrances of the past, as also of the fresh and piercing winds of the present. - India
  

• Bombay (Mumbai) India Travel Videos
  India Travel Itinerary
  Young, brash and oozing with the cocksure self-confidence of a maverick moneymaker, MUMBAI (formerly Bombay ) revels in its reputation as India's most dynamic and Westernized city. - India
  

• Fatehpur Sikri India Travel Videos
  India Travel Itinerary
  The ghost city of FATEHPUR SIKRI , former imperial capital of the great Moghul emperor Akbar , straddles the crest of a rocky ridge, 40km southwest of Agra. - India
  

• Kerala India Travel Videos
  India Travel Itinerary
  A sliver of dense greenery sandwiched between the Arabian Sea and the forested Western Ghat mountains, the state of KERALA runs down the southwest coast of India, around 550km long and 120km wide at its broadest point. - India
  

• Calcutta (Kolkata) India Travel Videos
  India Travel Itinerary
  One of the four great urban centres of India, CALCUTTA is to its proud citizens the equal of any city in the country in charm, variety and interest. - India
  

• Rajasthan India Travel Videos
  India Travel Itinerary
  India's largest state, RAJASTHAN , emerged after Partition from a mosaic of eighteen feudal kingdoms, known in the British era as Rajputana , "Land of Kings". - India