What You Didn't Know About Asia's Next Powerhouse

When you consider the total population of 1.2 billion people, that means that 25 million people are born every year.  That's more than the total population of Australia!  Unfortunately, there is a high infant mortality rate. There are more than 50 deaths for every 1,000 live births.

Despite the urban mitgration, only one-third of India's population lives in urban areas. Mumbai is it's largest city and has about 13.8 million inhabitants, making it the second most populous city in the world behind Shanghai, China.

In fact, more people are leaving India than moving there. This may be in part due to its near 25% unemployment rate.

The relatively low literacy rates don't do justice to India's rich history in classical learning. For instance, an Indian named Aryabhata is believed to be the first to recognize the concept of zero, though he did not have a symbol for the digit. He also worked on an approximation for the irrational number Pi in 5th century BC. This concept was later proved in Europe by Lambert in 1761, almost 2,200 years later.

Each country claims to have overlapping jurisdiction over the war-torn Kashmir region. Most unbiased world maps divide the controversial territory of Kashmir into Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, India Occupied Kashmir and China-controlled Shaksam Valley.

The Kashmir region of India is the site of the world's largest and most militarized territorial dispute. India refuses to recognize lands ceded to China by Pakistan in 1964 and insists most inhabitants are Hindu Indians. Pakistan protests against India's militarization of a vital dam in the region and insists most inhabitants are Muslims. Many in Kashmir call themselves Buddhist. Though there has been a long cease-fire, tensions have not relaxed.

India is one of the world's largest manufacturers of small cars. Mumbai company Tata Motors (NYSE: TTM) holds 70% of domestic market share and produces the world's cheapest car, the $2,300 Nano.

Nalanda University was founded in 427 and, though now in ruins, it once housed over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers. The university was sacked in the 1100s and its demise is often romanticized as the downfall of ancient Indian scientific thought. According to legend, the library was so vast that it burned for three months after the Moguls set fire to it.

The Indian railway system employs over 1.6 million people. It transports 20 million people and more than two million tons of freight every day. Walmart (NYSE: WMT) is the only company that employs more people -- nearly 2.1 million around the globe!