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Environment
India
is a large, triangular-shaped country in southern
Asia, buttressed by the long sweep of the
Himalaya in the north and protruding into
the Indian Ocean in the south. It's bordered
by Pakistan to the north-west, China, Nepal
and Bhutan to the north, and Bangladesh and
Myanmar to the east. Sri Lanka is the teardrop-shaped
island hanging off its southern tip. India
covers a land area of some 3,287,000 sq km
(1,281,930sq mi), though disputed borders
with Pakistan and China make this figure somewhat
arbitrary. It is the seventh largest country
in the world.
Northern
India contains the snow-bound peaks and deep
valleys of the Himalaya and the vast Gangetic
Plain, which separates the Himalayan region
from the southern peninsula and stretches
from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal.
South of the plains, the land rises up into
a triangular-shaped plateau known as the Deccan,
which ranges in altitude from 300m (985ft)
to 900m (2950ft). The plateau is bordered
by the Eastern and Western ghats, ranges of
hills which run parallel to India's eastern
and western coasts and separate the fertile
coastal strips from the interior.
Wildlife
in India is often purported to have enjoyed
a privileged and protected position thanks
to the religious ideals and sentiments of
Hindus, Jains and Buddhists, but much of this
tradition has been lost. Extensive hunting
by the British and the Indian rajahs, large-scale
clearing of forests for agriculture, poaching,
pesticides and the ever-increasing population
have had disastrous effects on India's environment.
Only around 10 per cent of the country still
has forest cover, and only 4 per cent is protected
within national parks and reserves. In the
past few decades the government has taken
serious steps to improve environmental management
and has established over 350 parks, sanctuaries
and reserves.
The
highlights of India's fauna are its lions,
tigers, leopards, panthers, elephants and
rhinoceroses, but the country is also home
to a rich variety of deer and antelope, wild
buffaloes, massive Indian bisons, shaggy sloth
bears, striped hyenas, wild pigs, jackals
and Indian wild dogs. Monkeys include rhesus
macaques, bonnet macaques and long-tailed
common langurs. The reptilian world boasts
magnificent king cobras, pythons, crocodiles,
large freshwater tortoises and monitor lizards,
while the diverse birdlife includes large
hornbills, serpent eagles and fishing owls,
as well as the elegant national bird, the
peacock.
Climate
varies greatly, from the arid deserts of Rajasthan
to the cool highlands of Assam, allegedly
the wettest place on earth. But basically
India has a three-season year - the hot, the
wet and the cool. The heat starts to build
up on the northern plains around February
and by April it becomes unbearable. The first
signs of the monsoon appear in May with high
humidity, short rainstorms and violent electrical
storms. The monsoon rains begin around 1 June
in the extreme south and sweep north to cover
the whole country by early July. The monsoon
doesn't really cool things off, but it's a
great relief - especially to farmers. The
main monsoon comes from the south-west, but
the south-eastern coast is affected by the
short and surprisingly wet north-eastern monsoon,
which brings rain from mid-October to the
end of December. The main monsoon ends around
October, and India's northern cities become
crisp at night in December. In the far south,
where it never gets cool, the temperatures
are comfortably warm rather than hot.
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