2. Population Pressure  India is the second most populous country on Earth.  India makes up 2.4% of the world’s land mass but 16% of the world’s population.  Every year India’s population grows by a number equal to the total population of Australia.  India’s population roughly equals the total population of North and South America combined.  Water and food consumption are a constant pressure for India

3. Monsoon  Parts of India receive almost five times the annual rainfall that we receive in New York.  An average of 1000 people a year die on the Indian Subcontinent from Monsoon rainfall.  Monsoons provide the Indian subcontinent with important rainfall, but they also create great destruction.

4. Conflict with Pakistan  Since the partition of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in 1947 along ethnic lines there has been great tension along the borders of all three nations.  India is home to 900,000 Hindus however it is also the home to over 200,000 Muslims making it the world’s second most populous Muslim nation.  Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan have fought 4 wars.  Today Indian and Pakistani forces face each other in the disputed region of Kashmir in Northern India. Both sides (and China) claim portions of Kashmir as their own.  Both India and Pakistan contain many nationalist/extremists willing to fight the other side.

5. Nuclear Nation  In 1998 both India and Pakistan detonated nuclear weapons announcing to the other side and the world that they each have nuclear capability.  There is a fear that as tensions over Kashmir, population and the actions of extremists on both sides increase, the next conflict between the two states could be one that involves nuclear weapons.