India’s economy encompasses traditional village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industries, and a multitude of support services. 67% of India’s labor force, nearly 400 million work in agriculture. Agriculture contributes 30% of the country’s GDP. Production, trade, and investment reforms since 1991 have provided new opportunities for Indian businesspersons and an estimated 300 million middle class consumers. New Delhi has avoided debt rescheduling, attracted foreign investments, and revived confidence in India’s economic prospects since 1991. Many of the country’s fundamentals including savings rates (26% of GDP) and reserve (now about $24 billion)-are healthy, Inflation eased to 7% in 1997, and interest rates dropped to between 10% and 13%. Even so, the Indian Government needs to restore the early momentum of reforms, especially by continuing reductions in the extensive remaining government regulations. Moreover, economy policy changes have not yet significantly increased jobs or reduced the risk that international financial strain will bring within the next few years. Nearly 40% of the Indian Population remains too poor to afford a nutrient diet. India exports, and foreign institutional investment were affected by the East Asian crisis in late 1997 and early 1998, but capital account controls, a low ratio of short-term debt to reserves, and enhanced supervision of the financial sector helped insulate it from near term balance-of-payments problems. Export growth, has been slipping in 1996-97, averaging only about 4% to 5%-a large drop from the more than 20% increases it was experiencing over the prior three years. Energy, telecommunications, and transportation shortages and the legacy of inefficient factories constrain industrial growth which expanded only 6.7% in 1997-down from more than 11% in 1996. Growth of agricultural sector is still fairly slow rebounding to only 5.7% in 1997 from a fall of 0.1% in 1996. Agricultural investment has slowed, while costly subsidies on fertilizer, food distribution, and rural electricity remains. Nevertheless, even if a series of weak coalition governments continue to rule in New Delhi for the next few years and are able to push reforms aggressively, parts of the economy that have already benefited from deregulation will continue to grow. 

Probably the least adequate telephone system of any of the developing countries; three of every four villages have no telephone facility; only 5% of India’s villages have long-distance service. Poor telephone service significantly impede commercial and industrial growth and penalises India in the global markets. Slow improvement are taking place with the recent admission of private investors, but demand for communication services are also growing rapidly.
Switchboard system:

Within the last 10 years a substantial amount of digital switch gear has been introduced for local service; long-distance traffic is carried mostly by open wire, coaxial cable, and low from of fibre-optic cable and a domestic satellite system with over 100 earth stations. 
International:

Satellite earth stations-8 Intelsat Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarsat (Indian Ocean Region); submarine cables to Malaysia and UAE.

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Military Branches: 

The Indian armed forces consists of the Army, Navy, Air Force and also various security and paramilitary forces (which includes the Border Security Force, Assam Rifles and the Coast Guard).

 Military Manpower: 

Military age: 17 years of age. 

Availability: Males age: 15-49: 263,765,005 (1998 est.). 

Fit for military service: Males: 154,925,081 (1998 est.). 

Reaching military age annually: Males: 10,566,718 (1998 est.).

Military Expenditures: 

Dollar figure: $ 8 billion (Financial Year 95 / 96).

Percentage of GDP: 2.7 % (Financial Year 95 / 96).