Federal President (rotating): Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf (until 1 Jan 2013)
Population
1,205,073,612
7,925,517
Life Expectancy
67.140 years
81.170 years
Capital City
New Delhi
Bern
Largest city
Mumbai (population: 12,691,800)
Zurich (population: 341,730)
Human Development Index
0.609
0.955
GDP per capita
$3,700 US
$43,900 US
Literacy Rate
61%
99%
Corruption Perception Index
3.4
9
Percentage of Women in Parliament
9.2%
27.2%
Wealthiest Citizens
Mukesh Ambani ($19.5bn US)
Ernesto Bertarelli ($8.2bn US)
Unemployment Rate
9.800%
3.100%
Death Penalty
Legal
Abolished
Political System
federal republic
formally a confederation but similar in structure to a federal republic
Independence date
15 August 1947 (from UK)
1 August 1291 (founding of the Swiss Confederation)
Religions
Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.1% (2001 census)
Roman Catholic 41.8%, Protestant 35.3%, Muslim 4.3%, Orthodox 1.8%, other Christian 0.4%, other 1%, unspecified 4.3%, none 11.1% (2000 census)
Languages
Hindi 41%, Bengali 8.1%, Telugu 7.2%, Marathi 7%, Tamil 5.9%, Urdu 5%, Gujarati 4.5%, Kannada 3.7%, Malayalam 3.2%, Oriya 3.2%, Punjabi 2.8%, Assamese 1.3%, Maithili 1.2%, other 5.9% note: English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 41% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language (2001 census)
German (official) 63.7%, French (official) 20.4%, Italian (official) 6.5%, Serbo-Croatian 1.5%, Albanian 1.3%, Portuguese 1.2%, Spanish 1.1%, English 1%, Romansch (official) 0.5%, other 2.8% (2000 census) note: German, French, Italian, and Romansch are all national and official languages
