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India, officially Republic of India, is the world’s seventh largest country in area. With more then 1 billion inhabitants, India ranks second as the most populated country. Second only to China. India’s long history stretches back to the Indus Valley Civilization of about 2500-1700 BC. India was an imperial possession long before the British made it theirs in the 1700s. The ancient Hindu states under their rajas had first known alien rule at the end of the twelfth century, when Turkish-speaking Muslims invaded India from the north. In September of 1599, a group of London merchants pledged themselves to raise 30,000 pounds in support of a voyage to the East Indies and asked for royal permission for a monopoly of commerce with that part of the world. The charter came to them from the Queen’s hand on the last day of 1600. With that, the East India Company was launched. By the end of the seventeenth century India, for Company purposes, had been divided into three Presidencies; Madras, Bombay, and Bengal, each of which were independent of the others and corresponding directly with London. For hundreds of years, India was home to massive empires and regional kingdoms. Foreign rule produced Indian nationalism, which eventual