- published: 19 Dec 2013
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India (i/ˈɪndiə/), officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.
Section 377 refers to the section of the penal code in several former British colonies that criminalizes buggery and other homosexual acts. The law was introduced by British colonial authorities in the British Raj and was used as the model for sodomy laws in many other British colonies, in many cases to the extent of having not only the same or similar language but the same section number. The prohibition is currently in section 377 of the Penal Codes of India, Malaysia, Singapore, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar (Burma), Maldives and Jamaica and is the model for similarly worded laws that remain in force in Bhutan, Brunei, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu, Western Samoa, Malawi, Mauritius, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Gambia, Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia. It was the model for repealed laws in Australia, Fiji, Hong Kong, and New Zealand.