6 The growth of the number, size and maturity of Indian cross-cultural outreach agencies is remarkable

a) Indian mission agency networking structures play a key role in furthering cooperation, goal-setting and fellowship;

b) The Asian Theological Association-India and the Indian Institute of Missiology accredit, facilitate and network missions training

c) The mission agencies themselves, for their leadership to be strategic, for fruitfulness in ministry and for spiritual unity

d) Indian missionaries serving in other lands – around 440

e) OM graduates. The impact of OM on implanting missions vision has been significant

f) Indian missionaries serving in India face heightened and organized opposition and even persecution

g) A widening of ministry to other needy sections of the population

h) Better and closer relationships between local churches and sending agencies

i) Expatriates serving in India who now number only around 1,000

7 The least evangelized areas of India – no other part of the world has such a concentration of unevangelized people

a) The North India Ganges plains with their teeming millions in the Hindi-speaking heartland

b) The great cities with their rapid growth and mix of great wealth and abject poverty

8 The least reached mega people groups of India

a) The Brahmin are the highest and priestly caste in the Hindu world

b) Other Forward Castes

c) Many Backward Caste peoples,

d) Dalit groups have responded more,

e) There are still numerous tribal peoples un- or under-evangelized

f) The Sindhi – 36 million equally divided between Muslims (in Pakistan) and Hindu (in India)

g) There are 205 people groups with populations of over 10,000 that are still totally unreached

Economy

Predominantly agricultural with 64% of the labour force, but rapid industrialization and urbanization is taking place. HDI 0.545; 132^nd/174. Public debt 22% of GNP. Income/person $370 (1.2% of USA).

Politics

Independent from Britain in 1947.

Religion

India's constitution provides for full religious freedom of worship and witness for all religions.

Churches in India

Missionaries from India

over 44,000 in 440 agencies of which 60% are working cross-culturally in India, 440 in foreign countries.

Expatriates to India

approx. 1,000 in 184 agencies.

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Geography

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Area 3,166,000 sq.km. A further 121,000 sq.km. of Kashmir is administered by Pakistan and China.

Population (2000) 1,013,661,777 +1.66%AGR

Capital Delhi 11.3 million.

Peoples

The racial, ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity together with the caste system complicates any analysis of the population.

Castes

Races and Languages

Forward castes (FC) 15.4%; Backward castes (OBC) 56.6%; Scheduled castes or Dalit (SC) 18.1%; Tribal or Adivasi (ST) (580) 9.5%; Other 0.4%; Indo-Aryan 75.3%; Dravidian 22.5%; Austro-Asiatic 1.13%; Sino-Tibetan 0.97%; Other 0.1%.

Literacy 62% (44% in 1981). Functional literacy much lower. No longer the world's least literate country. Official languages Hindi (language of Union, 66% speak it); English (legislative and judicial language and language of wider communication, 19% speak it). Scheduled languages 18. All languages 1,652 (1971 census). The SIL Ethnologue lists 407 living languages.

Languages with Scriptures 53Bi 42NT 40por 68w.i.p.

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