Getting the Lay of the Land

Give the globe a twist, twirl to Asia, and look at the lower end of the continent. And there you see that India stretches down into the Indian Ocean, toward the equator in the northern hemisphere. India is an immense country (more than 1.2 million square miles) comprising many different geographic regions. The triangular part of the country is India’s Deccan Plateau. The lands of India rise from the ocean to that plateau and on up to the majestic Himalayas in the north. Its various landscapes and resources can support a breadth of industries, and the players in those industries that take full advantage of what India has to offer can truly flourish.

India shares extensive land boundaries with its neighbors Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Nepal, and Pakistan. India’s coasts are lapped by the waters of the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Bay of Bengal. In total, India has over 4,300 miles of coastline. The massive coastline leaves plenty of room for major ports, and India has 11 of them, creating an attractive port capacity for shipping.

But don’t let India’s size worry you about transportation and shipping concerns. The country has an excellent rail transport system, built on the backbone of the tracks laid by the British during the colonial era. Freight can also be transported to the farthest nook and the highest reaches of India by long stretches of roadways reaching from Kashmir in the north to Kanyakumari in the south, and from Gujarat in the west ...

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