My name is Sangeetha, I live in India in Southern Asia, between Burma and Pakistan

Population: 1 billion

Literacy: 59.5%

Life Expectancy: 63.9 years

% Below Poverty Line: 25%

India's economic growth accelerated in the 1990s but has been offset by high birth rate, illiteracy, widespread corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency. Although india has large numbers of well-educated people, over 600million people live in deep poverty.

The Hindu caste system is a major unresolved issue. Caste discrimination is forbidden by the constitution, but it pervades all religous and social structures in India.

India has more people groups with no contract with Christians or Christianity than any other part of the world. Since most Christians are from dalit and tribal communities, the average Hindu associates the gospel with the society's underclass. The resurgence of the Hindu extreme nationalist movements has resulted in religous violence and demands for anti-conversion legislation and retrictions on Christian activites.

Of India's nearly 400 million children, an estimated 70 million are child labourers, 13 million are homeless and 2 million are street children without families. There are over 500,000 child prostitutes and a massive trade in Bangladeshi and Nepali girls sold into prostitution.

Compassion's work in southern india started in 1968. More than 50,000 children are now sponsored through 224 projects. In 2002, Compassion opened another office in East India, which is serving the north eastern states home to more than 45 million tribal peoples living in abject poverty. Compassion East India has registered more than 16,000 children in over 80 projects.

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