Role of Media in Today's India

Ancient India

In the 3rd millenium BCE, the Indus Valley Civilization evolved into the largest ancient civilization of the world.
The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in South Asia are from approximately 30,000 years ago.[19] Near contemporaneous Mesolithic rock art sites have been found in many parts of the Indian subcontinent, including at the Bhimbetka rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh.[20] Around 7000 BCE, the first known neolithic settlements appeared on the subcontinent in Mehrgarh and other sites in western Pakistan.[21] These gradually developed into the Indus Valley Civilisation,[22] the first urban culture in South Asia,[23] which flourished during 2500–1900 BCE in Pakistan and western India.[24] Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Lothal, and Kalibangan, and relying on varied forms of subsistence, the civilisation engaged robustly in crafts production and wide-ranging trade.[23]
During the period 2000 BCE–500 BCE, many regions of the subcontinent evolved from copper age to iron age cultures.[25] The Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism,[26] were composed during this period, and historians have analyzed these to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and the upper Ganges Plain.[25] Most historians also consider this period to have encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent from the northwest.[26] The caste system, creating a social hierarchy, appeared during this period.[27] In the Deccan, archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom stage of political organization.[25] In South India, the large number of megalithic monuments found from this period,[28] and nearby evidence of agriculture, irrigation tanks, and craft traditions suggest progression to sedentary life.[28]
By the fifth century BCE, the small chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the northwest regions had consolidated into sixteen major oligarchies and monarchies called Mahajanapadas.[29] The...