East or west, India is the best :)
1) Around a 100 million years ago, India was
an island.
2) India’s name is derived from the “Indus”
river.
3) Indus Valley Civilisation is the world’s
oldest civilisation.
4) India, hence, is the world’s oldest, most
advanced and continuous civilisation.
5) India has been the largest troop
contributor to the United Nations
Peacekeeping Missions since its inception.
6) India has the world’s third largest activecarmy,
after China and USA.
7) The Tirupati Balaji temple and the Kashi
Vishwanath Temple both, receive more visitors
than the Vatican City and Mecca combined.
8) Every 12 years, a religious gathering called
the Kumbh Mela occurs in India. It is the
world’s largest gathering of people.
9) The gathering is so large that the Kumbh
Mela is visible from the space.
Kumbh Mela from Space.
10) Varanasi is the oldest, continuously
inhabited city in the world today.
11) India has more mosques (300,000
mosques) than any other nation in the world.
12) And the third largest Muslim population
in the world.
13) Takshila is said to be the first every
university in the world; it started around 700
BC.
14) Today, India has the world’s largest
school in terms of students, the City
Montessori School in Lucknow. It has more
than 45 thousand students!
15) Indian Railways employs more than 1.3
million people. That’s more than the
population of many nations.
16) More than 54 crore people voted in
the 2014 General Election – more people than
the population of USA, UK, Australia and
Japan combined.
17) Number of births in India every year is
more than the total population of Australia,
and many other nations.
18) India has the largest English speaking
population in the world.
19) At an estimate, 25% of the total workforce
of the world’s population will be from India
in the next year or so.
20) India’s first rocket was brought on cycle
and a satellite on bullock cart.
21) And despite budgetary constraints, India’s
space program is one of the top 5 space
programs in the world.
India’s first rocket, on a cycle.
22) In 2004, 200 women took law in their own
hands and came to the court armed with
vegetable knives and chilli powder
and murdered on the court floor a serial
rapist – Akku Yadav. Then every woman
claimed responsibility for the murder.
23) English Actor Sir Ben Kingsley’s birth
name is Krishna Pandit Bhanji and he is
of Indian descent.
24) Lonar Lake, a saltwater lake in
Maharashtra, was created by a meteor hitting
the Earth and is one of its kind in India.
25) In a village called Shani Shingnapur in
Maharashtra, people have been living in
houses with no doors for generations. This is
because they believe that whoever steals
anything from this place will incur the wrath
of Shani God and will have to pay for his/her
sins very dearly. There is no police station in
this village either.
26) Magnetic Hill is a gravity hill located near
Leh in Ladakh, India. The hill is alleged to
have magnetic properties strong enough to
pull cars uphill and force passing aircraft to
increase their altitude in order to escape
magnetic interference.
27) Viswanathan Anand is the first player in
chess history to have won the World
Championship in three different formats:
knockout, tournament, and match.
28) Chess was invented in India.
29) Buttons were invented in India. Yes, your
shirt’s buttons.
30) We also invented the ruler.
31) And shampoo.
32) And discovered the number zero.
33) And the value of pi.
34) And trigonometry, algebra, calculus.
35) And cataract surgery.
36) And plastic surgery.
37) And diamond mining.
38) And water on the moon.
39) Until 1986, the only place where
diamonds had been officially found was in
India.
40) India has banned all captive dolphins,
stating that dolphins should be viewed of non
human persons.
41) India’s tech capital, Bangalore,
has increased its office supply by six times
since 2006, and now has more Grade-A offices
than Singapore.
42) India is the largest producer of films in
the world.
43) India is the largest milk producer in the
world.
44) India leads the world with the most
murders (32,719) per year, with Russia taking
second at 28,904 murders per year.
45) To avoid polluting the elements (fire,
earth, water, air), followers of Zoroastrianism
in India don’t bury their dead, but instead
leave bodies in buildings called “Towers of
Silence” for the vultures to pick clean. After
the bones dry, they are swept into a central
well.
46) Karmanasa River in India is considered to
be a cursed river and it is believed that
touching its water would ruin one’s plans.
There’s hardly any development along this
river. People around this river just eat dry
fruits because cooking food would require
water!
47) Two major religions, Buddhism and
Jainism, were established in India.
48) Chail in Himachal Pradesh is the highest
cricket pitch in the world. It is situated at an
elevation of 2444 meters (above the sea level).
49) The India-Pakistan World Cup semi-final
match in Mohali drew 150 million viewers
worldwide.
50) Sachin Tendulkar. (Okay, you knew this!)
51) The first Granite Temple of the world, the
Brihadeswara Temple is situated in Tamil
Nadu. It was built during the 11th century, in
only five years.
52) Around the 17th century, India was one
of the richest countries in the world.
53) Today, India is the world’s third largest
economy.
54) India is one of the only three
countries that makes supercomputers (the US
and Japan are the other two).
55) The world’s largest road network is in
India—over 1.9 million miles of roads cover
the country.
56) India has the largest amount of
vegetarians in the world.
57) So much so that Pizza Hut had to open
their first pure vegetarian restaurant in the
country.
58) And KFC had to introduce a “vegetarian”
menu for India.
59) And so did McDonalds, the world’s largest
fast-food manufacturer.
60) Chai is India’s national drink.
61) India grows 1.2 million tons of mangoes
every year, weight equivalent to 80,000 blue
whales.
62) The state of Meghalaya is the wettest
inhabited place of earth.
63) India gave the world Yoga, that has
existed for more than 5,000 years.
64) May 26 is celebrated as the Science Day in
Switzerland in honour of former President Dr.
APJ Abdul Kalam, because on the day, Kalam
visited the country :)
65) Martial Arts was first created in India.
66) The world’s biggest family lives in India.
One man, 39 wives and 94 children.
67) India is the world’s largest importer of
arms.
68) But India has never invaded or attacked a
country.
"We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.
-Albert Einstein."
