Amazing Facts About India

Here are some of the amazing facts that will surely astonish you as it did me.

1) Around a 100 million years ago, India was an island

2) India’s name is derived from the “Indus” river.
3) Indus Valley Civilization is the world’s oldest civilization.
4) India, hence, is the world’s oldest, most advanced and continuous civilization.
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 active army, 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.

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.

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 year

India was exceptional when it came to hockey in the 1920s. The British were forced to withdraw from the Olympics in 1920 to avoid a probable defeat by their colony.

Mumbai is so much congested city. To overcome from this problem, Government has built new city which is near to original Mumbai and named as ‘Navi Mumbai’. It is the largest planned township on the planet which was developed in 1972.

India is known for its largest postal network in the world over 1 million post offices. In August 2011, the Government of India inaugurated a floating post office in Dal Lake, Srinagar of Jammu and Kashmir. It is one of the unique post offices in the world.

India’s first 8-lane freeway over the open sea is built by a skilled team comprising the best engineers from India, Britain, Canada, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Serbia, Singapore and Switzerland. The length of steel wires used in the project is equivalent to the circumference of the Earth.

Major Dhyan Chand, an Indian field hockey player, defeated Germany 8-1 in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. After seeing him play, Adolf Hitler offered Dhyan Chand a German citizenship and a higher military post. The prolific striker however politely turned down the offer.

Padmanabhaswamy Temple is the richest in the world.

Padmanabhaswamy Temple, in Kerala’s capital city, Thiruvananthapuram, is not only the richest Hindu temple in the world, it’s also believed to be the richest place of worship ever to have existed. In 2011, the temple’s vaults were opened for the first time in over 130 years, and hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of gold, silver, and precious stones were found inside.

Only Hindus are allowed to enter the 16th-century temple, as is the case with Hindu temples throughout Kerala, but non-Hindus can check out the view from the walkway leading up to Padmanabhaswamy, and can visit the adjacent Kuthiramalika Palace that belongs to the Travancore royal family.

Actor Benedict Cumberbatchvolunteered as an English teacher at a Tibetan monastery inDarjeeling , India

The actor, famous for portraying the role of Sherlock, took an year gap to teach English in Darjeeling. Lucky students, we must say!

The Pentium Chip was invented by an Indian

Vinod Dham is also called the Father of the Pentium chip for his contribution to the development of highly successful Pentium processors from Intel.