63 Facts of India on 63rd Republic Day ! !

1. The Indian flag has three horizontal bands of color: saffron for courage and sacrifice, white for truth and peace, and green for faith, fertility, and chivalry. An emblem of a wheel spinning used to be in the center of the white band, but when India gained independence, a Buddhist dharma chakra, or wheel of life, replaced the spinning wheel.

2. Sanskrit is the mother of all European Languages. In addition to it Sanskrit is the most suitable language for Computer Software – – a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987.

3. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to human. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago and today Ayurveda is fast regaining its rightful place in our civilization.

4. India was one of the richest countries till the time of British rule in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus, attracted by India’s wealth, had come looking for a sea route to India when he discovered America by mistake.

5. Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart.Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.

6. The value of “pi” was first calculated by Budhayana.He explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century long before the European mathematicians.

7. Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus came from India.Quadratic equations were propounded by Sridharacharya in the 11th century.

8.According to the Gemological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source for Diamonds to the world.

9. USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century old suspicion in the world scientific community that the pioneer of wireless communication was Prof Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.

10. India invented the Number System. ZERO was invented by Aryabhatta.

11. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

12. The World’s first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC.More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects.

13. The Art of Navigation & Navigating was born in the river Sindh over 6000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘NAVGATIH’.

14. Every major world religion is represented in India. Additionally, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism all originated in India.

15. Chess (Shataranja or AshtaPada) was invented in India.

16. The earliest cotton in the world was Spun and Woven in India.

17. With 150,000 post offices, India has the largest Postal Network in the world.

18.The Bengal Tiger is India’s National Animal. It was once ubiquitous throughout the country, but now there are fewer than 4,000 wild tigers left.

19. About 80% of Indians are Hindu. Muslims are the largest minority in India and form approximately 13% of the country’s population. In fact, India has the third largest population of Muslims in the world, after Indonesia and Pakistan.

20. Mumbai (Bombay) is India’s largest city, with a population of 15 million. In 1661, British engineers built a causeway uniting all seven original islands of Bombay into a single landmass.

21. India has the world’s largest movie industry, based in the city of Mumbai (known as the “City of Dreams”). The B in “Bollywood” comes from Bombay, the former name for Mumbai. Almost all Bollywood movies are musicals.

22. Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) is known around the world as Mahatma, which is an honorific title meaning “Great Soul” in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit. He devoted his life to free India from British rule peacefully and based his campaign on Civil Disobedience. His birthday, October 2, is a national holiday. He was assassinated in 1948.

23. The Banyan, or Indian fig tree, is considered a symbol of immortality and is mentioned in many Indian myths and legends. This self-renewing plant is India’s national tree.

24. The Lotus is sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists. The Bahá’í house of worship in Delhi, known as the “Lotus Temple,” is shaped like a lotus flower with 27 gigantic “petals” that are covered in marble

25. Marigold flowers are used as decoration for Hindu marriages and are a symbol of “Good Fortune and Happiness”

26. Introduced by the British, Cricket is India’s most popular sport. Hockey is considered the national sport, and the Indian field hockey team proudly won Olympic gold in 1928.

27. The national fruit of India is the Mango. The national bird is the Peacock, which was initially bred for food

28. Most historians agree that the first recorded account of Plastic Surgery is found in ancient Indian Sanskrit texts.

29. Hindi and English are the official languages of India. The government also recognizes 17 other languages (Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Nepali, Manipuri, Konkani, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu). Apart from these languages, about 1,652 dialects are spoken in the country

30. India’s pastoral communities are largely dependent on Dairy and have made India the largest milk-producing country in the world.

31. India has the world’s third largest road network at 1.9 million miles. It also has the world’s second largest rail network, which is the world’s largest civilian employer with 16 million workers.

32. Rivers have played a vital role in India’s popular culture and folklore—they have been worshipped as goddesses because they bring water to an otherwise dry land. Bathing in the Ganges in particular is thought to take away a person’s sins. It is not unusual to spread a loved one’s ashes in the Ganges.

33. Raziya Sultana (1205-1240) was the first woman leader of India. She was considered a great leader, though she ruled for only three years before being murdered.

34. Most Indians rinse their hands, legs, and face before eating a meal. It is considered polite to eat with the right hand, and women eat after everyone is finished. Wasting food is considered a sin

35. During the Vedic era in India, horse sacrifice sanctioned the sovereignty of the king.

36. It is traditional to wear white, not black, to a funeral in India. Widows will often wear white in contrast to the colorful clothes of married or single women.

37. All of India is under a single time zone.

38. On India’s Independence Day, August 15, 1947, the country was split into India and Pakistan. The partition displaced 1.27 million people and resulted in the death of several hundred thousand to a million people.

39. In recent years, Indian authors have made a mark on the world with such novels as Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988), Vikram Seth’s Suitable Boy (1993), and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1997).

40. India experiences six seasons: summer, autumn, winter, spring, summer monsoon, and winter monsoon.

41. India is the world’s largest tea producer, and tea (chai) is its most popular beverage.

42. The Taj Mahal (“crown palace”) was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1592-1666) for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal (1593-1631). This architectural beauty has been called “marbled embroidery” for its intricate workmanship. It took 22,000 workmen 22 years to complete it.

43. The first and greatest civilization in ancient India developed around the valley of the Indus River (now Pakistan) around 3000 B.C. Called the Indus Valley civilization, this early empire was larger than any other empire, including Egypt and Mesopotamia.

44. Alexander the Great invaded India partly because he wanted to solve the mystery of the “ocean,” which he had been told was a huge, continuous sea that flowed in a circle around the land. When he reached the Indian Ocean, he sacrificed some bulls to Poseidon for leading him to his goal.

45. India is the largest democracy in the world.

46. India is about 1/3 the size of the United States, yet it is the second most populous country in the world, with a population of 1,166,079,217. India is the seventh largest country in the world, at 1.27 million square miles.

47. The Kumbh Mela (or Grand Pitcher Festival) is a huge Hindu religious festival that takes place in India every 12 years. In 2001, 60 million people attended, breaking the record for the world’s biggest gathering. The mass of people was photographed from space by a satellite.

48. It is illegal to take Indian currency (rupees) out of India.

49. India has one of the world’s highest rates of Abortion.

50. More than a million Indians are millionaires, yet most Indians live on less than two dollars a day. An estimated 35% of India’s population lives below the poverty line.

51. Cows can be found freely wandering the streets of India’s cities. They are considered sacred and will often wear a tilak, a Hindu symbol of good fortune. Cows are considered one of humankind’s seven mothers because she offers milk as does one’s natural mother.

52. Dancing is one of India’s most highly developed arts and was an integral part of worship in the inner shrines of every temple. It is notable for its expressive hand movements.

53. Rabies is endemic in India. Additionally, “Delhi Belly” or diarrhea is commonplace due to contaminated drinking water.

54. India leads the world with the most murders (32,719), with Russia taking second at 28,904 murders per year.

55. Many Indian wives will never say her husband’s name aloud, as it is a sign of disrespect. When addressing him, the wife will use several indirect references, such as “ji” or “look here” or “hello,” or even refer to him as the father of her child.

56. The temples of Khajuraho are famous for their erotic sculptures and are one of the most popular tourist attractions in India. Scholars still debate the purpose of such explicit portrayals of sexual intercourse, which sometimes involves animals.

57. India is the world’s largest producer of dried beans, such as kidney beans and chickpeas. It also leads the world in banana exports; Brazil is second.

58. Indians hold prominent places both internationally and in the United States. For example, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems (Vinod Khosla), the creator of the Pentium chip (Vinod Dahm), the founder/creator of Hotmail (Sabeer Bhatia), and the GM of Hewlett-Packard (Rajiv Gupta) are all Indian.

59. Every major world religion is represented in India. Additionally, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism all originated in India

60. Chandragupta Maurya (340-290 B.C.), a leader in India who established the Mauryan Empire (321-185 B.C.), was guarded by a band of women on horseback.

61. When the first independent prime minister of India, pacifist Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), was featured in Vogue, his distinctive close fitting, single-breasted jacket briefly became an important fashion statement for the Mod movement in the West. Named the Nehru jacket, the prime minister’s coat was popularized by the Beatles and worn by such famous people as Johnny Carson (1925-2005) and Sammy Davis Jr. (1925-1990).

62. Many Indians find toilet paper repellent and consider it cleaner to splash water with the left hand in the appropriate direction. Consequently, the left hand is considered unclean and is never used for eating.

63. 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.