In the continuing series of minute facts, here are 50 Interesting and Amazing Facts About India-Part 6. You can read the other five parts here, part 1, part 2,part 3, part 4, part 5.
1-10
1. India wastes 59 Million tons of Fruits and Vegetables due to a lack of proper supply chain every year (30% of our annual produce).
2. There was an ape as early as 100,000 years ago that was as tall as 9.8ft (3 meters) tall in the India.
3. To give a fair idea on the comparison between the GDP of India vs USA, the revenues of all active companies founded by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology of USA) graduates ($2 trillion) is higher than the GDP of India ($1.68 dollars).
4. On 18 January 1942, it was decided by the Axis powers to divide the Indian subcontinent after defeating British in India. Germany was to take the part of British India roughly corresponding to northern and western parts of modern day Pakistan, while the rest of British India was marked for Japan.
5. Execution by elephant was a common method of capital punishment in South and Southeast Asia, and particularly in India. Asian Elephants were used to crush, dismember, or torture captives in public executions.
6. In 1918 17 million people died in India due to Spanish flu.
7. The marathon and 10,000m records for running barefoot is held by an Indian, Shivnath Singh since 1978.
8. Whisky will age faster in India than in Scotland.
9. Gin and Tonic was first served up by the British Army in 19th Century in India. The drink was created to help treat and prevent malaria due to the quinine in tonic.
10. The only referendum ever in independent India was held in Goa on 16 January, 1967 to decide the future of the Union Territory of Goa. The referendum offered the people of Goa a choice between continuing as a union territory or merging with the state of Maharashtra.
11-20
11. Honey badgers (pictured above) have been known to dig up and eat human corpses in India.
12. Operation Hangover is an Indian origin cyberespionage operation spearheaded by an unknown Indian agency or group that attacks foreign targets of economic and national interest.
13. Brazil has a soap opera “Caminho Das Indias” – based on typical Indian serials, but in Portuguese. Quite hilarious.
14. Haj subsidy is approximately Rs. 70,000 per person per year and each year on the average about 1,00,000 people make use of it. It is going on since 1973. It was decided to be continued by the Supreme Court of India as Hindu pilgrims to Mansarovar also get Rs 200 per person as subsidy.
15. There is a school of thought in Indian Philosophy that rejected religious conceptions like afterlife, reincarnation, religious rites, etc., called Carvaka.
16. Sega Megadrive II (popular videogame) was imported in India by a liqour company to avoid a hefty import duty on electronics.
17. Mean value theorem was first described by a Kerala mathematician named Parameshvara400 years before its modern form was stated by Augustin Louis Cauchy.
18. The first generative grammar in the modern sense was Panini’s grammar” – NoamChomsky. The great Indian Sanskrit scholar Panini lived in 4th Century B.C.
19. Maida is processed wheat flour whitened with benzoyl peroxide, a bleaching agent banned in the Europe and China.
20. The word “juggernaut” comes from a sacrificial procession during the 1600s in parts of India. In this ritual, devotees would allow themselves to be crushed under the wheels of a “huge wagon bearing an image of the god Krishna.” Coincidentally, one of the names for Krishna is “Jaggernaut (Jagannath).”
21-30
21. India produces more films per annum than USA, yet USA has a revenue from films that is 50 times more than that of India’s film industry.
22. Mahindra is the largest manufacturer of tractors in the world.
23. The United States Constitution is actually the world’s shortest written Constitution with only 7 articles and 27 amendments, compared to India’s 448 articles and 100 amendments.
24. There existed a substance (Soma Haoma) used for rituals in India in the 2nd millenium B.C. described as “God for Gods” or “the Creator of Gods” and its modern identity is still unknown.
25. There are thousands of symbols dating back to 2600–1900BC found near Pakistan/India that are still undeciphered and, in spite of many attempts at decipherments and claims, no underlying language has ever been identified.
26. Country with the most area of irrigated land is India followed by China, United States, Pakistan and Iran.
27. At the time of Indian independence in 1947, there were 13 million people in 127 communities, who faced constant surveillance, search and arrest (under Criminal Tribes Act) without warrant if any member of the group was found outside the prescribed area.
28. There are 12 Delhis apart from our Capital.
29. The Persian Gulf used to be known as the Pirate Coast. Until 1853, tribes would raid trade ships from India. Nowadays, the same families that ruled those tribes now rule the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, some of the richest countries in the world because of their petroleum.
30. In the 1940s, some theatres in Calcutta would play the British national anthem, God Save the Queen, before film screenings.
31-40
31. Agrabah (the city in Disney’s Aladdin) was based on the city Agra, India where the TAJ Mahal is built and the palace of Agrabah has a very close resemblance to Taj Mahal.
32. Indian astronauts will be called Vyomnauts.
33. Tamils reached Australia and New Zealand 500 years before Europeans.
34. In Jammu & Kashmir, the Indian Penal Code is called the Ranbir Penal Code.
35. According to The Economist’s “Big Mac Index,” Venezuela currently has the world’s most overvalued currency, while India has is the most undervalued currency.
36. There is a community called Roman Catholic Brahmins who, according to historian Charles Boxer ‘retained their pride of caste and race, and they very seldom intermarried with the Portuguese and never with their Indian social inferiors.’
37. There are Punjabi Mexicans Americans that live in California, USA.
38. Less than 25 percent of the world’s Punjabi population actually lives in India.
39. There is a Wiccan priestess (priest who preaches the religion of witchcraft) based in India. Her name is Ipsita Roy Chakraverti.
40. General Electric helped prevent a nuclear war between India and Pakistan in 2002.
41-50
41. India gets the same number of tourists annually as the city of Venice and even smaller countries like Vietnam get the same number of tourists.
42. Ice was exported from US all the way to India in 1893.
43. During the Ahom Dynasty(1228–1826) in Assam, India, claimants to the throne had to be physically unblemished—which meant that threats to the throne could be removed by merely slitting the ear of an ambitious prince.
44. There is a Hollywood film, The Legend of Bagger Vance, about a golfer and his mysterious caddy, which is inspired by the Bhagavad Gita. It stars Matt Damon as R. Junuh (Arjuna) and Will Smith as Bagger Vance (Bhagavan).
45. More than 30% of all the pending cases in courts across the country are either related to cheque bounce or traffic challans.
46. Only about 33 million (3.24 Crore) Indians pay income tax that comes to less than 3 in 100 people, and apparently only 4 lakh of them earn above 20 Lakh bracket.
47. India tested its first nuclear bomb made with materials from the Canadian reactor in Tarapur, which supposed to be used only for civilian purpose.
48. Winston Churchill did not want to grant independence to India, he said “Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles.”
49. So skilled were ancient Indian physicians at examining the arterial pulse, that during Alexander’s invasion they were said to be better than Grecian ones at curing snake-bites in troops, while it is unlikely that Hippocrates – the Father of Medicine ever felt the pulse at the wrist.
50. There is an allegation that the iconic Hollywood movie E.T. was plagiarized from a 1967 film called “The Alien” by Indian director Satyajit Ray. The film was supposed to be co-produced by Columbia Pictures, but was eventually cancelled. “The Alien” was based on a short-story by Raycalled Bankubabur Bandhu.
