India is an ancient
country with ancient civilization of arya samaj. Over 1.1billion people live in
India, from the deserts of Rajasthan and the blissful beaches of Goa, to the
Keralan tea plantations and the metropolitan cities of Mumbai and Kolkata. With
such a huge diversity of landscapes, religion and culture, India is a
fascinating place to visit.
Learn a little more about this enormous country with our interesting facts about India:
Indira Ganshi was
India’s first and only female Prime Minister.
Mother Teresa first
donned her famous saree in 1948; it’s now the uniform for nuns in her order.
Mumbai’s dabbawallahs
deliver over 200,000 lunch boxes by bike and train from home to office daily.
The state of
Meghalaya, northeast India’s “abode of clouds”, is the wettest inhabited place
on earth.
Tea had been growing
in India for centuries before the British began its commercial cultivation.
The Himalayas contain
nine of the world’s ten highest peaks.
A woman may be
forbidden from housework while any colour from the bridal mehndi is on her hands.
India now boasts
400,000 millionaires with a combined net worth nearly US$2.5 billion.
India cuisine may be
the oldest continuously prepared cuisine in known human history.
Alcohol consumption
is banned in five Indian states; the drinking age varies from 18 to 30 in the
others.
In terms of
purchasing power, India is the world’s third largest economy.
The jalfrezi has
overtaken tikka masala as Britain’s favourite Indian dish.
It is illegal to take
India’s currency, the rupee, out of India.
Bollywood is the
world’s largest film industry, followed by Nigeria’s Nollywood and Hollywood.
India is the world’s
2nd largest country by population, and 7th largest land
mass.
Eighty percent of
India’s population is Hindu, 13% are Muslim and millions are Sikh, Jain or
Christian.
In Indian law, only
men can be punished for adultery.
It is claimed that
the game of chess originated in India.
In India 23 official
languages are spoken, along with over a thousand minor languages and dialects.
In rural Bihar,
Nalanda, one of the world’s most ancient universities, are being rebuilt.
Half of the world’s
outsourced IT services come from India.
India has an adult
literacy rate of around 70%.
India produces a staggering
4700 daily papers in over 300 languages, plus 39,000 journals and weeklies.
Indian Railways is
the largest employer on the planet.
White tigers are only
found among Indian tigers.
The Bengal Tiger in
India’s national animal.
