101 Interesting Facts about India that you should not miss.
1. India, a beautiful peninsula in the Asian continent is the largest democracy in the world. India gained independence from the British regime on 15th August, 1947 and framed the constitution on 26th January 1950.
2. Mahatma Gandhi who was originally known as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi led the non-violence movement and succeeded in his mission to obtain freedom from the British rule. Hence, he is called ‘The father of the nation”.
3. India is the only multilingual, multi religion and multicultural country with all its citizens living under one roof with peace, harmony and fraternity. Unity in diversity is the base of India’s pride. The capital city is New Delhi.
4. India is a colorful nation with a tri color national flag. The tri color includes saffron, green and white with the blue Asoka Chakra in the center of the flag. The Asoka chakra (wheel) contains 24 spokes symbolizing the 24 righteousness. It represents the Asoka Chakra in Sarnath where Buddha started his preaching on peace and non-violence. Asoka is a great spiritual king who spread Buddhism all over the world with the help of his son Mahendra and daughter Sangamitra.
5. The National Emblem is three lion depicting the lion of Sarnath which was built in third century B.C. by King Asoka to mark the first preach of Buddha. Sarnath is near Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
6. ‘Jana Gana Mana’ is the national anthem composed by Pandit Ravindranath Tagore in Bengali, one of the languages spoken in India. The declaration was done on 24th January,
7. The national song is ‘Vande Mataram’ written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. This song was sung for the first time in the year 1896 during a gathering by the Indian National Congress.
8. The national animal is tiger usually called as Bengal tiger and it contributes to the pride of India’s wildlife.
9. The national flower is lotus considered as the sacred flower symbolizing peace and harmony.
10. The national bird is peacock symbolizing beauty, grace and pride.
11. The national tree is the banyan tree symbolizing the ancient culture and tradition and India is a nation that supports and lends a helping hand to other nations at time of crisis similar to the branches of the tree.
12. The national fruit is mango due to the fact that it the sacred fruit described in the Vedas (the spiritual knowledge). It is also called as the ‘divine food’.
13. The national calendar of India is the Saka calendar. The Gregorian calendar is also followed in India.
14. India derived its name from the ancient Indus river in the Indus valley, the most ancient and first civilization in the world. It was once the land of the Hindus with Hinduism as the ancient religion and community before the British and Mughal invasion. Hence, it is also known as Hindustan.
15. India is also called as Bharath named after the king Baratha a renowned character in the ancient epic Ramayana.
16. The official language of India is Hindi, the widely spoken language and English.
17. India’s national language is Sanskrit in which all the scriptures and Vedas are written. Most of the languages in India are derived from this language except Tamil, the first and most ancient language in the world.
18. India has 28 states and 7 union territories.
19. India has a population of 1,66,079,217 making it as the second largest populated country in the world.
20. The geographic area is around 3.3 million square miles.
21. The Indian legislature is called the ‘Sansad’ consists of the Lok Sabha lead by the Prime Minister supported by his cabinet ministers and the Rajya Sabha led by the President of India. The President of India is the first citizen and his wife is the first lady. He is the supreme head of the country and appoints the prime minister. The lok sabha and rajya sabha are jointly called as the parliament.
22. The Supreme Court is highest judicial body running various high courts in the respective states and various other lower courts run under the high court.
23. A majority of India’s occupation is cultivation and the farmers contribute to the greatest percentage of working community in India. Hence, the slogan given by former president Lal Bahadur Shastri ‘ jai javan jai kissan’ is popular in India. Javan refers to the army men who sacrifice their lives for their mother country. Kissan refers to the farmers in Hindi.
24. India is rich in its cultural heritage with dance and music. Bharthanatyam, Kathak, Kucchupudi, Kathakali are some of the most prestigious dances contributing to India’s pride and cultural heritage. Similarly, the carnatic music and Hindustani are admired by the people of the world. Melodious and spiritual musical instruments such as flute, sitar, table, mirithangam, and violin contribute to India’s traditional music. There are world class musicians who contribute to India’s cultural heritage and pride.
25. India’s traditional dress is the sari and of course salwar kameez is the widely worn dress in India. The Banaras silk and Kanchivaram silk are widely popular among the people of the world for their bright colors, designs and elegance. The gagra kohli is also widely worn in India.
26. India is also popular for various ancient folks and folk dances such as the Garba dance, Kolkata, Kummi attam, Bangara dance, Kalari attam, Mohini attam, etc.,
27. India is a land of the tourists with attractive tourist spots portraying the rich cultural heritage and spiritual wonders and natural beauty. Some of the interesting tourist spots include the Kashmir valley, Simla, Darjeeling, Kulu manali, Jaipur (pink city), Rameshswaram, Varanasi, and many other temples and sanctuaries.
28. The northern side is covered by the Himalayas being the highest and longest mountain chain in the world with Mount Everest being the highest peak in the world. The first person to climb Mount Everest was Tensing Norgay and the first woman was Bachendri Pal.
29. The river Ganga is a perennial and sacred river originating in the Himalayas. The place where Ganga originates is called Gangotri and is considered as a place of worship. It is an ancient belief that a sacred dip in the Ganga relieves oneself from all his sins. Ganges is the longest river in India. It runs for 2529 km and flourishes the agricultural growth of several Indian states.
30. Other renowned rivers include Brahmaputra (longest river), Yamuna, Saraswathi, Godavari, Kaveri, Tungabhadra.
31. Being a Hindu country with spiritual heritage there are lots of temples with beautiful sculptures bringing out India’s craftsmanship.
32. India is a country that accepts all other religions and religious communities and hence there are renowned churches and mosques and gurudwaras.
33. The gurudwara in the Amristsar a sacred shrine of the Sikhs is called the golden temple in the state of Punjab.
34. The Taj mahal, a tomb built by King Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz symbolizes true and immense love and had become a romantic symbol of the world. The king engaged 22,000 craftsmen and laborers in building the Taj Mahal and the completion took 22 years. The mahal was completely built with marble and precious stones embedded in the beautiful drawings. Most of the stones were stolen and there is also a folklore that Shah Jahan cut the hands of all those who were involved in building this beautiful monument so that this would be unique in the world. There is another folklore that says all those craftsmen and laborers were executed. Whatever, today Taj mahal is one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
35. The cuisine and culinary art of India makes it the most sought after place when it comes to dining. Some of the delicious cuisine includes the Mughal biriyani, spicy gravies, sweet desserts such as kheer, payasam and snacks such as samosas, cutlets etc.,
36. India is the only place where food is served in plantain leaf symbolizing hospitality. This is served mostly in the southern region of the country.
37. India is also known for its ancient medicine curing almost all diseases. The Vedas contain the secret formula for preparing medicines such as ayurveda, halopathy and homeopathy which has great medicinal value. The country is rich in medicinal herbs that cure almost all diseases, many medicinal secrets still unrevealed. The first plastic surgery was done in India and ancient medicine had cure for invasive procedures such as fractures.
38. Science and Maths were also the fields of excellence contributing to the innovation of trigonometry, calculus and algebra.
39. The missiles today had their origination from the arrows depicted in the ancient epic Ramayana. India is the birthplace of archery and had skilled Indian emperors who were originally called as ‘Saduranga’and the world chess champion is an Indian named Viswanath Anand.
40. Dieties such as Lord Ganesh and Lord Krishna are known worldwide. Lord Ganesh is known as elephant god or lucky Ganesha. Lord Krishna’s ‘Bhagavad Gita’ is known all over the world preaching the doctrines for being a perfect human. The ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’ movement was started in India by the ISKCON.
41. The Kumbh Mela is a popular religious festival celebrated by the Hindus in India once in twelve years. A huge gathering worship Trimbakeshwar (a form of Lord Shiva) and 60 million people in the year 2001 gathered for this festival breaking a world record.
42. The cotton fabric makes India more popular and has become the most fascinated fabric for most of the Westerners and Europeans. Mahatma Gandhi started the ‘Swadesi’ movement by encouraging every Indian to spin cotton during the freedom fight era to mark the boycott of the use of clothes from Britain.
43. India produces most of the world’s dried beans. Kidney beans and chickpeas are few to mention. Also, India is the leader in banana and jute export.
44. The Sundarbans in the Bengal is the dampest region in India.
45. There is rain almost all day in Cherapoonjee.
46. Tibet and Nepal were once part of India and now its neighboring countries. Afghanistan and Bangladesh and Pakistan which split from India are also its neighboring countries and once part of India. Still, ancient epics depict certain places in Afghanistan such as Kandahar and Hastinapur.
47. The largest postal network in the world is in India with 150,000 post offices.
48. Similarly India has the largest rail network in the world.
49. India also excels the IT world. In the United States, notorious IT wizards are Indians such as Vinod Khosla who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Vinod Dahm who invented the Pentium and Sabeer Bhatia who created the Hotmail.
50. Alexander the Great played an important role in bringing out India’s pride into the west, and Europe.
51. Parrots are beautiful birds with rose rings across their neck. They were used for tarot reading in India.
52. India was a colony for the French and Portuguese as well, other than the British. Hence French is also recognized as a foreign language in India especially in Pondicherry one of the union territories in Tamil Nadu.
53. Nearly 80% of Indian population is Hindus. The largest minority being Muslims and the Christians in the next place.
54. Bollywood in par with Hollywood contributes to the largest movie industry in India. Mumbai called as India’s Manchester the place where most of the country’s movie industry flourishes. This city is also called the gateway of India.
55. India has the famous “Lotus Temple, which was architected in the form of a lotus flower, built in marble. It has 27 huge petals.
56. Marriages in India are very rich and grand especially Hindu marriages. The stages are decorated with Marigold flowers and the marriage is filled with fun and happiness uniting relatives and friends. Lots of sweets are served during the marriage. Colorful outfits and music are part of Indian marriages.
57. Cow is the sacred animal and worshipped as the goddess yielding milk. Hence, India is the world largest milk producing country.
58. Though England is the birthplace of cricket, India is excels the game today and has world champions such as Sachin Tendulkar. Most of the Indians are fascinated by the game though hockey is the national game. India won a gold medal in hockey during the 1968 Olympics.
59. The numeral zero was introduced by Aryabhatta and it is called as ‘cipher’` that adds value to the other numerals.
60. Nearly 1,652 dialects are spoken in India
61. India has the world’s third largest road network at 1.9 million miles. It also has the world’s second largest rail network.
62. All Indians wash their hands, legs, and face before and after before meal. Indian eats food by their right hands which are believed to be the secret of enjoying the taste of food. Indians do not waste food and consider such act as a sin.
63. Sacrificing horse was a custom in India as per the Vedas to proclaim the sovereignty of the ruler of the kingdom.
64. India has eminent scholars from ancient times till date. Scholars like Kalidas, Kambar, and Ved Vyas, Vatsayana wrote interesting epics. Modern India has great scholars and writers as well. Some include Arundati Roy who wrote ‘The god of small things’, Salman Rushdie who wrote ‘Satanic Verses’ and Vikram Seth who wrote ‘Suitable Boy’.
65. Ravindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for literature.
66. India had great painters in par with Michael Angelo such as M.F. Hussain.
67. Being the land of spirituality, Vivekananda who was the disciple of bagavan Ramakrishna Paramahamsar hailed the power of Hinduism in the west by giving a historic speech in the United States senate.
68. India is the birthplace of great saints such as Adi Shankar who gave ‘Advaida’ and Mahans such as Ragavendra, Vallalar, Maatha Sarada, Shridi Sai Baba who preached peace and virtues through Hinduism.
69. India is also the birth place of certain religions followed worldwide such as Buddhism and Jainism. Lord Gautama Buddha founder of Buddhism was born in Nepal which was once in India and he attained enlightenment and started his first preach and attained mukthi (salvation) in places such as Sarnath, Bodh Gaya and Lumbini gardens in India.
70. The martial arts being practiced and taught in Asian countries today, originated in India and spread to Asian countries by Buddhist monks from India.
71. India was one of the richest countries before the British invasion. The diamond in Queen Elizabeth’s crown is from India. In ancient India, women threw their gold earrings to quit the birds eating their grains. Also, elephants were used to split the grains rather than bulls as the harvest was abundant.
72. The Brahadeswara temple in Tanjur (Tamil Nadu) is a historic pilgrimage and was carved from a single stone. It still remains a mystery as to how the elephants were used to carry heavy stones while building the temple. Another amazing fact about this temple is that this temple does not cast a shadow at all.
73. The longest beach is the Marina beach in Chennai, the capital city of the state of Tamil Nadu and it is also one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
74. Kashmir is called the heaven of India with beautiful natural resorts and greeneries attracting most of the tourists. Hence, the dispute between India and Pakistan is still unresolved in owning Kashmir. It is famous for green apples and the Wular Lake and Dhal Lake are renowned tourist spots.
75. India is green through the year and has six seasons: summer, autumn, winter, spring, with monsoon rains.
76. India is the world largest tea exporters with majority of tea leaves planted in Assam and Nilgiris.
77. Aryan civilization has roots in India. Aryans were indo Europeans who migrated to India in B.C.and settled in North West India. Other than Aryans, Persians also are migrated and settled in India and formed a community called Parsis who followed Zoarastranism. They worshipped the fire god. Today, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis are all under one roof in India.
78. The Tamil community called as Dravidians occupied the southern region in a state called Tamil Nadu in India. Earlier all the southern states were together as one state.
79. India’s first satellite was Arybahatta.
80. Mahabalipuram in Tamil nadu is famous for the stone temples called seven pagodas and the sculptures. All are eroded by the sea and only one pagaoda stands today to mark the Pallava dynasty.
81. Kanyakumari is the southern tip of India as Kashmir is the northern tip. The Kanyakumari sea is a place where three seas join and the sand in the sea shore is colorful.
82. India is popular for many spiritual mysteries, realities and miracles. There are lots of evidences for the numerous miracles that have occurred in India.
83. Jaipur in Rajasthan is called as the pink city attracting lots of tourists. It is called as pink city due to the Pink Hawa Mahal. It is also popular for the elephant and camel rides.
84. India stands tenth in the world GDP ranking. In 2011, its GDP is 1897, 608 millions of US $
85. Children’s day is celebrated on the 14th of November. It marks the birth of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of free India. He was an ardent lover of children and rose flower.
86. Teacher’s day is celebrated on the 5th of September. It marks the birth of Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, former President of India. He was a teacher by profession, prior to his presidential career.
87. Deepavali is festival of lights. It is celebrated worldwide by all Indians by fireworks and sharing love and joy with fellow people.
88. Holi is the festival of colors. Color powders are thrown on each other to show their love and joy.
89. Pongal is celebrated in the month of January. It is the harvest festival of south Indians. It is celebrated for three days as Pongal (thanks to sun god), Mattu Pongal (thanks to cow for the harvest), Kanum Pongal (thanks to each other )
90. Jallikattu is hosted during Pongal festival. It is an ancient bull taming sport. It is a much humane way of bull sport where the bulls are not killed, instead angry bulls are tamed without any weapons.
91. India fares well in the tennis for many years. India’s Leander Paes and Mahesh Bupathi have won several championships in doubles tennis. This includes grand slams French open, Wimbledon, US open and Australian open tennis.
92. India has been the world Kabadi champions for many years. Kabadi is an ancient Indian sport recognized and included in the Asian games. It is yet to be included in the Olympics.
93. India’s wrestling team has performed well at the international levels. Sushil Kumar of India have won two Olympics medals.
94. Indian space research organization is the 6th largest in the world. They have successfully developed PSLV and GSLV rockets which has launched several satellites which includes Chandryan, the first Indian mission to the moon.
95. Varanasi is the spiritual capital of India. It is in the banks of River Ganges. It houses the temple of Kasi Viswanath.
96. Konark is a small town in Orissa. It has the world famous sun temple. It is also known as the black pagoda
97. Tirupati is the pilgrimage city in Andhra. It hosts the temple of Lord Venkateshwara. It is one of the world’s richest temples with revenue of over several cores per day.
98. Ramayana and Mahabarath are the two great epics of India. They both depict different avatars of Lord Krishna. They convey the moral truth, ‘Goodness triumphs over Evil’
99. Indian women have performed well in the international beauty pageant show. India’s Aishwarya Rai has won the Miss World title in 1994. Sushmita Sen has won the Miss Universe title in 1994. Since then, several other women have won Miss World and Miss Universe titles.
100. Satyajit Rai won the Oscar award for his life time achievement in film making.
101. A.R. Rahman won the Oscar for composing music in the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
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