India - 100 Interesting facts

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1. In 1942, a British forest guard in India made an alarming discovery. Some 16,000 feet above sea level, at the bottom of a small valley, was a frozen lake (Roopkund lake) absolutely full of skeletons.

2. When Alexander the Great was invading India he learned of a Brahmin who lived in the woods visited him and the Brahmin replied, "You will soon be dead, and then you will own just as much of this earth as will suffice to bury you". Alexander approved of this sentiment and left him in peace.

3. The bird Americans call a "turkey" is called an India in Turkey, and a Peru in Portuguese.

4. After his wife was denied access to a village well by upper caste members, an Indian man named Bapurao Tajne spent 40 days digging his own well by hand. It now quenches the thirst of an entire village of Dalit (lower caste).

5. A lack of toilets costs India more than $50 billion a year, mostly through premature deaths and hygiene-related diseases.

6. A 5-year-old boy named Saroo Brierly in India fell asleep on a train and ended up lost and alone in Calcutta. He was adopted by an Australian couple and, 25 years later, reunited with his biological mother using Google Maps.

7. 13 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are just in India.

8. During World War 2, India produced the largest volunteer Army in world history, over 2.5 million men. Winston Churchill called their bravery "Unsurpassed", with at least 38 Indians awarded the Victoria Cross or the George Cross.

9. In 1986, a 22-year-old Indian air hostess named Neerja Bhanot who helped hide 41 American passports aboard a hijacked plane. She died shielding three children from gunfire and was posthumously awarded bravery medals from India, Pakistan, and the United States.

10. A male tiger in India adopted a litter of orphaned cubs, taking on the role of 'mother'. Wildlife officials say such behavior had never been observed before.

11. The world's largest soup kitchen is the Golden Temple, the holiest temple for Sikhs, which is located in Amritsar, Punjab, India. The Golden Temple can serve free food for up to 100,000 - 300,000 people every day, regardless of faith, religion, or background.

12. India bans captive dolphin shows as ‘morally unacceptable’ - They believe they are highly intelligent & should be seen as ‘non-human persons’ with their own specific rights.

13. A Mumbai thief was force-fed 48 bananas to make him excrete a stolen gold chain.

14. The Beatles trip to India ended badly because the Maharishi wanted the band to deposit up to 25% of their next album's profits in his Swiss bank account as a tithe, to which Lennon replied, "Over my dead body".

15. India celebrates Children's Day on November 14th, exactly 9 months after Valentines Day.

16. There is a rare blood group known as ‘h/h’ or ‘Oh’ which was first discovered in 1952 at Bombay, India, hence christening another name ‘Bombay Blood Group’. This blood is so rare that only 4 in a million would have it globally; however, every 1 in 10,000 have it in Bombay.

17. In India, there is a Guardian Angels-style vigilante group (Love Commandos) that protects young couples who fall in love across different castes. They are called the Love Commandos.

18. There are 2.5 million of Zero Rupee banknotes in India. They are "paid" in protest by angry citizens to government functionaries who solicit bribes.

19. Hallucinatory 'voices' shaped by local culture. In the U.S.A., voices are harsh and threatening while those heard by schizophrenics in Africa and India tend to be more benign and playful.

20. When introducing Golf to India, the British were angered by monkeys running onto the course & playing with their balls. When all attempts to stop the monkeys failed, they decided the game needed to adapt. To do so they introduced a new rule: "Play the ball where the monkey drops it."

21. India has proposed to link 67 rivers to prevent floods and droughts. By doing so, an area equivalent to that of Germany will be irrigated.

22. When Sati was prohibited in India. Charles Napier told protesting Hindu priests "Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property..."

23. A poor and illiterate irishman called George Thomas traveled to India, worked as a mercenary for Indian Kings and eventually became a King himself, ruling over his own kingdom for a number of years in the districts of Rohtak and Hisar.

24. The 'sand mafia' is a huge problem in India, illegally mining sand and causing permanent environmental damage.

25. In 1947, India and Pakistan still had British Officers in their armies. When the first Indo-Pakistan War broke out, they commanded troops on both sides and regularly corresponded via telephone.

26. In 2004, 200 women in India, armed with vegetable knives, stormed into a courtroom and hacked to death a serial rapist (Akku Yadav) whose trial was underway. Then every woman claimed responsibility for the murder.

27. A pregnant Indian woman named Yellava swam nearly 1 km across a swollen river to give birth in a hospital instead of her home.

28. If you are 27, half of India is younger than you. If you are 30, already half of the world is younger than you.

29. 70% of the spices used in the world come from one country. India.

30. An Indian rationalist named Sanal Edamaruku was accused of blasphemy and had to flee the country after he proved that the "miracle" tears coming from a Jesus statue actually came from clogged drainage pipes.

31. Arunachalam Muruganantham invented a simple method to produce low-cost sanitary pads in India. It took 4.5 years, his wife and mother left, and he was expelled from his village. He said: "Luckily I'm not educated. If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop. You have no fear of the future".

32. There is a gypsy tribe in India that celebrates death as one of the happiest events in their lives while treating births as occasions of great grief.

33. There is a tribe in India that has learned how to train the roots of fig trees to create natural suspension bridges that can span over 100 feet and last 500-600 years.

34. In the 1980s, India released 25,000 flesh-eating turtles into the Ganges river in an attempt to clean up corpse-pollution. The turtles were raised on dead fish so they wouldn’t develop a taste for the living, as they ate most everything. The $32M plan failed due to corruption and mismanagement.

35. In North America and India, 'lemonade' is not a carbonated soft drink, but is actually made from lemon juice, water, and sugar.

36. India has more people using the Internet than the entire population of the United States.

37. Asiatic lions still inhabit India's Gujarat state, making them the only Lions to naturally live outside of Africa.

38. An elephant in India, while helping villagers lift logs, refused to lower a log into a certain hole because there was a dog sleeping in it. Only after the dog was chased away would the elephant lower the log into the hole.

39. Over 30% of pharmaceuticals sold in developing countries are counterfeit. Roughly 50% of malaria drugs and up to 30% of antibiotics are counterfeit, mostly originating from India. Over 700,000 people die every year from consuming counterfeit drugs.

40. In a 2009 paper, researchers found that the widespread introduction of television across India was associated with decreased acceptability of domestic violence against women, increases in women's autonomy and an overall decrease in the country's fertility rate.

41. A woman named Shakuntala Devi in India once calculated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers - 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779 - correctly in just 28 seconds.

42. Queen Elizabeth still keeps a diamond stolen from India in her crown and it's one of the largest diamonds in the world.

43. In 1848, the British East India Company sent Botanist Robert Fortune on a trip to China's interior, an area forbidden to foreigners to steal tea seeds from China to India. He succeeded and within his lifetime, India surpassed China as the world's largest tea grower.

44. In countries with higher piracy rates like Russia and India, Microsoft prices Office products much cheaper.

45. Jews living in India faced almost no antisemitism when they arrived there until the Portuguese and British colonized India.

46. Villagers in the India village of Marottichal began playing chess as an alternative to drinking after a ban on alcohol.The village is now known as 'Chess Village' due to its near 100% chess literacy.

47. India was formerly an island but crashed into Tibet 40 million years ago. The impact created the Himalayas, which are still being pushed up by 2cm each year.

48. 5% of India's population is on Facebook, but already it has the third largest Facebook population in the world.

49. Bhopal gas disaster was the worst industrial disaster ever killing close to 4000 people. The incident happened when poison gas escaped from a Union Carbide factory due to negligence. The American CEO of the company was arrested, let out on $2100 bail and never came back to India to face charges.

50. Sex toys are illegal in India, and their sale punishable by 2 years in prison.

51. The drug Daraprim costs about 5 cents in India compared to $750 in the United States!

52. In ancient India, Diabetes was called "madhumeha" or "honey urine" as the urine would attract ants. Indian physicians Sushruta and Charaka identified Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes as separate conditions for the first time in 400-500 CE.

53. An 'extinct' tree frog has been rediscovered in India after 137 years.

54. Sri Lanka and India were connected by a faint 50-kilometer long sandbar that existed until 1480 when a storm broke it. People used to walk the wispy sandbar from the mainland to the large island in the Indian Ocean, losing sight of the land masses. Scientists still argue as to how it was formed.

55. The East India Trading Company once had a private army of 260,000. Double that of the British Army. It also once accounted for half of the world's trade.

56. One of the reasons why Sikhs started carrying a "Kirpan" or ceremonial dagger was to protect themselves and others from forced conversions to Islam by the Muslim rulers of India in the 1600s.

57. India's richest person, Mukesh Ambani, built a $1 billion home. It has 27 habitable floors, including six parking floors for the capacity of up to 168 cars. A staff of 600 maintain the home.

58. A young farmer named Sumant Kumar in India has broken the world record rice harvest by 3 tons per hectare using only organic methods.

59. The word "thug" comes from Thuggees, who were professional robbers and murderers that terrorized India for 600 years. They were eventually destroyed by the British.

60. A man named Ratanlal Maloo created an artificial sanctuary for the migratory Demoiselle Cranes in Rajasthan, India by feeding them every year over a span of 40 years. Their numbers increased from 80, 40 years ago, to 15000 in 2011.

61. In 2015, a bus driver in India took a nap on his bus, only to be awoken to a monkey that had climbed into the driver's cabin and had started the engine. As the driver ran to the cabin, the monkey panicked, shifted gears & jumped out. The bus rammed 2 other buses before the driver regained control.

62. India's Mars mission is cheaper than a Hollywood movie Gravity.

63. 60% of mid-size motels and hotels in the US are owned by those of Indian-origin, and of those, 1/3 have the last name 'Patel'; a name used by the educated merchant class in Gujarat, India which means "landowner".

64. In 1961, India declared a surprise war on Portugal, annexing lands held for 450 years.

65. 47% of the population publicly defecates in India, and they can get paid one rupee to use a toilet.

66. There's an Association of Dead People in India, protesting after losing their land to relatives who have corrupt officials declare them dead.

67. There is a gang of women (Gulabi gang) in India that go after abusive husbands and fight to stop child marriages.

68. Pot consumption in the form of a milkshake is quite common in India.

69. Forest rangers in an Indian state can kill tiger poachers on sight if they catch them in the act and it won’t be considered a crime.

70. India has been the largest troop contributor to UN missions since its inception.

71. An eight year old boy named Amardeep Sada in India is the world's youngest known serial killer. He was charged with the murder of three children, including his sister, who were all less than one year old.

72. All packaged products sold in India have a "maximum retail price" printed on the package by the manufacturer and that it is illegal for a store to charge more than that. India is the only country with this system.

73. The Prime Minister of India's salary is only $2,400 USD

74. A boy named Ashik Gavai had 232 teeth surgically removed, due to having a very rare disease that causes additional teeth to grow in the mouth.

75. Back in 1894 the British Government did an inquiry into cannabis use in India, and concluded that "moderate use practically produces no ill effects".

76. In the early 19th century, the East India Company had cut off the hands of hundreds of weavers in Bengal in order to destroy the indigenous weaving industry in favor of British textile imports.

77. A man named Kalyanasundaram in India took up odd part-time jobs so he could donate all his savings and regular income to those in need, every month for 30 years. After he retired as a librarian, he even donated his pension.

78. The Asian brown cloud is a layer of air pollution that appears over South Asia and the Indian Ocean every year between January and March when there is no rain to wash pollutants from the air. Nearly two million people die each year, in India alone, from conditions related to the brown cloud.

79. Only about 1% out of 1.25 billion people in India pay taxes.

80. A Indian man named Manpreet Singh stopped growing at the age of six months and at the age of 21 (in 2017) was only 23 inches tall.

81. The disclosure of the sex of the fetus is strictly prohibited under the law in India because of issues with "female foeticide" and the negativity associated with having a female child creates due to the dowry system.

82. In 1981, India launched a satellite that was transported on an ox-cart, with the rocket parts carried on the back of bicycles.

83. India was attacked on 7/11. Bombs were set off on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai, 209 people were killed and over 700 were injured.

84. There are huge "step wells" (Chand Boari) in India up to 13 stories deep which keep the water 5-6 degrees cooler than it is at the surface.

85. A village (Piplantri) in Rajasthan, India plants 111 trees every time a girl is born, ensuring the tree's survival over the years. The village has planted over 250,000 trees.

86. A pigeon was held in India and kept under police guard on an allegation of spying for Pakistan

87. There is a tree in India whose canopy covers 3.7 acres (14,5000 square meters) in the area making it the widest tree in the world.

88. There's a Deaf KFC in Pakistan, India and Egypt made for and handled by deaf people.

89. There are more tigers in Texas than in their native land of India.

90. After the Kargil War of 1999 between India and Pakistan, Indian Army recommended to Pakistan that one of their soldier (Karnal Sher Khan) be honored for bravery by them. Pakistan accepted the recommendation, posthumously awarding him their highest military honor.

91. In India, you can have your fresh home-cooked lunch picked up and delivered to your office by Dabbawalas with less than one error per six million deliveries.

92. During World War II, the British Government covered the Taj Mahal with Bamboo scaffoldings to protect it from German Bombers. This was done again during 1965 and 1971 when India was involved in conflicts with Pakistan.

93. Lord Cornwallis, the general famous for leading the British Army during the American Revolution became Governor-General of India after the war and is buried there in a tomb overlooking the Ganges River.

94. India has the largest government midday meal program in the world, feeding 120 million students per day for free.

95. There's a village (Asola Fatehpur Beri ) in India that exclusively produces bouncers and bodyguards for New Delhi nightclubs.

96. In 2004, exercise between the US and the Indian Air Forces, Indian pilots notched up an astounding 9:1 kill ratio. U.S. pilots said that the Indian pilots showed innovation and flexibility in their tactics. and that they came into the exercise underrating the training and tactics of the IAF.

97. The Great Gama is the only undefeated wrestler in the world. His career spanned 50 years. And Bruce Lee was a fan.

98. A major cause of human rabies deaths in India is faith healing as people believe that they've been impregnated by puppies after being bitten by a dog and consult a healer instead of a doctor before it's too late. This mass hysteria is called Puppy pregnancy syndrome.

99. Diamonds were not originally mined. They were actually found alongside or at the bottom of rivers in India.

100. The Ghost Chili was investigated by India as a nonlethal way to flush out terrorists from their hideouts and to control rioters. It was called a "Chili Grenade."

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