91 Pretty Awesome Facts About India You Never Knew

- Sponsored Links -

26Living root bridges

Living root bridges

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.


27. 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


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


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


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


Latest FactRepublic Video:
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History


31Helping elephant

Helping elephant

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.


32. 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.


33. 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.


34. 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.


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


- Sponsored Links -

36Robert Fortune's trip

Robert Fortune's trip

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.


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


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


39. 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.


40. 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


- Sponsored Links -

41Facebook

Facebook

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


42. 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.


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


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


45. 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


46Extinct frog

Extinct frog

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


47. 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.


48. 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.


49. 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


50. 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.

1
2
3
4
- Sponsored Links -

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here