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 Some Interesting facts about INDIA

Fact 1

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Indira Gandhi was India's first and only female Prime Minister. She was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru – India's first prime minister– not the child of leader Mahatma Gandhi as her surname might suggest. She served from 1966-1977 and was reelected in 1980 before being assassinated in 1984 while still in office.

Fact 2

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Mother Teresa first donned her famous sari in 1948; it's now the uniform for nuns in her order, the Missionaries of Charity. Born in Macedonia in 1910, Mother Teresa is also known as Saint Teresa of Calcutta – was a Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She devoted her life to helping the poor in the city of Calcutta, although her methods were considered controversial by some.

Fact 3

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Mumbai's dabbawalahs deliver over 200,000 lunch boxes by bike and train from home to office daily. In an intricate system, each person receives the correct tiffin box filled with hot food prepared by their family, and in the afternoon the empty boxes are picked up and returned home again. There is even a movie based on the phenomenon, 2013's The Lunchbox.

Fact 4

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The state of Meghalaya, northeast India's "abode of clouds", is that the wettest inhabited place on earth. The forested region has a mean rainfall of 12,000 mm (470 inches) of rain per annum. That's nearly 33 mm of rain per day. Meghalaya's forests are home to a huge array of plant and animal species, including the Himalayan black bear, the pangolin (scaly anteater) and the zebra-striped hoopoe bird.

Fact 5

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A woman may be forbidden from housework while any color from the bridal mehndi is on her hands. Indian weddings are often colorful extended occasions that can last for anything from 3 days to a full week. The ceremonies start with the ganesh pooja, usually a private ceremony that takes place with the couple and their close families, followed by the mehndi ceremony the next day where henna patterns are painted on the bride and her female friends and family. That evening, there's often the sangeet a meal to welcome all the wedding guests, with the main ceremony and reception happening on the third day.

Fact 6

Tea had been growing in India for hundreds of years before  British began its commercial cultivation. The first recorded mention of tea within the country dates back to 750 BCE, and it had been reportedly also consumed as a vegetable dish, fried in oil with garlic. When British arrived in the 18th century, they began growing tea on a billboard scale to scale back their reliance on buying tea from China.

Fact 7

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White tigers are only found among Indian tigers. White tigers a kind of bengal tiger created through a variant in pigmentation. They often grow into larger animals than their orange-colored cousins.

Fact 8

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The Himalayas contain nine of the world's ten highest peaks. Covering almost 75% of Nepal, the Himalayas are known as  Samgarmatha  in Nepalese, which means ‘Goddess of the Universe’ or ‘Forehead of the Sky'.

Fact 9

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Indian cuisine could also be the oldest continuously prepared cuisine in known human history. Of course, what we all know at home as "Indian food" varies widely from place to put within the country itself. From the Portuguese-inspired dishes of Goa to the tandoori ovens of the Punjab, there's a wealth of different dishes to discover on a trip to  the country.

Fact 10

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It is illegal to take India's currency, the rupee, out of India. Instead, visitors must arrive with cash or dollars or pounds and exchange their money at the airport or bank currency booth, or use an ATM to withdraw rupees once in the country.

Fact 11

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In Indian law, only men can be punished for adultery. In recent years, lawmakers have been considering scrapping the law but no final decision has been made.

Fact 12

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In India 23 official languages are spoken, along side over  thousand minor languages and dialects. While Hindi is that the most generally spoken, no language is more official than the others – consistent with the constitution, each of the 22 local languages (plus English) are of equal importance.

Fact 13

Bollywood is the world's largest film industry, followed by Nigeria's Nollywood and Hollywood. India's film industry is predicted within the city of Mumbai and last year produced a staggering 1,986 feature films.

Fact 14

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In rural Bihar, Nalanda, one of the world's most ancient universities is being rebuilt. It was first established as a center of learning in the 5th century CE, when a large Buddhist monastery stood on site. Now a new Nalanda International University is being built nearby offering post-graduate courses on a wide variety of subjects.

Fact 15

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Indian railways is that the largest employer on the earth. With 1.4 million employees, India's state-owned railway network operates a huge, extensive network that extends across the country for hundreds of thousands of miles. Over 8 billion passengers travel on the railways                                                          each year.

Fact 16

India has an adult literacy rate of around 70%. Recent reports suggest this percentage is on the up, because the country tries to satisfy the worldwide average literacy rate of 84%.

Fact 17

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The sari dates back to a minimum of 100 B.C. Sari wearers often choose the colour of their garment based on the occasion. Red is taken into account auspicious for celebrations like weddings and is usually worn by the bride.

Fact 18

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The Bengal tiger is India's national animal. It was adopted as India's symbolic animal in 1972. Bandipur National Park in Karnataka has the largest population of wild Bengal tigers for visitors hoping to catch a glimpse.

Fact 19

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Khari Baoli in New Delhi is Asia's largest wholesale spice market. It's been in operational since the 17th century and is known as after the road on which its situated.

Via roughguides