India - Interesting Known & Unknown Facts

          India is a tourist's delight. The most famous tourist attraction is Taj Mahal. Build in the 17th century in pure Marble, Taj Mahal is the tomb built by the Mughal Emperor Shahjahan for his beloved wife Mumtaz. However India does not end with the Taj. Due to its vast size and varying culture, India is a challenge to any tourist. It is an adventure which leaves everyone well satiated at the end of it. The snow clad mountain peaks of Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh , the forests of Madhya Pradesh, the deserts of Rajasthan, the beaches of Goa, the back waters of Kerala, the hustle and bustle of Bombay to the elegance of New Delhi are all bound to thrill any tourist. You are bound to be amazed by a nation that speaks about 15 languages and 800 dialects, by its richness and its poverty. You will be warmed by the smile on every face, the song on their lips. And as one finishes the tour of this glorious country, the sanguine people and the serene land, where time has often stood still, is sure to fill the memory for a long time.

           India lies in South Asia between latitudes 8 degree 4' and 37 degree 5' North and longitudes 68 degree 7' and 97 degree 25' east. It is bound on the South-West by Arabian Sea and on the South-East by the Bay of Bengal. On the North-East & North-West lie Himalayan ranges. The Southern tip, Kanyakumari is washed by the Indian Ocean. It covers a total land area of 32, 87,782 sq. km measuring 3214 km from North to South and 2933 km from East to West. It has a land frontier of 15200 kms and a coast line of about 6100 km excluding Lakshadweep, Andaman & Nicobar Islands. 

Some Known and Unknown Facts:  

·        India has never invaded any country in her last 10,000 years of history.  

·        India invented the number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.  

·        India established the world's first University at Takshasila in 700 B.C.  

·        Sanskrit is the mother of all European languages. It is the best suited language for computer software (Forbes magazine, July 1987).  

·        Ayurveda is the earliest system of medicine known to humans.  

·        The art of navigation originated in the river Sindh 6000 years ago. Navigation comes from the Sanskrit word "Nav Gatih".  

·        Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by earth to orbit the sun as 365.258756484 days (in 5th century A.D).  

·        In the 6th century A.D Budhayana calculated the value of pi. Quadratic equations were propounded by Sridharacharya in the 11th century.  

·        According to the Gemological Institute of America, upto 1896, India was the only source for diamonds.  

·        IEEE has proved an age old suspicion that the pioneer of wireless communication is Jagdish Bose and not Marconi.  

·        The earliest reservoir and dam was built in Saurashtra, India during Chandragupta Maurya's time (300 B.C)  

·        Chess originated in India.  

·        Susruta is known as the father of surgery, performing complex surgeries as many as 2600 years ago.

Current facts:

1.      Q. Who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems?

Vinod Khosla

2.      Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the today's computers run on it)?

Vinod Dahm

3.      Q. Who is the third richest man on the world?

According to the latest report on Fortune Magazine, it is Aziz Premji, who is the CEO of Wipro Industries. The Sultan of Brunei is at 6th position now.

4.      Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world's No.1 web based email program)?

Sabeer Bhatia

5.      Q. Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, UNIX to name a few)?

Arun Netravalli

6.      Q. Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard?

Rajiv Gupta

7.      Q. Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems?

Sanjay Tejwrika

8.      Q. Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey & Stanchart?

Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.

9.      Q. What is percentage of ethnic groups in America?

There are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population). Yet,  

38% of doctors in USA are Indians.  

12% scientists in USA are Indians.  

36% of NASA scientists are Indians.  

34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.  

28% of IBM employees are Indians.  

17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.  

13% of XEROX employees are Indians.