May 31, 2017
- India is the world’s largest democracy, with 1.2 billion people.
- 100 million people come to India’s Kumbh Mela Festival, the world’s biggest gathering of humans.
- India’s Hindu calendar has 6 seasons: spring, summer, monsoon, autumn, winter and preverbal.
- Breathing the air in Mumbai, India, for just one day is equivalent to smoking 100 cigarettes.
- To earn enough to buy a Big Mac, the average person in India has to work almost 6 hours.
- In Canada, Mexico, India, Russia and Israel, bank notes have Braille-like markings on them for the blind.
- 70% of all the world’s spices come from India.
- Police officers in one state in India are given a slight pay upgrade for having a moustache.
- Gleevec, a cancer drug that costs US$70,000 in the U.S. per year, cost just US$2,500 in India because it can’t be patented there.
- Children’s Day is celebrated in India on November 14th, 9 months after Valentine’s Day.
- In India, there is a vigilante group called the “Love Commandos” that offers protection from harassment to couples from different castes who fall in love.
- 61% of school children in India have disease-causing germs on their hands.
- A man revived 5 rivers and brought water back to 1000 villages in India using native water preservation techniques.
- There’s a village in India that produces most bouncers and bodyguards of New Delhi’s nightclubs.
- Only about 1 in 100 marriages in India end in divorce, one of the lowest rates in the world.
- In West Bengal, India, cows must have a Photo ID Card.
- During WW2, India produced the largest volunteer Army in world history: over 2.5 million men. At least 38 Indians received the Victoria Cross or the George Cross.
- One woman dies every hour in India because of dowry-related crimes.
- India has the largest slave population in the modern world with over 14 million slaves.
- 53% of homes in India do not have a lavatory.
- India has more mobile phones than toilets.
- There’s an experimental township in India founded in 1968 and called Auroville, where citizens are from all over the world and there’s no money or religion.
- The village of Shani Shingnapur, India, had no doors, locks or crime for over 400 years until 2010.
- In India, a polling station is set up in a forest for a lone voter in every election since 2004.
- India has more population than the entire Western Hemisphere of Earth.
- While Beijing’s pollution problem is more famous, the world’s most polluted city is New Delhi, India.
- India’s “Go Air” airline only hires female flight attendants because they are lighter, so they save up to US$500,000 per year in fuel.
- A con man in India repeatedly “sold” the Taj Mahal, the Indian parliament and various other heritage sites. He was sentenced to 113 years but managed to escape prison 9 times. The last time, he was 84 years old.
- The richest man in India, Mukesh Ambani, built a home valued at US$1 billion. It’s a 27-story building with 3 helipads, a 6-floor car park, a staff of 600, a 4-storey hanging garden and a cinema.
- There is a gypsy tribe in India that celebrates death as one of the happiest events in their lives, while treating births with great grief.
- The Golden Temple in India feeds a vegetarian meal to over 100,000 people a day regardless of race, religion and class.
- India is expected to be the world’s most populous country by 2050. With 1.6 billion people, it will almost equal the U.S. and China’s population combined.
- Indian housewives hold 11% of the World’s Gold. That is more than the reserves of the U.S., IMF, Switzerland and Germany put together.
- India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages.
- The workforces of Colombia and India enjoy a leisurely 18 days off per year, making them the two countries with the most public holidays in the world.
- In India, it is not uncommon to consume marijuana in milkshake form.
- “Anal” is a language spoken in India and Burma by 23,000 people.
- In 2009, a doctor in India removed 172,155 stones from a patient’s left kidney during a three-hour surgery.
- The world’s biggest family lives together in India: a man with 39 wives and 94 children.
- India has more people using the internet than the entire population of the U.S.
- There 2.5 million of Zero Rupee banknotes in India. They are “paid” in protest by angry citizens to government functionaries who solicit bribes.
- A man married a dog in India as atonement.
- Farmers in India use Coca-Cola and Pepsi as cheap pesticides, according to the BBC.
- The Khasi people in Meghalaya, India, grow living bridges with tree roots.
- India planted nearly 50 million trees in 24 hours on Monday, July 11, 2016, a new Guinness World Record.
- London has more Indian restaurants than Mumbai or Delhi.
- The Taj Mahal’s white marble exterior is gradually turning yellow due to high levels of air pollution.
- In some remote Indian villages, babies are dropped from the tops of temples and caught by adults below—it’s believed to bring good health.
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