WHY IS THE WORLD PROUD OF INDIA

1. INDIA is the world's largest, oldest, continuous civilization.

2. India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.

3. India is the world's largest democracy.

4. Varanasi, also known as Benares, was called "the ancient city" when Lord Buddha visited it in 500 BCE and is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world today.

5. India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

6. The World's first university was established in Takshashila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

7. Sanskrit is the mother of all the European languages. Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software - a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987.

8. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.

9. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago. Today Ayurveda is fast regaining its rightful place in our civilization.

10. Although modern images of India often show poverty and lack of development, India was the richest country on earth until the time of British invasion in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus was attracted by India's wealth.

11. The art of Navigation was born in the river Sindhu 6000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word, ‘Navgatih’. The word ‘Navy’ is also derived from the Sanskrit word, 'Nou'.

12. Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.

13. The value of ‘pi’ was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century long before the European mathematicians.

14. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10**53(10 to the power of 53) with specific names as early as 5000 BCE during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera 10**12(10 to the power of 12).

15. IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) has proved what has been a century old suspicion in the world scientific community that the pioneer of wireless communication was Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose and not Marconi.

16. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.

According to Saka King Rudradaman - I of 150 BCE, a beautiful lake called Sudarshana was constructed on the hills of Raivataka during Chandragupta Maurya's time.

17. Chess (Shataranja or AshtaPada) was invented in India.

18. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago, he and health scientists of his time conducted complicated surgeries like cesareans, cataract, artificial limbs, fractures, urinary stones and even plastic surgery and brain surgery. Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India. Over 125 surgical equipments were used. Deep knowledge of anatomy, physiology, etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics and immunity is also found in many texts.

19. When many cultures were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established the Harappan culture in the Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilization).

20. The four religions born in India, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism are followed by 25% of the world's population.

21. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

22. India is one of the few countries in the World, which gained independence without violence.

23. India has the second largest pool of Scientists and Engineers in the World.

24. India is the largest English speaking nation in the world.

25. India is the only country other than US and Japan, to have built a super computer indigenously.

Famous Quotes on India (by non-Indians)

1. Albert Einstein said: “We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.”
   
2. Mark Twain said: “India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only.”
   
3. French scholar Romaine Rolland said: “If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.”
   
4. Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA said: “India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.”

Facts to Make Every Indian Proud

Q. Who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems?
A. Vinod Khosla.

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

Q. Who is the seventh richest man in the world?
A. According to the latest report on Forbes.com, it is Mukesh Ambani, who is the Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited, India's largest private sector company.

Mukesh Ambani

The eighth richest man in the world is Lakshmi Mittal who heads the world’s largest steel company, ‘ArcelorMittal’. 

Lakshmi Mittal

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

Q. Who is the pioneer of digital technology including HDTV and MPEG4 and is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, and UNIX to name a few)?
A. Arun Netravalli. He has been the President of Bell Laboratories and Chief Scientist for Lucent Technologies. 

Arun Netravalli

Q. Who is the Director of Hewlett Packard?
A. Rajiv L. Gupta. He was also the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Rohm and Haas Company, a worldwide producer of specialty materials, from October 1999 to April 2009.

Rajiv L Gupta

Q. Who is the greatest batsman in the history of cricket?

A. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. No one walks out to bat taking the hopes of a billion people to score a century every game and still scores 12000 runs in tests and almost17000 runs in one days and more than 40 centuries in both forms of the game. Not to forget he peaked in his career when India had one of their weakest teams. 

Sachin Tendulkar

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.

Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives. There are 3.22 millions of Indians in the USA (1.5% of population).

All of the above is just the tip of the iceberg, the list could be endless. But… if we don’t see even a glimpse of that great India in the India that we see today, it clearly means that we are not working up to our potential; and that if we do, we could once again be an ever shining and inspiring country setting a bright path for the rest of the world to follow. I hope you enjoyed it and would pledge to work towards the welfare of INDIA.

“Proud to be an Indian”

JAI HIND

(I took this off some forwarded mail and hence don't know who the author of this original document is ... and if the author comes across this... Jai Hind! )

A FASCINATING CHRONICLE OF A RESEARCHER AT ANDAMANS

Hi, chums! In November 1991, a Crocodile Bank researcher Ms. Manjula Tiwari embarked on a six-month survey of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The study and survey was a pilot project to accumulate baseline data for initiating a longer term (five year) study program for the conservation and management of Sea Turtles that use these islands for nesting. The project was supported by the non-profit, Madras Crocodile Bank.

Here’s sharing with you all a fascinating first-hand chronicle of the experiences that Manjula narrates on seaturtle.org…

“As the ship pulled into the port at Campbell Bay, on the Great Nicobar Island on the fourth evening of the journey, I sat up on deck watching the large crowd on the dock. An overwhelming sense of loneliness filled me - I didn’t know a single face in the crowd, no one was expecting me, I had no idea where I would spend the night, or how I would survey the southern group of Islands in the Nicobars… But I underestimated the people of the islands… I found friends, and surrogate family that worried every time I left Campbell Bay on another survey, and I found Ratnam, my very first field assistant.

Ratnam – the field assistant holding a sea turtle in his hands

Ratnam agreed to help me survey the beaches for any amount of money that I thought was suitable for his help - he didn’t really seem to care about how much he would get paid. He was not a local tribal. He originated from the Indian mainland. Apparently, he had wanted to attend school, but his father had insisted he work in the fields belonging to the family. So, the angry Ratnam caught the first ship leaving the mainland coast and ended up in the Nicobars! I couldn’t have found a better assistant - he knew the islands and he knew many of the Nicobarese who lived along the coast, making it very easy to find floor space in some Nicobari hut to cook and sleep every evening.

I would describe Ratnam as “petite” but very strong. He called me “Madam” from the beginning and insisted on carrying my backpack even when we waded across deep creeks and most of him was underwater - I remember seeing just the top of his head and two arms straight up in the air holding my backpack above the water as he crossed the creek ahead of me. Even though we lived in very primitive conditions during these surveys, he always insisted on giving me the best of what was available.

One night, our only choices for sleeping were the forest floor and a 50-cm wide plank about 2 m off the ground. “Madam” was graciously offered the plank while Ratnam slept below. I got little sleep not because I had to lie still and flat on my back all night, but because I worried I might roll over and fall from 2 m on my kind and “petite” field assistant who slept below…

I have no idea where he is now, but I always remember him fondly…

Prologue: I had read somewhere that many early travelers avoided the Andaman and Nicobar Islands because they believed the inhabitants were cannibals. Surely, I said to myself as I hurriedly packed to catch the ship leaving for the Islands, this is an outdated view…

I had been told to hire Pau Aong, a Karen (tribe of Burmese origin) and a fine boatman, who would help survey the many islands of the Andaman archipelago. It was a long bus-boat-bus trip from Port Blair to his settlement in the North Andaman. Soon the bus arrived at the start of the Jarawa reserve - one of the very primitive tribes in the Andamans feared for their hostility. Two armed policemen boarded the bus and we were asked to shut our windows because the Jarawas may throw spears at us. The Jarawa reserve is sandwiched between two modern towns and locals in the bus told me stories about how the Jarawas had recently dragged someone off into the forest and probably eaten him.

Apparently, the Jarawas occasionally wandered into town and abducted people - the locals suspected that these abducted people were eaten because they were never seen again. After these extraordinary stories, I eagerly looked out of the bus, hoping to catch a glimpse of these people, but no such luck.... others have had more interesting encounters, and issues associated with the tribe continue…

Moving south from the Andamans to survey beaches in the Nicobar archipelago, I often stayed the night at some Nicobari tribal hut on the beach. This provided an opportunity to learn about the lives and world of this peaceful, coastal-dwelling tribe. One time after walking all day on the beach, we arrived at a little Nicobarese tribal village towards early evening. Immediately we were invited into one of the huts and offered hot, refreshing tea.

A lot of people were sitting around the hut looking very glum. On inquiring why everyone was so uncharacteristically gloomy, I was informed that earlier that morning, a boat with strangers had stopped at their beach and one of the village men had accompanied them to a settlement further down the coast. He had still not returned and everyone was very anxious. I was surprised that they had let him go with strangers because in my experience, the Nicobarese would often abandon their huts and run off into the forest when an unknown boat arrived at any of these small, remote, coastal villages.

Finally, as the gloom deepened, one of his despairing relatives asked me in great earnestness, "Do you think the men in the boat have eaten him?" (We later encountered the missing man at another village quite alive and intact. He was just enjoying a few extra days away from home…)

Certainly, this was a very different world from the one I had grown up in...”

GREETINGS ON THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS - DIWALI

Diwali is a unique confluence of happiness, bliss & prosperity. May the festival of lights be the harbinger of joy and prosperity to all my friends and well-wishers the world over!

As the holy occasion of Diwali is here and the atmosphere is filled with the spirit of mirth and love, here's hoping this festival of lights brings your way, bright sparkles of contentment, that stay with you through the days ahead.

The Diwali firework safety message is part of the firework safety campaign launched by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), aimed at reducing the number of firework accidents at this time of the year.

"Take more responsibility with fireworks, they are more dangerous than you think and could severely injure children or yourself."

"Even if you think you know how to handle fireworks, failing to follow the

 Firework Code properly, puts you and your loved ones in danger.

"Each of us has a responsibility to take the right precautions with fireworks so we can all enjoy them safely this year."

Don’t stand too close to the fireworks while lighting them!

HAPPY DIWALI 2009