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Where was India's first motion picture screening held? |
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India's first motion picture was screened at the Watson hotel in
Mumbai. The Lumire brothers, Lousie and Auguste first showed films in
India, on a commercial basis on July 7, 1896. Four 40-minute shows were
held every day and the entry price for each was Re1 per person.
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How many words are there in the
longest Indian film title?
The longest film title has 20 words. This belongs to the Telugu film 'Shree
Shree Rajadhiraja Shree Shree Madana Kamaraja Shree Shree Vilasa Raja Shree
Shree Madhubana Raja Shree Shree Krishnadeva donga Raja'. The film was
released in Chennai in Dec.1994. |
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Which Indian actor has won an international Best
Actress Award?
Nirmal Pandey, a popular hindi stage and film actor won the Best Actress
award at the Valenciennes Film Festival, France 1997 for his portrayal of a
transvestite (a man who dresses as a woman and vice versa) in Amol Palekar's
'Daayraa' (Limitation). Nirmal shared the Best Actress award with the female
lead of the film Sonali Kulkarni. |
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Which is India's all time biggest
Best Selling Pop Track?
No, its not Micheal Jackson. India's Altaf Raja's 'Tum to thehre pardesi,
saath kya nibhaoge' (you are but a foreigner, how will you stay with
me). The album sold over 40 lakh cassettes, the largest seller in the
non-film category. |
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Where in India is Asia's biggest sabzi market located? |
It's in the capital city. The New Subzi Mandi, the wholesale market at
Azadpur, Delhi, is Asia's largest fruit and vegetable market. Nearly
3,000 trucks bring in fruits and vegetables here daily for over 30,000
retail vendors. |
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Why are there so many cows on India's roads? |
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Because India has more cows than anywhere else in the world. Out of a
world population of 132 crore, India has 20.5 crore or 15.5 percent! The
hindus, the followers of India's biggest religion believe that cows are
sacred animals and should not be killed for meat. The sad part though is
that not many facilities are provided for these holy ones - and they are
often left to wander on the roads - where they create a nuisance for
themselves and others. |
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Is there a rat temple in India?
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Yes, in Rajathan. The 575-year-old temple of Karni Devi (one of the nine
incarnations of Durga) has a large number of holy rats called 'Kabas',
believed to be the offsprings of the presiding deity. Located at Deshnok,
35 km from Bikaner, Rajasthan, this temple is devoted exclusively to the
rats which roam around freely in the place.
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Who was the first Indian to be
admitted to the Indian Civil Service?
Satyendranath Tagore, the elder brother of Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath
Tagore, was the first Indian to be admitted in the Indian Civil Service. He
had to pass a tough exam, which was held only in London, to discourage
Indians from applying. |
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Who was the first person to use zero
as a number?
Brahmagupta (598-660) an Indian mathematician first used zero as a number
and showed its mathematical use. Bhaskaracharya (1114 A.D.) was the first to
understand the mathematical implications of zero by stating that anything
divided by zero is equal to infinity. |
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When were India's first television
signals transmitted?
The first experimental telecast was attempted on Sept.15, 1959, at Delhi.
The transmission was done with the help of a small transmitter in a
makeshift studio. |
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What is the name of India's
oldest functioning English daily?
The Times of India. This was first published in Mumbai on Nov.3, 1838 as
a bi-weekly and was called Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce. It was
renamed The Times of India in 1850 with J.E.Brennan as its first editor.
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Who is the only Indian to have
been given an honorary US citizenship?
On November 16, 1996 Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhin) became the
first Indian to be given an honorary US citizenship. She was the fourth
person in the world to have been given this honor.
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Who
is India's most wanted criminal? |
India's most wanted is a sandalwood smuggler from Karnataka called
Veerapan He carries a reward of Rs 40 lakh on his head and is wanted for
smuggling, poaching and murder in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Veerappan,
who shot his first elephant when he was only 12 years old, has poached
elephants for ivory, smuggled sandalwood worth Rs.75 crore and has 120
cases of murder registered against him. Veerapan lives hidden somewhere
in the jungles of Karnataka. The government has been trying to capture
him since the last 15 years but has failed! |
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Who is India's most infamous conman?
That's Natwrlal or Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava, a man so clever at fooling
people that he once walked out of Kanpur jail dressed in a smuggled
Sub-Inspector's uniform! Having got the cell guard to open the door by
handing out an attaché case full of cash, he coolly walked out, got into a
waiting car and sped way. When the car broke down a little later, he coolly
flagged down another vehicle and vanished!
Natwarlal was wanted in over 100 cases in eight States. He has been
sentenced to a whopping 113 years in jail by various courts and has made
eight daring escapes, each time from a different jail.
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Where is India's highest motorable road located?
India's highest road is at Khardung-la in the Leh-Manali in Himachal
Pradesh. The road was constructed by the Boarder Roads Organisation at a
height of 5,682 meters (18,383 ft). |
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Who is India's largest employer?
Indian Railways. The railways employ over 15.79 lakh people, the largest
by a single organization in India or anywhere else in the world.
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How many people can eat from the
food cooked (at one time) in India's largest solar cooker?
Over 10,000! Shirin and Deepak
Gadhia devised a giant solar cooker for the Brahmakumaris World Academy in
Mount Abu, Rajasthan in Jan.1998, The cooker has 84 solar dishes and a
surface of 840 sq. m. This is also the largest solar cooker in the world.
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When did Internet come to India?
In 1995 when the National Informatics Centre (NIC), Delhi, first provided
users access to the World Wide Web service through the C-Web. The C-Web
allows users to browse, search and publish documents on the Net.
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Which Indian can calculate faster
than a computer?
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That's Shakuntala Devi of Bangalore. In 1977, she took only 50 seconds
to compute the 23rd root of a 201-digit number while it took a computer
well over a minute. On June 18, 1980, she multiplied 7,686,369,774,870
by 2,465,099,745,779 and arrived at the correct answer:
18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 in 28 seconds. |
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Which Indian is the world's youngest
graduate?
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Tathagat Avatar Tulsi of Bihar became the world's youngest graduate by
passing the Bachelor of Science examination (with honours in physics)
from Science College, Patna at the age of 11 years and two months.
Tathagat broke the record of Jay Luo of Garden City, USA, who had
graduated at the age of 12 years, 1 month and 12 days. Tulsi had earlier
cleared the Central Board of Secondary Examination at the age of nine
years and six months. |
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Which Indian language is the world's
oldest living language?
Tamil is the oldest of all Indian languages and also the oldest living
language in the world. It represents certain literacy types not found in
Sanskrit or other Aryan languages and traces its history to Tolkappiyam, the
earliest extant manuscript of Tamil grammar, dated 500 B.C.
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Which Indian word is the longest Palindrome
(reading the same forward and backward) in the Roman script?
The longest palindrome in Roman script is the nine-letter word
MALAYALAM, the language of Kerala.
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What was India's first homegrown
comic book or series?
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The Amar Chitra Katha series of mythology and other themes in comic book
form, was published by India Book House (IBH) in 1969 and sold over
half-a-million copies. The series was the brainchild of Mr. Anant Pai.
The first Amar Chitra Katha title was Krishna. Since then over 436
titles have been published in all Indian and some foreign languages.
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The State
Emblem was adopted by the Government of India on January 26, 1950.
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The National Emblem features three lions standing back to back on a
platform. There is a wheel in the centre of the platform. A bull stands on
the right of the wheel and a horse on its left. If you see the corners of
the base you'll spot the outlines of other wheels.
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The
words Satyameva Jayate
('Truth Alone Triumphs') from an ancient book the
Mundaka Upanishad are written
below the picture in Hindi. |
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Did you know? |
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The
design of the National Emblem has been taken from the Lion sculpture on the
top of the Ashokan Pillar at Sarnath. But there are some differences. In the
original, there are four lions, standing back to back, mounted on a platform
carrying sculptures of an elephant, a galloping horse, a bull and a lion
separated by intervening wheels over a bell-shaped lotus. |
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The State
Emblem was adopted by the Government of India on January 26, 1950.
|
|
The National Emblem features three lions standing back to back on a
platform. There is a wheel in the centre of the platform. A bull stands on
the right of the wheel and a horse on its left. If you see the corners of
the base you'll spot the outlines of other wheels.
|
|
The
words Satyameva Jayate
('Truth Alone Triumphs') from an ancient book the
Mundaka Upanishad are written
below the picture in Hindi. |
|
|
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Did you know? |
|
The
design of the National Emblem has been taken from the Lion sculpture on the
top of the Ashokan Pillar at Sarnath. But there are some differences. In the
original, there are four lions, standing back to back, mounted on a platform
carrying sculptures of an elephant, a galloping horse, a bull and a lion
separated by intervening wheels over a bell-shaped lotus. |
