10 Most Amazing Facts About India | Compilation

So you got number one, the population makes up 17.5% of the world's population. But how big is that exactly? Well, the population of India currently sits at 1.2 billion people. And guess what, guys? It's steadily rising. As a matter of fact, by 2022, they predict that it will definitely destroy China's population. And by 2050, there will be 1.6 billion people living in India. The Kumbh Mela is a mass pilgrimage of faith, where people gather around a sacred river to bathe. In 2013, the Kumbh Mela estimated over 120 million people. And on February 10th of that year, 30 million people came to the festival. As a matter of fact, it was so big that you could see it from space. At one point, India was an island. 100 million years ago, back in the dinosaur days, it broke off from the supercontinent Gondwanaland. And it moved north, eventually crashing into Asia. And because of this collision, that is why we have the Himalayan Mountains, which are the youngest but also the biggest mountains. In India, there are more road deaths than in any other country, with an approximation of 115,000 people dying a year from motor vehicle accidents. Now here's a shocking fact. I always thought that Hollywood was like the biggest film industry in the entire world. But actually, India is. They produce over 1,100 films a year. And a lot of you guys might think, oh, they're all Bollywood films, but that's not actually true. Bollywood only produces about 200 of them. In India, they have six seasons. Yeah, I know. We only have like four. You got spring, you got summer, you got monsoon, you've got autumn. And then of course, you get winter, but then there's another one called provernal. All right, so for this next one, you know when you guys travel to a country and sometimes you like to bring some currency back, something maybe to put in your scrapbook? Well, believe it or not, you can't do that in India. Because it is actually illegal to leave the country with any form of Indian currency. Mumbai is one of the most polluted cities on the planet. As a matter of fact, it's so polluted that if you spend one day there, they say it equals 100 cigarettes. How do people live there for more than like three days? In certain states in India, if you're a police officer and you grow a mustache, you will get a pay increase. I'm just waiting for them to get like monocles and maybe some top hats and then they'll be really classy. India is also a country that has not invaded a country in 10,000 years. Although some scholars say it was 100,000 years, but this is due to the fact that India was a very rich nation and actually kings were too busy fighting amongst themselves. In India, there are more mobile phones than there are toilets in the entire country. Wow. Okay, this is not a shocking fact, but this is really one for me. You guys know these things? Yeah, these awesome looking formal jackets. I know, they're so cool, right? Well, they're called Shawanis and I want one. That's just the fact right now. If you go to India, be careful of the children in the school. 61% of them have a disease that causes germs on their hands. So don't be shaking anybody without sanitizing. Now we all love spices. Some people like it hot, some people like it mild, but a lot of you guys in first world nations may think, Hey, well we get our spices from like places like Mexico, but that is actually not true because 70% of the spices that are sold worldwide come all the way from India. Now for us here in North America, most of us are sitting complaining about not enough female leads in Hollywood or Donald Trump, or we're complaining about first world problems. Meanwhile in India, they have a child slavery problem. Slavery is still a thing in India and believe it or not, they think that there's over 14 million people in slavery and most of them are all children. And just so you know, most of these children are working in things like quarries. Not good. In India, there's an airline company called Go Air. And speaking of females, from the last one, this company only hires females. Why? Because, well, they say that females are lighter and because of that, they save up to $500,000 US dollars a year simply on fuel. Bills in India are great for the blind. This is because they have Braille on them. But they're not the only country to do it. Countries like Russia, China, Mexico, and Israel also do that as well. India has also claimed that it has the most diverse amount of languages in the country. In 1961, a census went around, totaling 1,652 languages in the country. Big ones are, well, you guessed it, Hindi, Bengali, there's also Telugu, Marathi, and Urdu. For me, I've always loved the animals from India. They're way better than the ones in North America. I mean, elephants are just super cool. But did you know that there are over 90,000 species of animals in India? 350 of them are animals, there are 1,200 types of birds, and as for plant species, well, there's over 50,000 of them. And last but not least, guys, India has a great space exploration program. And it's getting better year by year. In 2009, India was the first country to discover water on the moon. And it makes you wonder what else they will create and what else they will discover. India is home to the biggest home. And by that, I mean a guy has the biggest family ever in the entire world. As a matter of fact, he has 39 wives and 94 children. His name is Ziona Channa, and man, I just don't want to know what the grocery bill would be like. Did you know that in India, it has the lowest meat consumption per person? This is because a majority of the country are all vegetarians. Wouldn't you just love that if we could do that in North America here? Be like, yo guys, you're all vegetarians, sorry, but you can't eat steak no more. And although they are all vegetarians, believe it or not, cows are a huge commodity in that country. And they are so important that every cow has to have a photo ID. Now this is kind of a sad fact, but did you know that every hour a woman dies from dowry related crimes? The fleshlight might be a really taboo thing over here. But over there in India, it's extremely taboo. This is because sex toys are completely illegal in the country. But snakes and ladders isn't. That's kind of a good thing to play with. It was a game that was invented in India, but eventually moved to Britain where it was picked up by Milton Bradley. Did you know that India was the first country to invent cataract surgery? And it started all the way back in the third century. It was invented by a physician named Shashruta. They used a tool called the Jabamukhi Salaka. And this was pretty much a curved needle that would loosen your lens and push your cataract out of the field of vision. After that, the eye would be soaked in warm water and it apparently worked. 53% of houses in India don't have bathrooms. Oh God, that's gotta stink. India is also home to the largest postal service in the entire world. They have over 54,000 postal offices. And as a matter of fact, they even have a floating one that was created in 2011, which is on the Dow Lake in Srinagar. Have you ever seen this bridge? It's called the Bandra-Worli Sea Link. And it is one of the most spectacular bridges in the entire world. What's amazing about this bridge is if you were to combine all the steel wires used to make the bridge, it would stretch out to equal the entire world's circumference. And on top of that, the bridge weighs about 50,000 elephants. India was also the first country to produce refined sugar. Now right now you are looking at the Lonar Lake, which is a saltwater lake in Maharashtra. And it's a very rare type of lake because like look at it, look at its shape. It was created from a meteorite crashing into Earth. Now one of my favorite actors, Ben Kingsley, that's actually not his name. His original name is Krishna Pandit Banjee. And yes, his ancestry comes all the way back from India. Also, chess was invented in this country. And the first person to win a world championship in chess was Viswanathan Anand. Okay, so you're probably wearing clothes right now. Unless of course, you know, you're in the tub watching this completely naked. Or naked on the couch. Or naked in a park, which would be totally inappropriate. But if you are wearing clothes, believe it or not, you are probably wearing something that was made in India. No, I'm not talking denim. I'm talking buttons, son. The button was originally invented and released in India 5,000 years ago. The only downside is it was really just made out of seashells. India was also the first country to invent the zero sign. That's right, this weird little kind of slanted O thing that looks kind of like it wants to be an egg. Before this, the Babylonians represented the zero with a blank space. But this ended up getting really confusing, so instead they just put a dot. But by 500 AD, Arab Hadda, who was one of the very first mathematicians and astronomers, he decided, nope, we're going to totally change the zero and make it like an O. Now we've all heard of blood diamonds. They're diamonds in Africa, and everyone likes to think, yeah, diamonds, they only come from Africa. But believe it or not, before 1986, India was the number one country where you could get diamonds. In India, they rack about 28,904 murders per year. Wow, that's bad. The first granite temple was also built in India. The Brihadewara temple was built in the 11th century, and also, it was only created in five years. Now the country might be smaller than most countries, but it has the largest road network. If you were to take all the roads and combine them together, they would equal no less than 1.9 million miles of road. If you were to build that out in space, you could easily go to the moon, as the moon is only 238 miles. But overall, I just want to list off some of the amazing mathematical accomplishments that India has, well, done. This country was the first ones to invent pi, trigonometry, calculus, and even my good old fashioned favorite, which I failed at all the time, algebra. I hate algebra. Last but not least, guys, you know what, I'm just going to throw an extra one in there for you. India was also the first country to introduce, well, what keeps your hair clean, shampoo. Now the word comes from Hindustani's champu, spelt C-H-A-M-P-O-O. Now this goes all the way back to 1762. This was pretty much a head massage that had stuff like alkali, and of course, natural fragrances. Of course, let's also throw some natural oils in there as well. But eventually, shampoo was introduced to Britain by Sheikh Dean Muhammad, who created small shops, which were pretty much steam and seawater baths. Now first of all, India is the 18th largest trading country in the entire world. Now its biggest export being refined petroleum, which makes up 18% of its $292 billion income. Now the crazy thing is, although India exports a lot of goods, they actually import a lot as well. As a matter of fact, its total import costs equal $421 billion. And the biggest of that being crude petroleum, which makes up 29% of its imports. Which I kind of wonder if they get that from Mexico, because Mexico exports a lot of crude petroleum. More on that in our future video where we talk about Mexico. Now India may be a country that has a lot of Bollywood films, but television didn't start until 1959. As a matter of fact, September 15th to be exact. This is when the Dora-Shan experimented with a small transmitter and a makeshift studio in Delhi. And since then, TVs just exploded all over the country. As a matter of fact, probably a lot of our viewers who are watching this or watched our previous India videos are from there. Speaking of which, if you're from India or your ancestors are from India, hit that like button. Boom! Now the first president of India was Dr. Rajendra Prasad. Crazy thing about him, he only took 50% of his income. 50%? Why would he do that? Well, it's because he was like, yo, I don't need this much money. And as a matter of fact, by his 12th year of running, he went down to 25%. Now we know India has an interesting space program, but it doesn't include un-man-craft, but it's also included man-craft. Now the first astronaut from India was Rakesh Sharma. Now you might find this a little weird, but he went up with the Soviets in Soyuz T-11 on April 3rd, 1984. But this was part of a program called Inter-Cosmos, and it was a program that the Russians practiced to help Soviet Union allies with manned and unmanned space programs. Now in India, it's got 501 animal sanctuaries, 94 national parks, with the biggest being the Hemis National Park, and if you want to go see a snow leopard, that is the place to go because it has the most snow leopards, and it's world famous for visitors seeing them. Speaking about animals, let's talk about my favorite animal, it is the elephant. I mean, how can you not like the elephant? It's big, it's majestic, and it makes cute little sounds. Actually cute big sounds, because it's so big. But you get the idea. Now the elephant is a very protected animal, as a matter of fact, it is still on the endangered species list. Now currently they estimate in India there are about 23,900 wild elephants, with about 3,600 in captivity. Now have you ever heard of Gleevec? Well it is a cancer drug, and as a matter of fact, if you want to purchase Gleevec, it'll cost you $2,500 in India, but in the United States, it'll cost you over $70,000, because it's not patented in the United States of America. Now in our last video, India 2, we talked about how India is home to the biggest home, but it's actually also home to the most expensive house of all time. It is called the Antilia, which is pretty much more a 27-floor skyscraper. It is currently valued at a billion dollars and was made for Mikesh Ambani, who is, yes, a multi-billionaire and can easily afford this. The house itself is not only 27 stories high, it is 400,000 square feet, it was built by Perkins and Will architect firm in Chicago, and besides his family and his two kids living there, it also consists of 600 employees, 3 helipads, 6-floor parking, and let's not forget the giant cinema. Dear God, that is a giant house. And last but not least, let's talk about the Golden Temple, which is also known more as the Harmandir Sahir, and it is the most humanitarian temple in the entire world. Now why is it? Well, the Golden Temple feeds 100,000 people a day, and can easily feed up to 300,000 people with its vegetarian meals. As a matter of fact, it's so popular, it is called the world's largest soup kitchen. But one thing you might not know is that India grows approximately 1.2 million tons of mangoes every single year, and if you were to put that on a giant scale, it would weigh 80,000 blue whales. Now we've also talked about how India is extremely populated, but India has so many people that it has three of the world's top 10 megacities, and although the growth rate is shrinking in the country, it's still at a whopping 3%. Now many of you in the comment section have wanted us to talk about India's army. Now not getting into too much detail over it, it has the third biggest army in the entire world. Now it is hard to say how big it is exactly, because some sources say that it has 1.4 million active personnel, with over 1,155,000 personnel being in reserve units. And one of their newest units is called the Mountain Strike Corps, which is aimed to defend the disputed border with China, in which they hope to have over 90,000 troops by 2018 or 2019. And at least according to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, they found that India is 8th in the world when it comes to spending money on its military. And they spend roughly about $45.2 billion on its military. Now on the Indian subcontinent, Nalanda is considered by some as one of the first great universities. But however, Tekshila, which was built around 370 BC, is believed to be the remains of the oldest university in human history. Now there are a lot of arguments over this. Some scientists say that no, it doesn't count as a university because there's no lecture halls. And unlike Nalanda, there's no housing for its staff or students. And as for Nalanda, it was constructed back in 427 AD. And it went on till about 1197 AD, and it was an institution that was more devoted towards the Buddhist way of life. But it's also theorized that there were students of art, literature, astronomy, and politics. And although scientists are still excavating the grounds, they have found 8 compounds, 10 temples, classrooms, meditation halls, and housing for 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers. Speaking about education, India is home to the world's largest school. The City Montessori School received not only a world record in 2010, but also a UNESCO Prize for Peace Education in 2002. But here's the thing. When I say largest schools, now I'm not talking universities, but I mean this school is the largest in population from ages 2 to 5, because they have over 39,400 attendees a year. They're all kindergartners. That's crazy. Now throughout the world, we have all probably heard of a magnetic hill. This is a hill that has a strong electromagnetic currency that will pull a car up the hill. However, Magnetic Hill in Leeladak is one of the most powerful, to the point where not only cars are pulled up the hill, but planes also have problems flying through it. Now we all know India is known for its computer programming. As a matter of fact, they have some of the best computer programmers in the entire world. And India is known for making a lot of supercomputers and supplying it to the world. Now this all began in the late 1980s, because at one point, there was an embargo imposed on India. And that embargo stated that Cray supercomputers could not be sent to India, because they could be used in development of nuclear weapons. But of course, that didn't stop India, because by 1991, they had developed their very first supercomputer, the PARAM8000. And as of late, India has stated that it wants to spend $2.5 billion in the next year for supercomputer research. India's also got something that no other country has, the wettest place on earth. At least, the wettest inhabited place on the planet. The state of Meghalaya is about 70% rainforest, and because of that, it gets a lot of rain. The state alone receives an average 470 inches of rain. And this is all the way from the lowlands of Garo Hills to the roaring hills of the Shillong region. And although you'll probably need an umbrella if you want to visit, it looks like one beautiful place to check out. And lastly, let's talk about gold in India. Because as you know, gold is a huge thing. It's great, it looks fantastic, people want it on their jewelry, they want it on their clothes. Now, statistics have shown that Indian housewives hold 11% of the world's gold reserve. And when I mean world, I mean world. I don't mean just one country. I mean like the United States, Fort Knox, eat your heart out. But let's get started on India and continue this journey to learn more about the great people and culture of India. Now, in our previous videos, we talked a lot about population, culture, history, art, and film. But one thing we never mentioned was, well, how does India work as a country? For so many people, there has to be some sort of control for its people. And within that control, we must look at money. And no matter how you feel about money, whether it's good or bad, it is a thing that does have control over us as human beings. In India, they go by the Indian rupee, which gets its name from the 6th century silver coin, rupiah, which was used by the Mughal Empire after Sultan Shershah Suri issued it. Now, one thing that's fascinating is that India is one of the first countries in the entire world to ever use coins for currency. And even though the English tried to change the currency to gold, and even with the silver crisis in the 1800s, India's rupee remained silver even when the rupee banknote came in in 1861. And in today's world, as of July in 2017, 64 rupees will equal 1 US dollar. So India is a country that has contributed a lot to the world. Not just inventions, not just Nobel Peace Prizes, but they've also done other things for peace. As a matter of fact, when it comes to its army, to this date, India has been on 43 peacekeeping missions. As well as during all these missions, India has sent out a total of over 180,000 troops towards these peacekeeping missions. And this all really began with their involvement in Korea in the 1950s. And out of all these missions and contributions, one stands out for sure. As India is the first country to ever have a UN Female Formed Police Unit. And these women, since 2007, have spent 9 years in Liberia, only to return home in 2016. And speaking of home, let's talk about what India is home to. That is the Venkateswara Temple, which is one of the most visited temples, not just in the country, but in the entire world. The Venkateswara Temple, for example, receives 50 to 100,000 visitors a day. And that is not even including for special events. Overall, it receives up to 40 million visitors a year, and is the most visited Hindu temple in the entire world. And because of its visitors, who give donations, it is most likely one of the richest temples on the planet. Now, we all know India is a country with a lot of people, but how is this country broken up? Where do all these people live? India is broken up into 29 different provinces and 7 territories. The biggest being Rajasthan, which has an area of 342,239 square kilometers. Basically, it is almost the size of the Republic of Congo. However, Uttar Pradesh, which may not be the biggest in land, it has the most population. With a population of over 204 million people, and it comes in first out of any province or territory or subject or state on the entire planet when it comes to population. Now, although there are a lot of people in India, it is also considered one of the 17 mega diversities on the planet. And this is due to the fact that India has a lot of ecosystems. From desert to forest to highland, plains, archipelago, and swamps. For this reason alone, it has 7 to 8.6 of Earth's entire mammal life, 12.6 to 3.7 of avian species on the planet, 6% of all the reptiles on the planet, and it has 13% of all the fish and 6% of flowering plants that are seen on Earth. And considering we're talking about ecosystems, we should probably mention the fact that India's forests cover 21.2% of the entire country. And as a whole, it is a part of one of the 8 ecosystems called the Indomalayan Realm, which consumes the entirety of South and Southeast Asia. And you know what, heck it, considering we're talking about, you know, forests, let's talk about trees. Have you ever heard of suicide trees? Known as Serbira odolin, and between the years of 1989 and 1999, there were 500 cases of people killing themselves with this plant. And this is one of the most poisonous plants in the entire country, because if you consume one of the kernels or the seeds, it'll stop your heart from beating. It's that bad. And you know what, while we're on the topic of nature and environment, we should probably mention that the first national park system was developed in 1935, with the first national park of India being the Jim Corbett National Park, which was founded a year later in 1936 and was known as the Haley National Park back then. And today, India has over 103 parks, with a collective area of 40,500 km2, which makes up about 1-2% of the entire mass of India. And that is just talking only about national parks, as the rest of the protected zones equal 156,700 km2, which is roughly about 4-5% of the surface area of India. And this includes parks, and other areas, and over 500 animal sanctuaries. And one of these parks, in specific, is the Desert National Park. It is unique because 20% of it is sand dunes. But sand dunes aren't the only thing that makes it unique, it is also one of the only places where you can see the Indian Buzzard, which is an endangered bird only found in India. And as for its featured Gadzisar Cigar National Tank, it's a really interesting place to visit because thousands of birds come and migrate there every single year.