Know your India - Some Usedful information about India

print/download Rajkumari Amrit Kaur was the first female Indian Cabinet Minister

Dr. Zakir Hussain, was the first Indian President to die in office before completing his term

Indira Gandhi was the first Indian Prime Minister to lose an election.

Morarji Desai was the first Indian Prime Minister to resign from office

Palakkad in Kerala was declared as the first IT-enabled District Headquarter in India on October 26, 2004.

Sucheta Kriplani was the first woman Chief Minister in India.

Sarojini Naidu was the first woman to become the governor of a state in India.

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was the first woman minister in India. In 1937,

Kandla Special Economic Zone (KASEZ) in Gujarat was the first Indian SEZ

Hindalco Industries Limited is India's leading aluminium and copper producer

State Bank of India (SBI) is the largest bank in India.

Bombay Stock Exchange Limited is the oldest stock exchange in India

Buland Darwaza is the highest gateway in India.

Amarnath Cave in Jammu & Kashmir is the largest cave in India.

St Thomas Church at Palyar in Trichur, Kerala is considered to be the oldest church in India.

Jama Masjid in New Delhi the largest mosque in India

The statue of Gomateshwara at Sravanbelagola in Karnataka is the tallest statue in India

Milkha Singh was the first Indian athlete to reach Olympic finals

First Olympic Gold Medal Won by India was in 1928 Olympics in hockey.

Norman G Pritchard, an Anglo-Indian athlete from Calcutta, was the first Indian to take part in Olympic Games

P.T. Usha was the first Indian woman to reach Olympic finals

Prakash Padukone is the first Indian to win All England Badminton Championship.

Viswanathan Anand is India's first Grandmaster.

Air Marshal Sir Thomas Walker Elmhirst was the first Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Air Force

Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, popularly known as Sam Bahadur, was the first Field Marshal of Indian Army.

General (later Field Marshal) K.M. Cariappa was the first Indian Commander-in-Chief of Indian Army.

Major Som Nath Sharma was the first recipient of Param Vir Chakra (PVC)

Padmavathy Bandopadhyay was the first woman Air Marshal of Indian Air Force.

Vice Admiral RD Katari was the first Indian Chief of Naval Staf

Pankaj Udhas's album Shagufta launched by Music India in December 1987 was the first compact disc to be launched in India.

Alisha Chinai's album "Baby doll" was the first computerised album of India. The album was released in 1988 on HMV

Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar set up the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya at Lahore on May 5, 1901. It was the first music school in India

Illayaraja is the first Indian to compose a symphony

First gramophone record in India was made in Kolkata in 1898.

MS Subbulakshmi was the first musician to get Padma Bhushan (1954) and Padma Vibhushan (1975)

First Color Film Made in India was Kisan Kanya in the year 1937

Chota Chetan was the first Indian 3D Movie.

First Indian cinemascope film was Kaagaz ke Phool, produced and directed by Guru Dutt in 1959.

Bhanu Athaiya was the First Indian to Get an Oscar. She won the award for the Best Costume Designer for Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi in 1982

Raja Harishchandra was the first full-length Indian feature film.

Jaddan Bai, mother of famous actress Nargis, was the first woman music director in Indian film industry.

Greater Bombay is the district with highest population in India

Sikkim with a population of 540,851 (according to 2001 census) is the state with lowest population in India

Mumbai is the most populous city of India

State with highest population in India is Uttar Pradesh

Yanam is the district with lowest population in India. Yanam is a part of the Union Territory of Pondicherry and has a population of 31,394 (according to 2001 census)

Indian Botanical Garden situated in Shibpur, Howrah near Kolkata is the largest botanical garden of India

Indian Museum in Kolkata is the largest museum in India

Tihar Jail Complex in New Delhi is the largest prison complex in India.

The National Library in Kolkata is the largest library in India

The Zoological Garden in Kolkata is the largest Zoo in India

Mihir Sen was the first Indian man to swim English Channel.

Nawang Gombu is the first man to climb Mount Everest twice.

Arati Saha was the first Indian woman to swim across English Channel

Phu Dorji was the first man to climb Mount Everest without oxygen.

Bachendri Pal is the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest. She achieved this feat on 23rd May 1984.

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (C.V. Raman) was the first Indian scientist to win Nobel Prize.

India's First Supercomputer was PARAM 8000

Aryabhatta was the first satellite launched by India on April 19, 1975

SLV-3 was India's first indigenous satellite launch vehicle.

India's First Nuclear Reactor was Apsara.

Tarapur Atomic Power Station (T.AP.S.) was the first nuclear power plant in India.

Drass in western Ladakh is the coldest place in India.

Ganga is the longest river of India

Kanchenjunga is the highest mountain peak in India.

Goa with an area of 3702 sq. km is the smallest State in India.

Rajasthan with an area of 342,239 sq km is the largest state in Indi

Andaman & Nicobar Islands with an area of 8,249 sq km is the largest union territory in India.

Mahe is the smallest district in India. It has an area of 9 sq. km. Mahe is geographically located in the state of Kerala, where as administratively it comes under the control of Union Territory of Pondicherry.

Uttar Pradesh is the state with maximum number of districts in India. It has a total of 70 districts.

Lakshadweep with an area of 32 sq km is the smallest Union Territory in India.

Kanyakumari is the southernmost Point of Indian Mainland. Kanyakumari, also known as Cape Comorin, is located in the state of Tamil Nadu

West of Ghuar Mota in Gujarat is the westernmost point of India

Length of coastline of India including the coastlines of Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal and Lakshwadweep Islands in the Arabian Sea is 7517 km.

Kachchh (also spelled as Kutch) in Gujarat, with an area of 45,652 sq km is the largest District in India

Goa is the state with least number of districts in India. It has two districts

The oldest surviving Indian book is the Tamil work, Christiya Vanakkam, revised edition of the original Doctrina Christa

Mahabharata is the longest epic in the world. Mahabharata has more than 74,000 verses, long prose passages, and about 1.8 million words in total. Mahabharata was written by Ved Vyasa in Sanskrit

Howrah Bridge (also known as Rabindra Setu) on the Hooghly River in West Bengal is the busiest bridge in India.

Tehri Dam on Bhagirathi River is the highest dam in India. With a height of 261 meters

Leh airport is the highest airport in India

Indira Sagar Dam on the river Narmada has the largest reservoir in India with a full submergence of 913 sq. km

Warren Hastings was the first Governor General of India.

C. Rajagopalachari, popularly known as Rajaji, was the last Governor General of India

Womesh Chandra Banerjee was the first President of Indian National Congress (INC).

Satyendranath Tagore was the first Indian to join the Indian Civil Service.

Collected and prepared  By  S Jayachandran, System Administrator, Mavelikara Postal Division, Kerala-690101-  9961464279