Interesting Facts

World Environment Day on June 5th, Ministry Of Environment And United Nations Sign "Letter Of Intent" India was declared as the global host for the 44 th  World Environment Day celebrations by the United Nations and the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. The ‘Letter of Intent’ was signed at the presence of Union Minister for Environment Dr Harsh Vardhan and Erik Solheim, Environment Head, United Nations. Reducing  plastic  pollution has been chosen as 2018’s theme for World Environment Day. India is one of the world’s biggest plastic waste generators, accounting for producing nearly 56 lakh tonnes of plastic annually. Nearly 6,000 tonnes of plastic waste remains uncollected across the country daily, adding to the environmental problems. How much plastic is in the sea? It is found all over the planet, with 300 billion pieces in the once-pristine Arctic and a remote island in the Pacific, the uninhabited Henderson Is...

India has a deep history. It has a great impact on world's education system. There are traces that shows that India was well ahead in science, technology and medicines. The revolutionary concept of surgery was also given by India. The concept of University Approximately 2,800 years ago, 800BC, there existed a giant University at Takshashila (often called Taxila), a town located in the north-western region of India (in today’s Pakistan). According to references in the Ramayana, King Bharata founded the town in the name of his son, Taksha. It flourished from 600 BC to 500 AD, in the kingdom of Gandhar. 68 subjects were taught at this university and the minimum entry age, ancient texts show, was 16. At one stage, it had 10,500 students including those from Babylon, Greece, Syria, and China. Experienced masters taught the vedas, languages, grammar, philosophy, medicine, surgery, archery, politics, warfare, astronomy, accounts, commerce, documentation, music, dance and oth...

India has the largest number of post offices in the world is a known fact. But did you know that there is a floating post office in India too? Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir is one of the most popular and beautiful destinations in India. It is famous among tourists and has several attractions. One of its major attractions is the Dal Lake which is known for its natural beauty, its location between mountains, and its lovely weather and ambiance. But another jewel to its crown is India’s first floating post office! The floating post office was inaugurated by former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in August 2011. Since then, it has been attracting tourists from all across the country. While it is a boon to the state’s tourism, the post office is also looked as a tribute to the beautiful Dal lake. Standing on a huge house boat, the post office also includes a philately museum and a shop that sells postage stamps among other things. These include  picture post card...

Shampoo History The word shampoo that we use today in the English language got its roots from the Hindi word " champu ", which itself derived itself from the Sanskrit word " chapyathi " which means press, knead, or soothe. In the olden days, herbs and their extracts were mixed and used to make a paste like component which was used to cleanse the hair. The earliest shampoo was made of ingredients like  Gooseberry  (Amla),  Soapberry extract (kshuna),  hibiscus ,  Shikakai paste,  etc. Each of these ingredients had natural properties that helped in thick and healthy hair growth. Amla  helped in strengthening hair follicles, and helped retain the strength and lustre of the hair. The vitamin C present in Amla helped in preventing premature greying of hair and men and women looked forever 21! Amla also helped in fighting dandruff and itchy scalp. Amla also worked as a great conditioner. Soapberry  keeps the hair lustrous and reduce...

The 13th century poet saint Gyandev created the game of Snakes & Ladders. It was originally called ‘Mokshapat’. The ladders in the game represented virtues and the snakes indicated vices. The game was played with cowrie shells and dices. In time, the game underwent several modifications, but its meaning remained the same, i.e. good deeds take people to heaven and evil to a cycle of re-births. Details : Snakes and Ladders originated in India as part of a family of dice board games, including pachisi (modern day Ludo). It was known as moksha patam or vaikunthapaali or paramapada sopaanam (the ladder to salvation The game as popularly played in ancient India was known as Moksha Patam, and emphasized the role of fate or karma. A Jain version, Gyanbazi, dates to the 16th century. The game was called Leela and reflected the Hinduism consciousness surrounding everyday life. Moksha Patam was associated with traditional Hindu philosophy contrasting karma and kama, or destin...

The first chemically refined sugar appeared on the scene in India about 2,500 years ago. From there, the technique spread east towards China, and west towards Persia and the early Islamic worlds, eventually reaching the Mediterranean in the 13th century. Cyprus and Sicily became important centres for sugar production. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was considered a rare and expensive spice, rather than an everyday condiment. It is also said that In 510 BC the Emperor Darius of what was then Persia invaded India where he found "the reed which gives honey without bees". The secret of cane sugar, as with many other of man's discoveries, was kept a closely guarded secret whilst the finished product was exported for a rich profit. The first place to cultivate sugarcane explicitly for large-scale refinement and trade was the Atlantic island of Madeira, during the late 15th century. Then, it was the Portuguese who realised that new and favourable conditions for sugar p...

NASA on  23 september 2009 revealed that India's maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-I had traced  water  molecules on the moon's surface. India's own Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on board the country's maiden unmanned lunar craft had detected evidence of water on the moon in a finding confirmed by US space agency Nasa which too had an instrument onboard Chandrayaan-I. The Nasa meanwhile thanked Isro for enabling the discovery of water on moon through Chandrayaan-I. "We want to thank Isro for making the discovery possible. The moon till now was thought to be a very dry surface with lot of rocks," NASA director Jim Green told reporters in Washington. In Bangalore, a beaming Isro chief G Madhavan Nair said the MIP while descending from Chandrayaan-I to the moon surface about a fortnight after it was launched in October picked up strong signals of water particles. Nair's remark has triggered speculation whether an Indian space mission was the first to di...

Reita Faria was one of the best known Indians worldwide in her times.  She is the the first Indian to wear the Miss World crown in 1966. She is a qualified medical practitioner and now resides in Dublin, Ireland, with her husband Dr Colin Powell, whom she married in 1971. The couple has two daughters and five grandchildren. Reita Faria Powel was born in 1945 in Mumbai. Reita grew up in Mumbai with her sister Philomena in a tight-knit Goan family that owned real estate and other businesses. Early Days of Reita Faria Born on 23rd August 1943, Reita Faria was born to Goan parents in Matunga. Although she is a Goan by birth, her childhood days were mostly spent in then Bombay. By above-mentioned ‘Miss World’ title, everyone easily assumes that she had a rich upbringing, but actually, she did not have any of these. Reita was born and brought up in a middle-class family of Mumbai where her father worked at a mineral factory, and her mother owned a salon in Marine Lines. S...

BRITAIN, A local holiday was declared for the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway on 27 September 1825. Aware of the importance of the day, crowds clustered around the newly-constructed line in anticipation. They weren’t to be disappointed. Ever the showman, George Stephenson hit speeds of 15mph in his steam locomotive, Locomotion – outpacing the local horses in the process. As one impressed spectator recalled: “The welkin [sky] rang loud with huzzas while the happy faces of some, the vacant stares of others and the alarm depicted on the countenances of not a few, gave variety to the picture”. Conceived primarily to transport coal from collieries to the river Tees at Stockton, this was the first venture in the world to employ steam engines for hauling goods. But the railway also leased out the rights to run passenger services to various operators, including two female innkeepers. Despite the fact that horses were still used far more than the unreliable locomot...

Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama becomes the first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean when he arrives at Calicut on the Malabar Coast. Da Gama sailed from Lisbon, Portugal, in July 1497, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and anchored at Malindi on the east coast of Africa. With the aid of an Indian merchant he met there, he then set off across the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese explorer was not greeted warmly by the Muslim merchants of Calicut, and in 1499 he had to fight his way out of the harbor on his return trip home. In 1502, he led a squadron of ships to Calicut to avenge the massacre of Portuguese explorers there and succeeded in subduing the inhabitants. In 1524, he was sent as viceroy to India, but he fell ill and died in Cochin.

Cuban Independence Movement , nationalist uprising in Cuba against Spanish rule. It began with the unsuccessful  Ten Years’ War (Guerra de los Diez Años; 1868–78) and culminated in the U.S. intervention that ended the Spanish colonial presence in the Americas. Dissatisfied with the corrupt and inefficient Spanish administration, lack of political representation, and high taxes, Cubans in the eastern provinces united under the wealthy planter  Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, whose declaration of independence in October 1868, the Grito de Yara (“Cry of Yara”), signaled the beginning of the Ten Years’ War, in which 200,000 lives were lost. Céspedes had the support of some landowners, whose main interest was economic and political independence from Spain, whereas the farmers and labourers were more concerned with the immediate abolition of slavery and greater political power for the common man. In 1876 Spain sent Gen.  Arsenio Martínez Campos to crush...