Portal:India/Did you know 3

This is a selection of articles on Wikipedia that appeared on the India Portal's Did you know section. (Archives are in sets of approximately 50 items each)

Did you know...

 * 1) ...that Rajendrasinhji Jadeja was the first Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army?
 * 2) ...that the appearance of a dog in a Hutch ad campaign doubled sales of pugs in India in 2003?
 * 3) ...that Satveer Chaudhary was the first Asian American to hold elected office in Minnesota?
 * 4) ... that human sacrifices were once offered in Chitpur, now home to Kolkata’s latest railway passenger terminal?
 * 5) ...that Ratnakar Matkari combined social realism in supernatural thrillers, which was a pioneering idea in Marathi literature?
 * 6) ...that Pamheiba made Hinduism the official religion of Manipur in 1717 C.E.?
 * 7) ...that the Tagore family, with over three hundred years of history, has exercised the greatest influence on reawakened Bengali spirit?
 * 8) ...that Motilal Sheel, a Bengali merchant in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in British India in the early 19th century, donated the land on which the Calcutta Medical College was built in 1835?
 * 9) ...that Australian Test cricketers Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were fined after accepting money from an Indian bookmaker known only as "John" in return for pitch and weather reports?
 * 10) ...that the Mahishya caste is one of the predominant Hindu castes in West Bengal, India?
 * 11) ...that Sukhbir is often referred to as the Prince of Bhangra?
 * 12) ...that Ching-Thang Khomba started the tradition of Sankirtan in Manipur?
 * 13) ...that Bhai Gurdas was the original scribe of the Guru Granth Sahib?
 * 14) ...that Ghatam Udupa was the first Indian percussionist to perform at the prestigious Kraków International Percussion Festival in 2005?
 * 15) ...that the 2006 Dalit protests in Maharashtra was triggered by the desecration of an Ambedkar statue?
 * 16) ...that Atan Burhagohain was a master in the daga juddha style of warfare?
 * 17) ...that Supangmung died one year before the fateful Battle of Saraighat?
 * 18) ...that Mangalkavya depicted the social customs of Bengal in the Middle Ages?
 * 19) ...that the famous Mughal general Mir Jumla was born the son of an oil merchant?
 * 20) ...that the People of Assam belong to three ethnic groups: Mon-Khmer, Tibeto-Burman, and Indo-Aryan?
 * 21) ...that Biraja Sankar Guha began the classification of Indian people into races?
 * 22) ...that in 1932 Paramahansa Yogananda urged young people to pool resources, buy land, and create World Brotherhood Colonies, nearly 40 years before the intentional community movement of the late 1960s?
 * 23) ...that the Vedic Mathematics genre was revived after Hindu Shankaracharya Jagadguru Swami Sri Bharati Krishna Tirthaji Maharaja rediscovered it in the form of sixteen sutras?
 * 24) ...that Russian indologist Gerasim Lebedev was the founder of the first European-style drama theatre in India and also the first printing house in Europe equipped with Indic scripts of Bengali and Devanagari?
 * 25) ... that the suppression of a protest in Nagpur and Jabalpur caused the Flag Satyagraha to erupt in 1923, bringing thousands of nationalists from across India to the rebellion?
 * 26) ...that Saddam Beach in the Indian state of Kerala was given its name by local Muslim villagers after the Gulf War of 1991 in solidarity with former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein?
 * 27) ...that Kadambini Ganguly (pictured) was one of the first female graduates in the British Empire and the first female doctor (allopath) in South Asia?
 * 28) ...that Channa, a charioteer of Prince Siddhartha, became a bhikkhu upon his master's attainment of buddhahood, and was frequently chastised for his arrogance?
 * 29) ...that a fire that broke out a few days before Hiralal Sen died destroyed all his film,s including India's first political film?
 * 30) ...that Kaka Joginder Singh (alias Dharti Pakad) contested and lost over 300 elections in his 36 year political career?
 * 31) ...that Indian author and journalist Peary Chand Mitra played a leading role in the Bengali renaissance in the 19th century and became known as the "Dickens of Bengal" due to his clear Bengali prose?
 * 32) ...that Kallol was perhaps, the first conscious literary movement to embrace modernism in Bengali literature?
 * 33) ...that Rasik Krishna Mallick, a student at Hindu College, Kolkata, a leading Derozian and journalist, shocked a court in British India in the 1820s when he stated that he did not believe in the sacredness of the Ganges?
 * 34) ...that the Urdu movement, which sought to establish Urdu as the lingua franca of the Muslim communities of India, emerged from the fall of the Mughal Empire and became an integral part of the Pakistan Movement?
 * 35) ...that Sabeena Saleem is the first mother to compete alongside her daughter at the Asian Games in Indian bowling history?
 * 36) ...that the Khooni Darwaza (literally Gateway of Blood) a 16th century monument at Delhi, India is so named due to the various incidents of bloodshed associated with it?
 * 37) ...that retired Indian footballer and FIFA Centennial Order of Merit awardee, Pradip Kumar Banerjee, at the age of 19 in 1955, was the youngest player ever to represent a state or country in an international tournament when he played for Indian Football Team in a quadrangular tournament in Dhaka?
 * 38) ...that the practice of collecting funds for the welfare of the armed forces personnel on the Flag Day (7 December) every year, started more than half a century back in 1949, even before India became Republic?
 * 39) ...that Indian film director Ritwik Ghatak's first feature film Nagarik premiered after his death, twenty-four years after it was made?
 * 40) ....that Vishnu Bhagwat was the first service chief in independent India to be sacked from his post in late 1998?
 * 41) ...that noted Bengali writer Rajnarayan Basu was a tutor of Asia's first Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore?
 * 42) ...that the monkey Ramu, from the Indian state of Orissa was kept behind bars for five years on the charge of disturbing communal harmony?
 * 43) ...that the Sannyasi Rebellion was a series of clashes between Indian ascetics and the British East India Company during the eighteenth century in Bengal?
 * 44) ...that although the earliest attempt at dividing Midnapore District, the most populous district in India, was scrapped in 1921, the Partition of Midnapore was achieved 81 years later?
 * 45) ...that Indian serial killer Raman Raghav targeted street urchins and beggars sleeping in the open on roadsides and slums in Mumbai?
 * 46) ...that Operation Poomalai was a humanitarian supply airdrop over Jaffna, Sri Lanka by the Indian Air Force in June 1987, and was the first active intervention by India in the Sri Lankan Civil War?
 * 47) ...that Sajal Barui, who escaped after being convicted of murdering his family, was recaptured by the West Bengal police for theft without his true identity being discovered?
 * 48) ...that Jyoti Prasad Agarwala is regarded as the father of Assamese cinema?
 * 49) ...that when Krishna Mohan Banerjee, a member of the famous Young Bengal group in Kolkata, in British India, converted to Christianity in 1832, he lost his job in David Hare's school?