User:P.K.Niyogi/DYK2


 * ...that the Maratha Ditch was excavated around Calcutta, India, as a protection against attacks by Marathas, who, however, never attacked?


 * ...that Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama was buried in St. Francis Church in India?
 * . Started by Bhadani


 * ...that Bhushan Steel, the largest manufacturer of auto-grade steel in India, is expanding its capacity to 12 million tonnes annually?




 * ...that in the 250-year old Durga Puja of Shobhabazar palace, the goddess (statue pictured) was offered homemade sweets because non-Brahmin patrons were not allowed to offer rice in any form?


 * ...that Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary in Kerala, India, receives migratory birds from far away Siberia?


 * ...that Burrabazar, in Kolkata, expanded from a yarn and textile market into a large wholesale market?


 * ...that every year 70,000 to 80,000 migratory birds visit Raiganj Wildlife Sanctuary, an artificially created forest in West Bengal, India?
 * Started by Amartyabag


 * ...that with the 2008 bird flu outbreak in West Bengal, 16,000 birds were destroyed in Itahar, but health workers retreated from villages that refused to kill their birds?


 * ...that tradition has it that Warren Hastings hunted with elephants in the jungle in Chowringhee, now a business district in Kolkata, India?
 * Started by Aryasanyal


 * ...that the Mattancherry Palace, popular as Dutch Palace, in Kochi, India, was built by the Portuguese and renovated by the Dutch?
 * Started by LeoNomis


 * ...that Entally was home to the poor and the depressed, and a neighborhood where Mother Teresa started her active life in Kolkata, India?




 * ...that there is a plan to shift Kolkata's traditional wholesale market in Posta (pictured), to the newly developed New Town?


 * mp...that the more than two centuries old Gun and Shell Factory at Cossipore, a neighbourhood in north Kolkata, is the oldest surviving factory in the Indian subcontinent?




 * ...that dhakis (pictured), traditional Bengali drummers, kill more than 40,000 egrets, pheasants, herons and open bill storks every year to decorate their instruments with feathers?




 * ...there is a belief that a dip in the waters of Papanasam Beach (pictured), one of the beaches in Kerala, washes away sins?


 * ...that the hull of the kettuvallams, Kerala houseboats, (pictured) are built of wooden boards tied together by coir rope?
 * Started by Kjrajesh


 * ...that in parts of the Kerala Backwaters the paddy fields are at a lower level than the water in canals, held back by dikes?
 * Started by Tom Radulovich


 * ...that Job Charnock landed at Jorabagan, Sutanuti ghat in 1690, which is believed by many to be the starting point of the metropolitan growth of Kolkata?


 * ...that in Hindu mythology, after Lakshmindara, son of Chand Sadagar, died of snakebite on his wedding night, his bride Behula accompanied his corpse on a raft floating in a river?


 * ...that social activists opine that the extension of the Kolkata Metro on pillars on the bed of Adi Ganga will destroy the waterway?


 * ...that boats crammed with people from both India and Bangladesh, flying the flags of their respective countries, converge on the Ichamati River, the international border, to immerse the idols after Durga Puja?


 * ...that the suffering caused by 19th century floods and famines in Mymensingh District, presently in Bangladesh, led to the sale of human beings for around the price of a maund of rice?


 * ...that the Saraswati River, a distributary of the Bhagirathi in West Bengal, is now dead but was active till around the 16th century AD?


 * ...that a possible local subsidence forced the Jalangi River, in West Bengal, to flow in a south westerly direction, reverting the earlier trend of rivers in the region flowing in a south easterly direction?


 * ...that Chalan Beel, a wetland in Bangladesh, is getting vastly reduced in size with fast silting up caused by the inflow of 47 rivers and waterways?
 * Started by Anisworld


 * ...that the haor located in north-eastern Bangladesh, is a bowl-shaped depression with such vast stretches of turbulent water that it is thought of as a sea during a monsoon?


 * ...that Pundravardhana was a territory, mostly in present-day Bangladesh, of the Pundras, a group of non-Aryan people, dating back to 8th-7th centuries BC?




 * ...that on the banks of Shitalakshya River, in Bangladesh, there are artistic weaving (pictured) centres, where once the muslin industry flourished?
 * Started by Mattisse




 * ...that Mahasthangarh (ramparts pictured) is the earliest urban archaeological site so far discovered in Bangladesh, dating back to at least the 3rd century B.C.?
 * Started by Ragib


 * ...that the Korotoa River, a small stream in Rajshahi Division of Bangladesh, was once a large and sacred river?
 * Although mentioned as a nomination, this article was completely redone and expanded before nomination. Started by Tarif Ezaz


 * ...that Shyampukur was the site of one of the two tents Jamshetji Framji Madan set up to screen films when he entered the ‘bioscope’ scene in Kolkata in 1902?


 * ...that a three-horse omnibus plied briefly between Dharmatala, a neighbourhood in Kolkata, and Barrackpore in November 1830?


 * ...that Lord Canning wanted to build a port at Canning, now in West Bengal, that could rival Singapore but gave up when the Matla River surged its fury on the new port town in 1867?


 * ...that the legislator from Kultali was sentenced by the Kolkata High Court, in 2005, to life imprisonment in a case where a mob dragged two persons out of their house, and tortured and killed them?


 * ...that the residents of Basanti and other deltaic islands in the Indian part of the Sundarbans thanked the French author Dominique Lapierre for the floating dispensaries he had provided?


 * ...that from 1985 through 2004, about seventy-five honey collectors from Gosaba and the surrounding areas of West Bengal were killed by tigers in the forests of Sundarbans, but none since?


 * ...that in the Sandeshkhali region of West Bengal more than 100 women get trafficked to red-light areas in Mumbai and Pune each year?


 * ...that although in present-day India the former Princely states and their princes have lost that status, the Raja of Rajnagar still wears his ancestors' tattered royal attire twice a year?


 * ...that the hearing for the Nanoor massacre case has stalled because of the defendants' repeated failure to appear in court?


 * ...that the Ghurni clay dolls of West Bengal have been inaugurated by Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev?


 * ...that in 2006, nearly 50,000 people were marooned in Labhpur and surrounding areas of Birbhum district in West Bengal because of floods?




 * ...that the neighbourhood of Bowbazar was the site of Calcutta's first horse drawn tram line (model pictured), opened in 1873?


 * ...that Deganga, in West Bengal, where ground water is affected by arsenic contamination, will have to wait until 2009 for a supply of piped arsenic-free water?


 * ...that Nayachar Island in the Hooghly River was chosen as the location for a major chemical hub based on experience in developing Jurong Island in Singapore?


 * ...that a ditch excavated to fend off marauding Maratha soldiers, was filled up when the city was never attacked, to form a road from Shyambazar's five-point crossing?


 * ...that with Calcutta developing in the 18th century, the Janbazar neighbourhood was gradually taken over by the Portuguese, Armenians, half-castes and others, to become a grey area between Black and White Towns?


 * ...that Jatindramohan Tagore, a theatre enthusiast, music and art-lover, and philanthropist, was the first Indian to be a member of the Royal Photographic Society in 1898?


 * ...that the once flourishing Indian port of Saptagram faded out as a result of river silting?




 * ...that the Bagbazar neighbourhood in north Kolkata (Bagbazar Ghat pictured) has long been a citadel of the Bengali aristocracy?


 * ...that the title of ‘Raja’ was bestowed on Subodh Chandra Mullick by the people after he donated Rs. 100,000 in 1906 for the National Council of Education which later became Jadavpur University?