MY INDIA MY PRIDE - I AM PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN

Mark Twain said, “India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grandmother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only”.

Few countries in the world have a tradition, culture, and variety as diverse as this multi-faceted land called India. India, a country with a culture having more than ten thousand years has enriched the global scientific, educational, economic and cultural scenario significantly. The unity in Diversity is one of the main reason of being proud to be an Indian.We have different languages, different cultures,foods, clothes and traditions still we are united and stand firm on our ground despite repeated efforts by the outsiders to divide us.

 Being born in such a great country, we have millions of reasons to feel proud as an Indian. 

To begin to understand India, one must understand its diversity. There are 22 official languages and over 1600 dialects spoken. Nearly 650 different recognised tribes reside across the country. Keeping this cultural diversity alive is part of the challenge ahead, especially given the ever-increasing tendency of westernisation.
The very world culture started from the country India. When the people of today’s developed nations were wandering like nomadic, Indians built Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the first ever planned city of the world. India is the home to four major religions of the world. The first epic of the world was written in India. Sanskrit, according to a major group of linguistics is considered as the mother of all European languages. Forbes magazine has rated Sanskrit as the most suitable language for software applications.


Till 1896, India was the only known source of diamond in the world. Tremendous wealth of India attracted several invaders and traders. Till the invasion of British East India Company, India was the richest country of the world.
 
Armed Forces
Among the finest institutions this country has produced are the Indian Armed Forces. When tin pot generals have appointed themselves as Presidents for life in various parts of the world, we can be proud of our Defence forces. It is the world’s third largest standing army comprising over 1.1 million men in uniform. This institution is totally a political and professional in its approach. It is also a symbol of the secular nature of the country as people from all over come together to make this organization.
Education System
First university of the world was established in Takshila(in Modern Bihar) in the year 700BC. More than 60 subjects were taught here to near about 10,500 students who came from different parts of the world.

Today I feel proud about the education provided by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Managements (IIMs) which can boast of standards equal to the best in the world at far less cost. Products of these institutions now head global organizations and play a major role in organizations like NASA.  Indians are familiar as doctors and scientists in many developed countries.

The co-founder of Sun Microsystems Mr. Vinod Khosla ,

the creator of Pentium chip (90% of the today's computers run on it) Mr. Vinod Dham ,

the founder and creator of Hotmail (World's No. 1 web based E-Mail program) Mr. Sabeer Bhatia  ,

 the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, UNIX to name a few) Mr. Arun Netravalli  ,

the GM of Hewlett Packard Mr. Rajiv Gupta ,

the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000 Mr. Sanjay Tejwrika  are some of the many names which announces the world about the abundance of intellectual capital of our country

When we talk about Indians residing in many other countries they are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America , even faring better than the whites and the natives:
There are 3.22 Millions of INDIAN s in USA ( 1.5 % of population ).
YET, 38% of doctors in USA are INDIANs.
12% scientists in USA are INDIANs.
36% of NASA scientists are INDIANs.
34% of Microsoft employees are INDIANs.
28% of IBM employees are INDIANs.
17% of INTEL scientists are INDIANs.
13% of XEROX employees are INDIANs

India has a strong and growing middle class which is put variously at between 200 and 300 million. It also has a young population (median age 25 years) with needs to fill. In terms of scientific and technological achievement, India has contributed vastly to the growth of the Information Technology industry worldwide. From data processing, the Indian IT sector is moving up the value chain to software development and beyond. The distance between Silicon Valley and Bangalore is reducing.
Indian cousins
Talking about Indian cousins, with its original Aryan and Dravidian cultures, churned by the influence of visitors and invaders from Central Asia and Europe, food habits and cuisines have evolved over the centuries in India. The end result is a variety of cuisines – some region-specific, others influenced by the availability of certain ingredients; and yet others evolving from religion-dictated Do’s and Don’ts. If you throw into the mix the exotic spices native to this land you get the best food available in the world – tasty, inexpensive and healthy.
Tandoori meats and vegetables, Kashmiri wazwaan, Hyderabadi biryani, the delicate flavors of the Hilsa fish of Bengal, or the melt-in-your-mouth fish molly (a favourite with natives of Kerala and the Konkan coast).
Food for the palate and the soul!!
And surely one must not forget that the British consider Chicken Tikka Masala to be their national dish! 

Society

Despite the many pressures of globalization and westernization, the Indian family unit still survives, especially in the rural areas. In the cities, families have become more nuclear with the younger ones moving out in search of a better life. It is not unusual for unmarried, earning young adults to stay with the parents. Conversely, parents are usually expected to stay with their children during their twilight years. Single parenting is still uncommon.
There is something in the Indian ethos that makes a person accept his lot. He finds it easy to come in terms with reality even while he dreams of a better life for himself and his children. In a way it implies a helplessness to change our fate - very different to Western thought.

The Indian woman

She is a loving wife and a caring mother, a well-groomed, highly articulate super-juggler, balancing her home and professional life.

With her great dignity, and her commitment to the institution of marriage and family the Indian women are unique. Her natural grace, softness, body structure and skin tone make her an epitome of beauty.

Please find below some interesting facts about India

1. The name `India' is derived from the River Indus, the valleys around which were the home of the early    settlers. The Aryan worshippers referred to the river Indus as the Sindhu.

2. The Persian invaders converted it into Hindu. The name `Hindustan' combines Sindhu and Hindu and thus refers to the land of the Hindus.

3. The number system was invented by India. Aryabhatta was the scientist who invented the digit zero.

4. Chess was invented in India.

5. Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies which originated in India.

6. The' place value system' and the 'decimal system' were developed in 100 BC in India.

7. The first six Mogul Emperor's of India ruled in an unbroken succession from father to son for two hundred years, from 1526 to 1707.

8. The World's First Granite Temple is the Brihadeswara temple at Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu. The shikhara is made from a single ' 80-tonne ' piece of granite. Also, this magnificient temple was built in just five years, (between 1004 AD and 1009 AD) during the reign of Rajaraja Chola

9. India is.......the Largest democracy in the world, the 6th largest country in the world AND one of the most ancient and living civilizations (at least 10, 000 years old).

10. The game of snakes & ladders was created by the 13th century poet saint Gyandev. 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. Later through time, the game underwent several modifications but the meaning is the same i.e good deeds take us to heaven and evil to a cycle of

re-births.

11. The world's highest cricket ground is in Chail, Himachal Pradesh. Built in 1893 after levelling a hilltop, this cricket pitch is 2444 meters above sea level.

12. India has the most post offices in the world !

13. The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system, employing over a million people !.

14.The World's first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

15. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to mankind. The father of medicine, Charaka, consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago.

16. Although modern images & descriptions of India often show poverty, India was one of the richest countries till the time of British in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus was attracted by India's wealth and was looking for route to India when he discovered America by mistake.

17. The art of Navigation & Navigating was born in the river Sindh 6000 over years ago. The very word 'Navigation' is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from the Sanskrit word 'Nou'.

18. Bhaskaracharya rightly calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. His calculations was - Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: ( 5th century ) 365.258756484 days.

19.The value of "pi" was first calculated by the Indian Mathematician Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century, which was long before the European mathematicians.

20. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus also orignated from India. Quadratic equations were used by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10*53 ( i.e 10 to the power of 53 ) with specific names as early as 5000 B.C. during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera: 10*12( 10 to the power of 12 ).

21. The Baily Bridge is the highest bridge in the world. It is located in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. It was built by the Indian Army in August 1982.

22. Sushruta is regarded as the father of surgery. Over 2600 years ago Sushrata & his team conducted complicated surgeries like cataract, artificial limbs, cesareans, fractures, urinary stones and also plastic surgery and brain surgeries.

23. Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India medicine. Detailed knowledge of anatomy, embryology, digestion, metabolism, physiology, etiology, genetics and immunity is also found in many ancient Indian texts.

India, I came across someone wrote the other day, is a land of contrasts and contradictions. It is a land of peace and war, of love and hate and many other emotions. You can spend a lifetime and be none the wiser in trying to understand India’s vast complexities. This subject can therefore easily make a book.

"What makes a nation, is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past", says the noted historian Eric Hobsbawm.Hence, when talking of a nation, it becomes very imperative that the past should also be talked about. And the past of India is as fascinating and interesting as it is momentous.

Love us or hate us, like us or leave us, the one thing anyone can ill-afford to do, is to ignore us, not when one in every six human beings is an Indian.

BE PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN