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The Koh-i-Noor Diamond (Source: famousdiamonds (The Koh-I-Noor))
At one point in time, every diamond in the world originated in India.
Ravi Hutheesing: Dancin' with Hanson (Source: Amazon (Book cover))
What links the American pop band Hanson and the Nehru-Gandhi family?
The Indian Tricolour (Source: Wikipedia)
There are a number of flags which appear similar to the Indian Tricolour.
Sidi Mubarak Bombay (Source: Unlocking the Archives)
What connection does Bombay have with the source of the river Nile?
Jules Jannsen - Oil on Canvas by Jean Jacques Henner (Source: Wikipedia (Jules Jannsen))
What connects the city of Guntur, dirigibles and rockets?
Emilie Schenkl with her daughter Anita (Source: Rediff (Slideshow))
What tenuous connection does this Austrian professor of economics have with the Indian freedom movement?

Quotable quotes

Akbar never denied his mother anything but this …

Ecbar Shaugh [Emperor Akbar] … never denyed [his mother] any thing but this, that shee demanded of him, that our Bible might be hanged about an asses necke and beaten about the towne of Agra, for that the Portugals … tyed [the Quran] about the necke of a dogge and beat the same dogge about the towne of Ormuz. But hee denyed her request, saying that, if it were ill in the Portugals to doe so to the Alcoran, being it became not a King to requite ill with ill, for that the contempt of any religion was the contempt of God.

The British mistake of not breeding virile Indian princes

If India is to be really capable of holding its own in future without direct British control from outside I am not sure that it will not need an increasing infusion of stronger Nordic blood, whether by settlement or intermarriage or otherwise. Possibly it has been a real mistake of ours in the past not to encourage Indian princes to marry English wives ... and so breed a more virile type of native ruler.

Did you know?

Belur and brilliant beryls

The name of the gemstone, beryl, probably originates from the Prakrit veruliya and Sanskrit vaidurya- which might be of Dravidian provenance. One theory points its source to the city of Velur (modern Belur, Karnataka). Derivatives such as brilliant and beryllium share these origins.

Ganga and Kurma

In the early 90s, the Indian government released specially-raised flesh-eating turtles into the Ganga to eat and clear the river of partly-burned corpses from the Varanasi ghats. The programme failed as poachers captured and wiped out the turtle population (again).

Saffron

The word saffron, a colour often associated with Hinduism, is believed to have its root in the Arabic word, az-za'faran which is itself of unknown origin.