Gorakhpur, a sleepy city in Uttar Pradesh not far from the Nepal border, is home to the world's longest railway platform at 1.355 km long. The previous record-holder was a platform at Kharagpur in West Bengal.
Young girl,
On this day of Holī
—Your breasts dusted with flour,
Your eyes red from too much liquor,
A lotus stuck in your hair
And mango shoots behind your ears—
You are a credit to our village.
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.
You're the top, you're Mahatma Gandhi,
You're the top! you're Napoleon brandy,
You're the purple light, of a summer night in Spain,
You're the National Gallery, you're Garbo's salary,
You're cellophane!
Gondwanaland, the Pangaean supercontinent that existed millions of years ago is named after Gondwana, a region in Central India. Gondwana comes from the Sanskrit goṇḍavana or the forest of the Gonds, a tribe spread across the area.
India's highest military decoration, the Param Vir Chakra, was designed by Savitri Khanolkar, a lady who was born Eve Yvonne Maday de Maros in Switzerland and was of Hungarian-Russian ancestry. She was married to Major-General Vikram Khanolkar of the Sikh Regiment.
Wouldst thou the young year's blossoms and the fruits of its decline
And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed?
Wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine?
I name thee, O Śakoontalá! and all at once is said.
When viewed in this light, the achievement of the unknown Hindu who some time in the first centuries of our era discovered the principle of position assumes the proportions of a world-event. Not only did this principle constitute a radical departure in method, but we know now that without it no progress in arithmetic was possible.