In 1936, Syrie Maugham, a leading interior decorator, left for India to, in her words, "paint the Black Hole of Calcutta white". She was famous for popularising rooms styled entirely in white and was nicknamed The Princess of Pale.
India's first talkie was Alam Ara (1931) starring Zubeida, who, as the daughter of the Nawab of Sachin, was a princess in real life. The film is now lost.
On Aug 15, 1947, one Indian Rupee was equal to one US dollar as it was linked to the British Pound. It fell to 4.79 in 1966 and prior to the 1991 liberalisation, it stood at 17.90 to the dollar.
Dams are sometimes referred to as the temples of modern India. This epithet stems from a speech delivered by Nehru during the opening ceremony of the Bhakra Dam where he said, "This dam has been built with the unrelenting toil of man for the benefit of mankind and therefore is worthy of worship. May you call it a Temple or a Gurdwara or a Mosque, it inspires our admiration and reverence".
For a few centuries before independence, a part of southern Vietnam was called Cochinchina. It was so named by 16th century Portuguese traders to distinguish its Malay name, Kuchi, from their Indian base in Cochin/Kochi in Kerala.
Telangana's claim for statehood hinged on what it believed were violations of the Gentlemen's Agreement of Andhra Pradesh, an agreement signed between the leaders of Andhra and Telangana in 1956.
