1.
Bengal
–
Bengal is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in Asia, which is located in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Geographically, it is made up by the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, in 2011, the population of Bengal was estimated to be 250 million, making it the most densely populated region in South Asia. An estimated 160 million people live in Bangladesh, while 91.3 million people live in West Bengal, the predominant ethno-linguistic group are the Bengali people, who speak the Indo-Aryan Bengali language. Bengali Muslims are the majority in Bangladesh, Bengali Hindus are the majority in West Bengal. Dense woodlands, including rainforests, cover Bengals northern and eastern areas. In the littoral southwest are the Sunderbans, the worlds largest mangrove forest, in the coastal southeast lies Coxs Bazaar, the longest beach in the world at 125 km. The region has a climate, which the Bengali calendar divides into six seasons. Bengal has played a role in the history of Asia. In antiquity, its kingdoms were known as seafaring nations, at times an independent regional empire, or a bastion of larger empires, the historical region was a leading power of the Indian subcontinent and the Islamic East. Bengali culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature, music, art, architecture, sports, currency, commerce, politics and cuisine. The name of Bengal is derived from the ancient kingdom of Banga, theories on the origin of the term Banga point to the Proto-Dravidian Bong tribe that settled in the area circa 1000 BCE and the Austric word Bong. The term Bangaladesa is used to describe the region in 11th century South Indian records, the modern term Bangla is prominent from the 14th century, which saw the establishment of the Sultanate of Bengal, whose first ruler Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah was known as the Shah of Bangala. The Portuguese referred to the region as Bengala in the Age of Discovery, most of the Bengal region lies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, but there are highlands in its north, northeast and southeast. The Ganges Delta arises from the confluence of the rivers Ganges, Brahmaputra, the total area of Bengal is 232,752 km2—West Bengal is 88,752 km2 and Bangladesh 147,570 km2. The flat and fertile Bangladesh Plain dominates the geography of Bangladesh, the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Sylhet regions are home to most of the mountains in Bangladesh. Most parts of Bangladesh are within 10 metres above the sea level, because of this low elevation, much of this region is exceptionally vulnerable to seasonal flooding due to monsoons. The highest point in Bangladesh is in Mowdok range at 1,052 metres, a major part of the coastline comprises a marshy jungle, the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world and home to diverse flora and fauna, including the royal Bengal tiger. In 1997, this region was declared endangered, West Bengal is on the eastern bottleneck of India, stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south
2.
Bangladesh
–
Bangladesh, officially the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It shares land borders with India and Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China are located near Bangladesh but do not share a border with it. The countrys maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal is roughly equal to the size of its land area, Bangladesh is the worlds eighth most populous country. Dhaka is its capital and largest city, followed by Chittagong which has the countrys largest port, Bangladesh forms the largest and eastern part of the Bengal region. Bangladeshis include people of different ethnic groups and religions, Bengalis, who speak the official Bengali, make up 98% of the population. The politically dominant Bengali Muslims make the nation the worlds third largest Muslim-majority country, most of Bangladesh is covered by the Bengal delta, the largest delta on Earth. The country has 700 rivers and 8,046 km of inland waterways, highlands with evergreen forests are found in the northeastern and southeastern regions of the country. Bangladesh has many islands and a coral reef and it is home to the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world. The countrys biodiversity includes a vast array of plant and wildlife, including critically endangered Bengal tigers, the Greeks and Romans identified the region as Gangaridai, a powerful kingdom of the historical subcontinent, in the 3rd century BCE. Archaeological research has unearthed several ancient cities in Bangladesh, which had trade links for millennia. The Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal transformed the region into a cosmopolitan Islamic imperial power between the 14th and 18th centuries, the region was home to many principalities which had inland naval prowess. It was also a center of the worldwide muslin and silk trade. As part of British India, the region was influenced by the Bengali renaissance, the Partition of British India made East Bengal a part of the Dominion of Pakistan, and was renamed as East Pakistan. The region witnessed the Bengali Language Movement in 1952 and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, after independence, a parliamentary republic was established. A presidential government was in place between 1975 and 1990, followed by a return to parliamentary democracy, the country has also been affected by poverty, natural disasters, hunger, dominant party systems and military coups. Bangladesh is a power and a major developing nation. Listed as one of the Next Eleven, it has the 46th largest economy and it is one of the largest textile exporters in the world. Its major trading partners are the European Union, the United States, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, with its strategically vital location between Southern, Eastern and Southeast Asia, Bangladesh is an important promoter of regional connectivity and cooperation
3.
India
–
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
4.
Pakistan
–
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a federal parliamentary republic in South Asia on the crossroads of Central Asia and Western Asia. It is the sixth-most populous country with a population exceeding 200 million people, in terms of area, it is the 33rd-largest country in the world with an area covering 881,913 square kilometres. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistans narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, Pakistan is unique among Muslim countries in that it is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam. As a result of the Pakistan Movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and it is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country, with a similarly diverse geography and wildlife. Initially a dominion, Pakistan adopted a constitution in 1956, becoming an Islamic republic, an ethnic civil war in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh. The new constitution stipulated that all laws were to conform to the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Quran. Pakistan has an economy with a well-integrated agriculture sector. The Pakistani economy is the 24th-largest in the world in terms of purchasing power and it is ranked among the emerging and growth-leading economies of the world, and is backed by one of the worlds largest and fastest-growing middle classes. The post-independence history of Pakistan has been characterised by periods of military rule, the country continues to face challenging problems such as illiteracy, healthcare, and corruption, but has substantially reduced poverty and terrorism and expanded per capita income. It is also a member of CERN. Pakistan is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, the name Pakistan literally means land of the pure in Urdu and Persian. It is a play on the word pāk meaning pure in Persian and Pashto, the letter i was incorporated to ease pronunciation and form the linguistically correct and meaningful name. Some of the earliest ancient human civilisations in South Asia originated from areas encompassing present-day Pakistan, the earliest known inhabitants in the region were Soanian during the Lower Paleolithic, of whom stone tools have been found in the Soan Valley of Punjab. The Vedic Civilization, characterised by Indo-Aryan culture, laid the foundations of Hinduism, Multan was an important Hindu pilgrimage centre. The Vedic civilisation flourished in the ancient Gandhāran city of Takṣaśilā, the Indo-Greek Kingdom founded by Demetrius of Bactria included Gandhara and Punjab and reached its greatest extent under Menander, prospering the Greco-Buddhist culture in the region. Taxila had one of the earliest universities and centres of education in the world. At its zenith, the Rai Dynasty of Sindh ruled this region, the Pala Dynasty was the last Buddhist empire, which, under Dharampala and Devapala, stretched across South Asia from what is now Bangladesh through Northern India to Pakistan. The Arab conqueror Muhammad bin Qasim conquered the Indus valley from Sindh to Multan in southern Punjab in 711 AD, the Pakistan governments official chronology identifies this as the time when the foundation of Pakistan was laid
5.
Saudi Arabia
–
Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast and Yemen to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba and it is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast and most of its terrain consists of arid desert and mountains. The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four regions, Hejaz, Najd and parts of Eastern Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud and he united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been a monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called the predominant feature of Saudi culture, with its global spread largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called the Land of the Two Holy Mosques in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the state has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners. The states official language is Arabic, petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia has since become the worlds largest oil producer and exporter, controlling the second largest oil reserves. The kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a high Human Development Index and is the only Arab country to be part of the G-20 major economies. However, the economy of Saudi Arabia is the least diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the state has attracted criticism for its treatment of women and use of capital punishment. Saudi Arabia is an autocracy, has the fourth highest military expenditure in the world. Saudi Arabia is considered a regional and middle power, in addition to the GCC, it is an active member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC. Following the unification of the Hejaz and Nejd kingdoms, the new state was named al-Mamlakah al-ʻArabīyah as-Suʻūdīyah by royal decree on 23 September 1932 by its founder, Abdulaziz Al Saud. Although this is translated as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in English it literally means the Saudi Arab kingdom. Its inclusion expresses the view that the country is the possession of the royal family. Al Saud is an Arabic name formed by adding the word Al, meaning family of or House of, in the case of the Al Saud, this is the father of the dynastys 18th century founder, Muhammad bin Saud. There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago
6.
United Arab Emirates
–
In 2013, the UAEs population was 9.2 million, of which 1.4 million are Emirati citizens and 7.8 million are expatriates. The country is a federation of seven emirates, and was established on 2 December 1971, the constituent emirates are Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain. Each emirate is governed by a monarch, together, they jointly form the Federal Supreme Council. One of the monarchs is selected as the President of the United Arab Emirates, Islam is the official religion of the UAE and Arabic is the official language. The UAEs oil reserves are the seventh-largest in the world while its natural gas reserves are the worlds seventeenth-largest, Sheikh Zayed, ruler of Abu Dhabi and the first President of the UAE, oversaw the development of the Emirates and steered oil revenues into healthcare, education and infrastructure. The UAEs economy is the most diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, while its most populous city of Dubai is an important global city, nevertheless, the country remains principally reliant on its export of petroleum and natural gas. The UAE is criticised for its rights record, including the specific interpretations of Sharia used in its legal system. The UAEs rising international profile has led analysts to identify it as a regional. It appears the land of the Emirates has been occupied for thousands of years, there is no proof of contact with the outside world at that stage, although in time it developed with civilisations in Mesopotamia and Iran. This contact persisted and became wide-ranging, probably motivated by trade in copper from the Hajar Mountains, in ancient times, Al Hasa was part of Al Bahreyn and adjoined Greater Oman. Sassanid groups were present on the Batinah coast, in 637, Julfar was an important port that was used as a staging post for the Islamic invasion of the Sassanian Empire. The area of the Al Ain/Buraimi Oasis was known as Tuam and was an important trading post for camel routes between the coast and the Arabian interior. The earliest Christian site in the UAE was first discovered in the 1990s, a monastic complex on what is now known as Sir Bani Yas Island. Thought to be Nestorian and built in 600 AD, the church appears to have been abandoned peacefully in 750 AD and it forms a rare physical link to a legacy of Christianity which is thought to have spread across the peninsula from 50 to 350 AD following trade routes. Certainly, by the 5th century, Oman had a bishop named John – the last bishop of Oman being Etienne, in 676 AD. This led to a group of travelling to Medina, converting to Islam and subsequently driving a successful uprising against the unpopular Sassanids. Following the death of Prophet Muhammad, the new Islamic communities south of the Persian Gulf threatened to disintegrate, with insurrections against the Muslim leaders. The Caliph Abu Bakr sent an army from the capital Medina which completed its reconquest of the territory with the battle of Dibba in which 10,000 lives are thought to have been lost
7.
United Kingdom
–
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
8.
Qatar
–
Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a sovereign country located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its surrounded by the Persian Gulf. A strait in the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the island country of Bahrain, as well as sharing maritime borders with the United Arab Emirates. Following Ottoman rule, Qatar became a British protectorate in the early 20th century until gaining independence in 1971, Qatar has been ruled by the House of Thani since the early 19th century. Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani was the founder of the State of Qatar, Qatar is a hereditary monarchy and its head of state is Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Whether it should be regarded as a constitutional or a monarchy is a matter of opinion. In 2003, the constitution was approved in a referendum. In early 2017, Qatars total population was 2.3 million,313,000 Qatari citizens and 2.6 million expatriates, Qatar is a high income economy and is a developed country, backed by the worlds third largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves. The country has the highest per capita income in the world, Qatar is classified by the UN as a country of very high human development and is the most advanced Arab state for human development. Qatar is a significant power in the Arab world, supporting several rebel groups during the Arab Spring both financially and through its globally expanding media group, Al Jazeera Media Network. For its size, Qatar wields disproportionate influence in the world, Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, becoming the first Arab country to do so. A century later, Ptolemy produced the first known map to depict the peninsula, the map also referenced a town named Cadara to the east of the peninsula. The term Catara was exclusively used until the 18th century, after which Katara emerged as the most commonly recognised spelling, eventually, the modern derivative Qatar was adopted as the countrys name. In Standard Arabic, the name is pronounced, while in the local dialect it is, Human habitation of Qatar dates back to 50,000 years ago. Settlements and tools dating back to the Stone Age have been unearthed in the peninsula, Mesopotamian artefacts originating from the Ubaid period have been discovered in abandoned coastal settlements. Al Daasa, a settlement located on the western coast of Qatar, is the most important Ubaid site in the country and is believed to have accommodated a small seasonal encampment. Kassite Babylonian material dating back to the second millennium BC found in Al Khor Islands attests to trade relations between the inhabitants of Qatar and the Kassites in modern-day Bahrain, among the findings were 3,000,000 crushed snail shells and Kassite potsherds. It has been suggested that Qatar is the earliest known site of shellfish dye production, in 224 AD, the Sasanian Empire gained control over the territories surrounding the Persian Gulf
9.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
10.
Malaysia
–
Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government, with a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia, located in the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries on earth, with large numbers of endemic species. Malaysia has its origins in the Malay kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, the first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946, Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963 to become Malaysia, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. The country is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, which plays a role in politics. About half the population is ethnically Malay, with minorities of Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians. The constitution declares Islam the state religion while allowing freedom of religion for non-Muslims, the government system is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system and the legal system is based on common law. The head of state is the king, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and he is an elected monarch chosen from the hereditary rulers of the nine Malay states every five years. The head of government is the prime minister, since its independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with its GDP growing at an average of 6. 5% per annum for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce. Today, Malaysia has a newly industrialised market economy, ranked third largest in Southeast Asia, the name Malaysia is a combination of the word Malay and the Latin-Greek suffix -sia/-σία. The word melayu in Malay may derive from the Tamil words malai and ur meaning mountain and city, land, malayadvipa was the word used by ancient Indian traders when referring to the Malay Peninsula. Whether or not it originated from these roots, the word melayu or mlayu may have used in early Malay/Javanese to mean to steadily accelerate or run. This term was applied to describe the current of the river Melayu in Sumatra. The name was adopted by the Melayu Kingdom that existed in the seventh century on Sumatra
11.
Kuwait
–
Kuwait /kuːˈweɪt/, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in Western Asia. Situated in the edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, it shares borders with Iraq. As of 2016, Kuwait has a population of 4.2 million people,1.3 million are Kuwaitis and 2.9 million are expatriates, expatriates account for 70% of the population. Oil reserves were discovered in 1938, from 1946 to 1982, the country underwent large-scale modernization. In the 1980s, Kuwait experienced a period of geopolitical instability, in 1990, Kuwait was invaded by Iraq. The Iraqi occupation came to an end in 1991 after military intervention by coalition forces, at the end of the war, there were extensive efforts to revive the economy and rebuild national infrastructure. Kuwait is a constitutional emirate with a political system. It has an income economy backed by the worlds sixth largest oil reserves. The Kuwaiti dinar is the highest valued currency in the world, according to the World Bank, the country has the fourth highest per capita income in the world. The Constitution was promulgated in 1962, making Kuwait the most democratic country in the region, Kuwait ranks highly in regional metrics of gender equality, as it has the regions highest Global Gender Gap ranking. During the Ubaid period, Kuwait was the site of interaction between the peoples of Mesopotamia and Neolithic Eastern Arabia, mainly centered in As-Subiya in northern Kuwait. The earliest evidence of habitation in Kuwait dates back 8000 B. C. where Mesolithic tools were found in Burgan. As-Subiya in northern Kuwait is the earliest evidence of urbanization in the whole Persian Gulf basin area, mesopotamians first settled in the Kuwaiti island of Failaka in 2000 B. C. Traders from the Sumerian city of Ur inhabited Failaka and ran a mercantile business, the island had many Mesopotamian-style buildings typical of those found in Iraq dating from around 2000 B. C. The Neolithic inhabitants of Kuwait were among the worlds earliest maritime traders, one of the worlds earliest reed-boats was discovered in northern Kuwait dating back to the Ubaid period. In 3rd century BC, the ancient Greeks colonized the bay of Kuwait under Alexander the Great, according to Strabo and Arrian, Alexander the Great named Failaka Ikaros because it resembled the Aegean island of that name in size and shape. Remains of Greek colonization include a large Hellenistic fort and Greek temples, in 224 AD, Kuwait became part of the Sassanid Empire. At the time of the Sassanid Empire, Kuwait was known as Meshan, Akkaz was a Partho-Sassanian site, the Sassanid religions tower of silence was discovered in northern Akkaz
12.
Italy
–
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
13.
Singapore
–
Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, sometimes referred to as the Lion City or the Little Red Dot, is a sovereign city-state in Southeast Asia. It lies one degree north of the equator, at the tip of peninsular Malaysia. Singapores territory consists of one island along with 62 other islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its size by 23%. During the Second World War, Singapore was occupied by Japan, after early years of turbulence, and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation developed rapidly as an Asian Tiger economy, based on external trade and its workforce. Singapore is a global commerce, finance and transport hub, the country has also been identified as a tax haven. Singapore ranks 5th internationally and first in Asia on the UN Human Development Index and it is ranked highly in education, healthcare, life expectancy, quality of life, personal safety, and housing, but does not fare well on the Democracy index. Although income inequality is high, 90% of homes are owner-occupied, 38% of Singapores 5.6 million residents are permanent residents and other foreign nationals. There are four languages on the island, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil. English is its language, most Singaporeans are bilingual. Singapore is a multiparty parliamentary republic, with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government. The Peoples Action Party has won every election since self-government in 1959, however, it is unlikely that lions ever lived on the island, Sang Nila Utama, the Srivijayan prince said to have founded and named the island Singapura, perhaps saw a Malayan tiger. There are however other suggestions for the origin of the name, the central island has also been called Pulau Ujong as far back as the third century CE, literally island at the end in Malay. In 1299, according to the Malay Annals, the Kingdom of Singapura was founded on the island by Sang Nila Utama and these Indianized Kingdoms, a term coined by George Cœdès were characterized by surprising resilience, political integrity and administrative stability. In 1613, Portuguese raiders burned down the settlement, which by then was part of the Johor Sultanate. The wider maritime region and much trade was under Dutch control for the following period, in 1824 the entire island, as well as the Temenggong, became a British possession after a further treaty with the Sultan. In 1826, Singapore became part of the Straits Settlements, under the jurisdiction of British India, prior to Raffles arrival, there were only about a thousand people living on the island, mostly indigenous Malays along with a handful of Chinese. By 1860 the population had swelled to over 80,000, many of these early immigrants came to work on the pepper and gambier plantations
14.
Bahrain
–
Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is a small Arab monarchy in the Persian Gulf. Bahrains population is 1,234,567, including 666,172 non-nationals and it is 780 km2 in size, making it the third smallest nation in Asia after the Maldives and Singapore. Bahrain is the site of the ancient Dilmun civilisation and it has been famed since antiquity for its pearl fisheries, which were considered the best in the world into the 19th century. Bahrain was one of the earliest areas to convert to Islam, following a period of Arab rule, Bahrain was occupied by the Portuguese in 1521, who in turn were expelled in 1602 by Shah Abbas I of the Safavid dynasty under the Persian Empire. In 1783, the Bani Utbah clan captured Bahrain from Nasr Al-Madhkur and it has since been ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family, in the late 1800s, following successive treaties with the British, Bahrain became a protectorate of the United Kingdom. Formerly a state, Bahrain was declared a Kingdom in 2002, in 2011, the country experienced protests inspired by the regional Arab Spring. Bahrain had the first post-oil economy in the Persian Gulf, since the late 20th century, Bahrain has invested in the banking and tourism sectors. Many large financial institutions have a presence in Manama, the countrys capital, Bahrain has a high Human Development Index and was recognised by the World Bank as a high income economy. In Arabic, Bahrayn is the form of bahr, so al-Bahrayn means the two seas, although which two seas were originally intended remains in dispute. The term appears five times in the Quran, but does not refer to the modern island—originally known to the Arabs as Awal— but rather to all of Eastern Arabia. Today, Bahrains two seas are generally taken to be the bay east and west of the island. In addition to wells, there are areas of the sea north of Bahrain where fresh water bubbles up in the middle of the water as noted by visitors since antiquity. An alternate theory with regard to Bahrains toponymy is offered by the al-Ahsa region, another supposition by al-Jawahari suggests that the more formal name Bahri would have been misunderstood and so was opted against. Until the late Middle Ages, Bahrain referred to the region of Eastern Arabia that included Southern Iraq, Kuwait, Al-Hasa, Qatif, the region stretched from Basra in Iraq to the Strait of Hormuz in Oman. This was Iqlīm al-Bahrayns Bahrayn Province, the exact date at which the term Bahrain began to refer solely to the Awal archipelago is unknown. The entire coastal strip of Eastern Arabia was known as Bahrain for a millennium, the island and kingdom were also commonly spelled Bahrein into the 1950s. Bahrain was home to the Dilmun civilization, an important Bronze Age trade centre linking Mesopotamia, Bahrain was later ruled by the Assyrians and Babylonians. From the 6th to 3rd century BC, Bahrain was part of the Persian Empire ruled by the Achaemenian dynasty, by about 250 BC, Parthia brought the Persian Gulf under its control and extended its influence as far as Oman
15.
Canada
–
Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
16.
Australia
–
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
17.
South Korea
–
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing in the 1st century BC and its rich and vibrant culture left 19 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Annexed into Imperial Japan in 1910, Korea was divided after its surrender in 1945, peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the worlds 10th largest defence budget. South Koreas tiger economy soared at an average of 10% for over 30 years in a period of rapid transformation called the Miracle on the Han River. A long legacy of openness and focus on innovation made it successful, today, it is the worlds fifth largest exporter with the G20s largest budget surplus and highest credit rating of any country in East Asia. It has free trade agreements with 75% of the economy and is the only G20 nation trading freely with China, the US. Since 1988, its constitution guarantees a liberal democracy with high government transparency, high personal freedoms led to the rise of a globally influential pop culture such as K-pop and K-drama, a phenomenon called the Korean Wave, known for its distinctive fashionable and trendy style. Home of the UN Green Climate Fund and GGGI, South Korea is a leader in low carbon growth, committed to helping developing countries as a major DAC. It is the third least ignorant country in the Index of Ignorance, ranking eighth highest for peaceful tolerance. It is the worlds largest spender on R&D per GDP, leading the OECD in graduates in science, the name Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After Goryeo was replaced by Joseon in 1392, Joseon became the name for the entire territory. The new official name has its origin in the ancient country of Gojoseon, in 1897, the Joseon dynasty changed the official name of the country from Joseon to Daehan Jeguk. The name Daehan, which means great Han literally, derives from Samhan, however, the name Joseon was still widely used by Koreans to refer to their country, though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted, there were several groups who fought for independence, the most notable being the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the Republic of Korea was adopted as the name for the new country. Since the government only controlled the part of the Korean Peninsula
18.
Japan
–
Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
19.
Bengali language
–
Bengali, also known by its endonym Bangla, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in South Asia. With over 210 million speakers, Bengali is the seventh most spoken language in the world. Dominant in the last group was Persian, which was also the source of some grammatical forms, more recent studies suggest that the use of native and foreign words has been increasing, mainly because of the preference of Bengali speakers for the colloquial style. Today, Bengali is the language spoken in Bangladesh and the second most spoken language in India. Both the national anthems of Bangladesh and India were composed in Bengali, in 1952, the Bengali Language Movement successfully pushed for the languages official status in the Dominion of Pakistan. In 1999, UNESCO recognized 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of the movement in East Pakistan. Language is an important element of Bengali identity and binds together a diverse region. Sanskrit was spoken in Bengal since the first millennium BCE, during the Gupta Empire, Bengal was a hub of Sanskrit literature. The Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were spoken in Bengal in the first millennium when the region was a part of the Magadha Realm and these dialects were called Magadhi Prakrit. They eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi, Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what are called Apabhraṃśa languages at the end of the first millennium. Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Bengali evolved circa 1000–1200 AD from Sanskrit, for example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around the 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time. Proto-Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty, during the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterized by the elision of word-final অ ô, the spread of compound verbs and Arabic and Persian influences. Bengali was a court language of the Sultanate of Bengal. Muslim rulers promoted the development of Bengali as part of efforts to Islamize. Bengali became the most spoken language in the Sultanate. This period saw borrowing of Perso-Arabic terms into Bengali vocabulary, major texts of Middle Bengali include Chandidas Shreekrishna Kirtana. The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the dialect spoken in the Nadia region, a west-central Bengali dialect. Bengali presents a case of diglossia, with the literary
20.
Islam
–
Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion
21.
Hinduism
–
Hinduism is a religion, or a way of life, found most notably in India and Nepal. Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, and some practitioners and scholars refer to it as Sanātana Dharma, scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no founder. This Hindu synthesis started to develop between 500 BCE and 300 CE following the Vedic period, although Hinduism contains a broad range of philosophies, it is linked by shared concepts, recognisable rituals, cosmology, shared textual resources, and pilgrimage to sacred sites. Hindu texts are classified into Shruti and Smriti and these texts discuss theology, philosophy, mythology, Vedic yajna, Yoga, agamic rituals, and temple building, among other topics. Major scriptures include the Vedas and Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include the four Puruṣārthas, the proper goals or aims of human life, namely Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha, karma, samsara, and the various Yogas. Hindu practices include such as puja and recitations, meditation, family-oriented rites of passage, annual festivals. Some Hindus leave their world and material possessions, then engage in lifelong Sannyasa to achieve Moksha. Hinduism prescribes the eternal duties, such as honesty, refraining from injuring living beings, patience, forbearance, self-restraint, Hinduism is the worlds third largest religion, with over one billion followers or 15% of the global population, known as Hindus. The majority of Hindus reside in India, Nepal, Mauritius, the Caribbean, the word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan/Sanskrit word Sindhu, the Indo-Aryan name for the Indus River in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. The term Hindu in these ancient records is a geographical term, the Arabic term al-Hind referred to the people who live across the River Indus. This Arabic term was taken from the pre-Islamic Persian term Hindū. By the 13th century, Hindustan emerged as an alternative name of India. It was only towards the end of the 18th century that European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus. The term Hinduism, then spelled Hindooism, was introduced into the English language in the 18th-century to denote the religious, philosophical, because of the wide range of traditions and ideas covered by the term Hinduism, arriving at a comprehensive definition is difficult. The religion defies our desire to define and categorize it, Hinduism has been variously defined as a religion, a religious tradition, a set of religious beliefs, and a way of life. From a Western lexical standpoint, Hinduism like other faiths is appropriately referred to as a religion, in India the term dharma is preferred, which is broader than the western term religion. Hindu traditionalists prefer to call it Sanatana Dharma, the study of India and its cultures and religions, and the definition of Hinduism, has been shaped by the interests of colonialism and by Western notions of religion. Since the 1990s, those influences and its outcomes have been the topic of debate among scholars of Hinduism, Hinduism as it is commonly known can be subdivided into a number of major currents
22.
Buddhism
–
Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
23.
Christianity
–
Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
24.
Atheism
–
Atheism is, in the broadest sense, the absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is the rejection of belief that any deities exist, in an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists, the etymological root for the word atheism originated before the 5th century BCE from the ancient Greek ἄθεος, meaning without god. The term denoted a social category created by orthodox religionists into which those who did not share their religious beliefs were placed, the actual term atheism emerged first in the 16th century. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope, the first individuals to identify themselves using the word atheist lived in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment. The French Revolution, noted for its unprecedented atheism, witnessed the first major movement in history to advocate for the supremacy of human reason. Arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to social and historical approaches, although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies, there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere. Since conceptions of atheism vary, accurate estimations of current numbers of atheists are difficult, an older survey by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 2004 recorded atheists as comprising 8% of the worlds population. Other older estimates have indicated that atheists comprise 2% of the worlds population, according to these polls, Europe and East Asia are the regions with the highest rates of atheism. In 2015, 61% of people in China reported that they were atheists, the figures for a 2010 Eurobarometer survey in the European Union reported that 20% of the EU population claimed not to believe in any sort of spirit, God or life force. Atheism has been regarded as compatible with agnosticism, and has also been contrasted with it, a variety of categories have been used to distinguish the different forms of atheism. Some of the ambiguity and controversy involved in defining atheism arises from difficulty in reaching a consensus for the definitions of words like deity, the plurality of wildly different conceptions of God and deities leads to differing ideas regarding atheisms applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities, gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity. Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist, Atheism has sometimes been defined to include the simple absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas, as far back as 1772, Baron dHolbach said that All children are born Atheists, they have no idea of God. Similarly, George H. Smith suggested that, The man who is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist, ernest Nagel contradicts Smiths definition of atheism as merely absence of theism, acknowledging only explicit atheism as true atheism
25.
Indo-Aryan peoples
–
Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse Indo-European ethnolinguistic group of speakers of Indo-Aryan languages. There are over one billion native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages, most of them native to South Asia and these migrations started approximately 1,800 BCE, after the invention of the war chariot, and also brought Indo-Aryan languages into the Levant and possibly Inner Asia. 1800–1400 BCE in the steppes around the Aral sea, present-day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the proto-Indo-Iranians were influenced by the Bactria-Margiana Culture, south of the Andronovo culture, from which they borrowed their distinctive religious beliefs and practices. The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800-1600 BCE from the Iranians, whereafter the Indo-Aryans migrated into the Levant, horseplay at Harappa - People Fas Harvard - Harvard University A tale of two horses - Frontline
26.
Eastern Nagari script
–
The Assamese script is a writing system of the Assamese language. It used to be the script of choice in the Brahmaputra valley for Sanskrit as well as languages such as Bodo, Khasi. By the 17th century three styles of Assamese script could be identified that converged to the script following typesetting required for printing. The present standard is identical to the Bengali alphabet except for three letters, the Buranjis were written during the Ahom dynasty in the Assamese language using the Assamese alphabet. Later, Sankardev used it in the 15th and 16th centuries to compose his oeuvre in Assamese and Brajavali dialect, the Ahom king Supangmung, was the first ruler who started issuing Assamese coins for his kingdom. A similar script with minor differences is used to write Maithili, Bengali, Meithei, the Umachal rock inscription of the 5th century evidences the first use of a script in the region. The script was similar to the one used in Samudraguptas Allahabad Pillar inscription. Rock and copper plate inscriptions from then onwards, and Xaansi bark manuscripts right up to the 18th–19th centuries show a development of the Assamese script. The script could be said to develop proto-Assamese shapes by the 13th century, the script presently has a total of 11 vowel letters, used to represent the eight main vowel sounds of Assamese, along with a number of vowel diphthongs. All of these are used in both Assamese and Bengali, the two main languages using the script, for example, the Assamese script has two symbols for the vowel sound and two symbols for the vowel sound. This redundancy stems from the time when this script was used to write Sanskrit, a language that had a short and a long, and a short and a long. These letters are preserved in the Assamese script with their traditional names of hôrswô i and dirghô i, vowel signs can be used in conjunction with consonants to modify the pronunciation of the consonant. When no vowel is written, the vowel অ is often assumed, to specifically denote the absence of a vowel, may be written underneath the consonant. The names of the consonant letters in Assamese are typically just the consonants main pronunciation plus the inherent vowel ô, since the inherent vowel is assumed and not written, most letters names look identical to the letter itself. Some letters that have lost their distinctive pronunciation in Modern Assamese are called by a more elaborate name. For example, since the consonant phoneme /n/ can be written ন, ণ, or ঞ, these letters are not simply called nô, instead, they are called ন dôntiya nô, ণ murdhôinnya nô, and ঞ niô. Goswami the number of clusters is 143 symbolised by 174 conjunct letters. Three phoneme clusters are 21 in number, which are written by 27 conjunct clusters, a few of them are given hereafter as examples, Though ক্ষ is used in Bengali, it has a different pronunciation
27.
Specials (Unicode block)
–
Specials is a short Unicode block allocated at the very end of the Basic Multilingual Plane, at U+FFF0–FFFF. Of these 16 codepoints, five are assigned as of Unicode 9, U+FFFD � REPLACEMENT CHARACTER used to replace an unknown, unrecognized or unrepresentable character U+FFFE <noncharacter-FFFE> not a character. FFFE and FFFF are not unassigned in the sense. They can be used to guess a texts encoding scheme, since any text containing these is by not a correctly encoded Unicode text. The replacement character � is a found in the Unicode standard at codepoint U+FFFD in the Specials table. It is used to indicate problems when a system is unable to render a stream of data to a correct symbol and it is usually seen when the data is invalid and does not match any character, Consider a text file containing the German word für in the ISO-8859-1 encoding. This file is now opened with an editor that assumes the input is UTF-8. The first and last byte are valid UTF-8 encodings of ASCII, therefore, a text editor could replace this byte with the replacement character symbol to produce a valid string of Unicode code points. The whole string now displays like this, f�r, a poorly implemented text editor might save the replacement in UTF-8 form, the text file data will then look like this, 0x66 0xEF 0xBF 0xBD 0x72, which will be displayed in ISO-8859-1 as f�r. Since the replacement is the same for all errors this makes it impossible to recover the original character, a better design is to preserve the original bytes, including the error, and only convert to the replacement when displaying the text. This will allow the text editor to save the original byte sequence and it has become increasingly common for software to interpret invalid UTF-8 by guessing the bytes are in another byte-based encoding such as ISO-8859-1. This allows correct display of both valid and invalid UTF-8 pasted together, Unicode control characters UTF-8 Mojibake Unicodes Specials table Decodeunicodes entry for the replacement character
28.
History of Bengal
–
The history of Bengal includes modern-day Bangladesh and West Bengal in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, at the apex of the Bay of Bengal and dominated by the fertile Ganges delta. The advancement of civilization in Bengal dates back four millennia, the region was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Gangaridai. The Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers act as a marker of the region. Bengal, at times, has played an important role in the history of the Indian subcontinent, the areas early history featured a succession of Indian empires, internal squabbling, and a tussle between Hinduism and Buddhism for dominance. Ancient Bengal was the site of several major Janapadas, while the earliest cities date back to the Vedic period, the region was part of several ancient pan-Indian empires, including the Mauryans and Guptas. It was also a bastion of regional kingdoms, the citadel of Gauda served as capital of the Gauda Kingdom, the Buddhist Pala Empire and Hindu Sena Empire. This era saw the development of Bengali language, script, literature, music, art, from the 13th century onward, the region was controlled by the Bengal Sultanate, Hindu Rajas, and Baro-Bhuyan landlords. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Isa Khan, a Muslim Rajput chief, afterwards, the region came under the suzerainty of the Mughal Empire. Under the Mughals, Bengal Subah generated 50% of the empires GDP, the gradual decline of the Mughals led to quasi-independent state under the Nawabs of Bengal, subsequent Maratha expeditions in Bengal, and finally the conquest by the British East India Company. The British took control of the region from the late 18th century, the company consolidated their hold on the region following the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and Battle of Buxar in 1764 and by 1793 took complete control of the region. Kolkata served for years as the capital of British controlled territories in India. The exact origin of the word Bangla is unknown, though it is believed to be derived from the Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang/Banga that settled in the area around the year 1000 BCE. Other accounts speculate that the name is derived from Venga, which came from the Austric word Bonga meaning the Sun-god, according to the Mahabharata, a number of Puranas and the Harivamsha Vanga was one of the adopted sons of King Vali who founded the Vanga Kingdom. It was either under Magadh or under Kalinga Rules except few years under Pals. The Muslim accounts refer that Bong, the earliest reference to Vangala has been traced in the Nesari plates of Rashtrakuta Govinda III which speak of Dharmapala as the king of Vangala. The records of Rajendra Chola I of the Chola dynasty, who invaded Bengal in the 11th century, shams-ud-din Ilyas Shah took the title Shah-e-Bangla and united the whole region under one government. An interesting theory of the origin of the name is provided by Abul-Fazl in his Ain-i-Akbari, from this suffix added to the Bung, the name Bengal arose and gained currency Stone Age tools dating back 20,000 years have been excavated in the state. Remnants of Copper Age settlements in the Bengal region date back 4,000 years, the original settlers spoke non-Aryan languages— they may have spoken Austric or Austro-Asiatic languages like the languages of the present-day Kola, Bhil, Santhal, Shabara, and Pulinda people. At a subsequent age, peoples speaking languages from two other language families— Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman—seem to have settled in Bengal, archaeological discoveries during the 1960s furnished evidence of a degree of civilisation in certain parts of Bengal as far back as the first millennium BC
29.
Gangaridai
–
Gangaridai was an ancient region corresponding to the Ganges delta region of the Indian subcontinent, which was mentioned in the records of numerous Greco-Roman writers. The term means nation of the Ganges in Greek and Latin and it is one of the earliest references to the Bengal region in the Indian subcontinent. According to ancient Indian records, the Vanga Kingdom and Samatata Kingdom occupied the region during the same period, the capital of the Gangaridai was situated at Kotalipara in present-day Gopalganj District, Bangladesh. The region was described as a kingdom with one of the largest cavalries of chariots and it was described by the Greek traveller Megasthenes in his work Indica. Greek and Roman historians suggested that Alexander the Great withdrew from the Indian subcontinent, anticipating a counterattack from an alliance of Gangaridai, later writers noted merchant shipping links between Gangaridais cities and Roman Egypt. Ptolemy, wrote that the Gangaridai occupied the region about the five mouths of the Ganges. The five mouths were the Kambyson, the Mega, the Kamberikhon, the Pseudostomon and these rivers may refer to the Meghna, Padma, Jamuna, Karnaphuli and Rupsa. Ptolemy also noted a natural harbour in the Chittagong coastline. Quoted from The Classical Accounts of India, Dr R. C, quoted from Ancient India as Described in Classical Literature, John W. McCrindle, p.201. Quoted from The Classical Accounts of India, p. 103-128, plutarch noted both Gangaridae and Prasii together, The Battle with Porus depressed the spirits of the Macedonians, and made them very unwilling to advance farther into India. This river, they heard, had a breadth of two and thirty stadia, and a depth of 1000 fathoms, while its banks were covered all over with armed men, horses. For the kings of the Gandaritai and the Prasiai were reported to be waiting for him with an army of 80,000 horse,200,000 foot,8,000 war-chariots, quoted from The Classical Accounts of India, p.198. Owing to this, their country has never been conquered by any king, for all other nations dread the overwhelming number. Quoted from the Epitome of Megasthenes, Indika, Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian. Translated and edited by J. W. McCrindle, pliny the Elder wrote about the people, In the final part of its Ganges course, which is through the country of the Gangarides. In the parts which lie southward from the Ganges the inhabitants, already swarthy, are coloured by the sun. Quoted from The Classical Accounts of India, Dr. R. C, Megasthenes wrote about the people known as Gangarides, The least breadth of the Ganges is eight miles, and its greatest twenty. Its depth where it is shallowest is fully a hundred feet, the people who live in the furthest-off part are the Gangarides, whose king possesses 1,000 horse,700 elephants, and 60,000 foot in apparatus of war
30.
Pala Empire
–
The Pala Empire was an imperial power during the Late Classical period on the Indian subcontinent, which originated in the region of Bengal. It is named after its ruling dynasty, whose rulers bore names ending with the suffix of Pala and they were followers of the Mahayana and Tantric schools of Buddhism. The empire was founded with the election of Gopala as the emperor of Gauda in 750 CE, the Pala stronghold was located in Bengal and Bihar, which included the major cities of Vikrampura, Pataliputra, Gauda, Monghyr, Somapura, Ramvati, Tamralipta and Jaggadala. The Palas were astute diplomats and military conquerors and their army was noted for its vast war elephant cavalry. Their navy performed both mercantile and defensive roles in the Bay of Bengal, the Palas were important promoters of classical Indian philosophy, literature, painting and sculpture. They built grand temples and monasteries, including the Somapura Mahavihara, the Proto-Bengali language developed under Pala rule. The empire enjoyed relations with the Srivijaya Empire, the Tibetan Empire, islam first appeared in Bengal during Pala rule, as a result of increased trade between Bengal and the Middle East. Abbasid coinage found in Pala archaeological sites, as well as records of Arab historians, point to flourishing mercantile, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad absorbed the mathematical and astronomical achievements of Indian civilisation during this period. The empire reached its peak under Emperors Dharmapala and Devapala, the Palas also exerted a strong cultural influence under Atisa in Tibet, as well as in Southeast Asia. Pala control of North India was ultimately ephemeral, as they struggled with the Gurjara-Pratiharas, after a short lived decline, Emperor Mahipala I defended imperial bastions in Bengal and Bihar against South Indian Chola invasions. Emperor Ramapala was the last strong Pala ruler, who gained control of Kamarupa, the empire was considerably weakened by the 11th century, with many areas engulfed in rebellion. The resurgent Hindu Sena dynasty dethroned the Pala Empire in the 12th century, the Pala period is considered one of the golden eras of Bengali history. The Palas brought stability and prosperity to Bengal after centuries of war between warring divisions. They advanced the achievements of previous Bengali civilisations and created outstanding works of art and they laid the basis for the Bengali language, including its first literary work, the Charyapada. The Pala legacy is reflected in Tibetan Buddhism. According to the Khalimpur copper plate inscription, the first Pala king Gopala was the son of a warrior named Vapyata, the Ramacharitam attests that Varendra was the fatherland of the Palas. The ethnic origins of the dynasty are unknown, although the later claim that Gopala was a Kshatriya belonging to the legendary solar dynasty. The Ballala-Carita states that the Palas were Kshatriyas, a claim reiterated by Taranatha in his History of Buddhism in India as well as Ghanaram Chakrabarty in his Dharmamangala, the Ramacharitam also attests the fifteenth Pala emperor, Ramapala, as a Kshatriya
31.
Bengal Sultanate
–
The Bengal Sultanate, officially the Sultanate of Bengal, was a Muslim state and empire based in the Indian subcontinent on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. It was an important power in South and Southeast Asia and its rulers carried the title of King of Kings in the East. The kingdoms heartland was in Bengal, which is divided between Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, but its realm included large parts of North India. Its bordering countries included the Delhi Sultanate, Tibet, Ahom, the Bengal Sultanate seceded from the Delhi Sultanate under Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah in 1352 and had capitals in Gaur, Pandua and Sonargaon. Delhi recognised Bengals independence after it was defeated by Ilyas Shah and his son, the kingdom enjoyed a strategic relationship with Ming China. It reached the height of its power during the reigns of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah and Alauddin Hussain Shah in the 15th and early 16th centuries, Trade links were fostered with the Horn of Africa, the Maldives and Malacca. Its political economy featured the Taka as its standard currency, Bengali Muslim architecture flourished under the sultanates distinct regional genre, incorporating Bengali and Persian elements. A cosmopolitan literary culture developed in the kingdom, in the mid 16th century, Bengal was overrun by Sher Shah Suris conquests. Arakan ended its relationship with Bengal after allying with the Portuguese Empire. The Mughals defeated the last Sultan, Daud Khan Karrani, in Rajmahal in 1576, subsequently, eastern Bengal came under the control of the Baro-Bhuyan chieftains. By the 17th century, most of the territories of the sultanate were annexed by Mughal Bengal, Bengal was integrated into the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of the Indian subcontinent. It was annexed by Bakhtiar Khilji as a province of the Delhi Sultanate, in the mid 14th century, governors in Bengal declared independence from the Delhi Sultanate, including at Lakhnauti, Sonargaon and Satgaon. In 1352, the Bengal Sultanate was formed by Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah after he conquered the three cities and he also defeated an invasion by the Sultan of Delhi Firuz Shah Tughluq in 1353. Ilyas Shah led successful campaigns against neighbouring Hindu states which consolidated the position of the Bengal Sultanate as the foremost military power in the eastern subcontinent, the records of medieval Indian historians, such as Abul Fazl, described him as first Shah of Bengal. His successors formed the Ilyas Shahi dynasty and his son Sikandar Shah and grandson Ghiyasuddin Azam Shah expanded the military, diplomatic and architectural influence of the sultanate. In 1414, Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah, the son of the Hindu zamindar Raja Ganesha, assumed the throne after a coup backed by his father and he reigned until 1433 and proclaimed himself as a caliph of Islam. During his reign, Arakan in Burma came under a century of Bengali suzerainty and his military assisted the Arakanese ruler Narameikhla to regain control of the city of Mrauk U in return for Arakan becoming a vassal state of the Bengal Sultanate. Bengali Muslims formed their own settlements in Arakan, the Buddhist rulers in Arakan received Islamic titles
32.
Bengal Subah
–
The Bengal Subah was a subdivision of the Mughal Empire encompassing modern Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal and Orissa between the 16th and 18th centuries. The state was established following the dissolution of the Bengal Sultanate, the Mughals played an important role in developing modern Bengali culture and society. By the 18th century, Mughal Bengal emerged as a quasi-independent state, by the 17th century, the Mughals subdued opposition from the Baro-Bhuyans landlords, notably Isa Khan. Bengal was integrated into a powerful and prosperous empire, and shaped by policies of pluralistic government. The Mughals built a new imperial metropolis in Dhaka from 1610, with well-developed fortifications, gardens, tombs and it served as the Mughal capital of Bengal for 75 years. The city was renamed in honour of Emperor Jahangir, Dhaka emerged as the commercial capital of the Mughal Empire, given that it was the centre for the empires largest exports, cotton muslin textiles. The Mughal conquest of Chittagong in 1666 defeated the Kingdom of Arakan and reestablished Bengali control of the port city, the Chittagong Hill Tracts frontier region was made a tributary state of Mughal Bengal and a treaty was signed with the Chakma Circle in 1713. Between 1576 and 1717, Bengal was ruled by a Mughal Subedar, members of the imperial family were often appointed to the position. Viceroy Prince Shah Shuja was the son of Emperor Shah Jahan, during the struggle for succession with his brothers Prince Aurangazeb, Prince Dara Shikoh and Prince Murad Baksh, Prince Shuja proclaimed himself as the Mughal Emperor in Bengal. He was eventually defeated by the armies of Aurangazeb, Shuja fled to the Kingdom of Arakan, where he and his family were killed on the orders of the King at Mrauk U. Shaista Khan was an influential viceroy during the reign of Aurangazeb and he consolidated Mughal control of eastern Bengal. Prince Muhammad Azam Shah, who served as one of Bengals viceroys, was installed on the Mughal throne for four months in 1707, Viceroy Ibrahim Khan II gave permits to English and French traders for commercial activities in Bengal. During Azim-us-Shans tenure, his prime minister Murshid Quli Khan emerged as a figure in Bengal. Khan gained control of imperial finances, in 1717, the Mughal Court upgraded the prime ministers position to the hereditary Nawab of Bengal. Khan founded a new capital in Murshidabad and his descendants formed the Nasiri dynasty. Alivardi Khan founded a new dynasty in 1740, the Nawabs ruled over a territory which included Bengal proper, Bihar and Orissa. In Bengal, the system saw most wealth hoarded by the elites, the expeditions, led by Raghuji Bhonsle of Nagpur, also established the De facto Maratha control over Orissa, which was formally incorporated in the Maratha Dominion in 1752. The Nawab of Bengal also payed Rs.3.2 million to the Marathas, the chauth was paid annually by the Nawab of Bengal to the Marathas upto 1758, till the British occupation of Bengal
33.
Bengal Presidency
–
The Bengal Presidency was once the largest colonial subdivision of British India, with its seat in Calcutta, the capital of British-held territories in South Asia until 1911. At its territorial peak in the 19th century, the presidency extended from the present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan in the west to Burma, Singapore, the Governor of Bengal was concurrently the Viceroy of India for many years. Most of the territories were eventually incorporated into other British Indian provinces. In 1905, Bengal proper was partitioned, with Eastern Bengal and Assam headquartered in Dacca, British India was reorganised in 1912 and the presidency was reunited into a single Bengali-speaking province. The Bengal Presidency was established in 1765, following the defeat of the last independent Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, Bengal was the economic, cultural and educational hub of the British Raj. It was the centre of the late 19th and early 20th century Bengali Renaissance, the Partition of British India resulted in Bengals division on religious grounds, between West Bengal and East Bengal. Under Warren Hastings the consolidation of British imperial rule over Bengal was solidified, while the formation of a regularised system of legislation was brought in under John Shore. Acting through Lord Cornwallis, then Governor-General, he ascertained and defined the rights of the landholders over the soil. In 1793 Lord Cornwallis declared their rights perpetual, and gave over the land of Bengal to the previous quasi-proprietors or zamindars and this piece of legislation is known as the Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue. It was designed to introduce ideas of property rights to India, the former aim misunderstood the nature of landholding in India, and the latter was an abject failure. The Cornwallis Code, while defining the rights of the proprietors, failed to give recognition to the rights of the under-tenants. Furthermore, the Permanent Settlement took no account of inflation, meaning that the value of the revenue to Government declined year by year, whilst the heavy burden on the peasantry grew no less. This was compounded in the early 19th century by compulsory schemes for the cultivation of Opium and Indigo, the former by the state, peasants were forced to grow a certain area of these crops, which were then purchased at below market rates for export. This added greatly to rural poverty, so unsuccessful was the Permanent Settlement that it was not introduced in the North-Western Provinces after 1831, in Punjab after its conquest in 1849, or in Oudh which was annexed in 1856. These regions were part of the Bengal Presidency, but remained administratively distinct. Officially Punjab, Agra and Allahabad had Lieutenant-Governors subject to the authority of the Governor of Bengal in Calcutta, the only all-Presidency institutions which remained were the Bengal Army and the Civil Service. The partition of the province of Bengal, which was decided upon by Lord Curzon, was carried into execution in October 1905. The princely states of Sikkim and the states of Odisha and Chhota Nagpur were not part of Bengal
34.
Partition of Bengal (1905)
–
The decision to effect the Partition of Bengal was announced in July 1905, by the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon. The partition took place on 16 October 1905 and separated the largely Muslim eastern areas from the largely Hindu western areas. The Hindus of West Bengal who dominated Bengals business and rural life complained that the division would make them a minority in a province that would incorporate the province of Bihar, the partition animated the Hindus and led the Muslims to form their own national organisation on communal lines. Bengal was reunited in 1911, in an effort to appease the Bengali sentiment and have easier administration. The provincial state of Bengal had an area of 189,000 mi2 and it included the Hindi-speaking regions of Bihar, the Odia-speaking regions of Odisha as well as the Assamese-speaking region of Assam, making it a huge administrative entity. Moreover, the capital, Calcutta, was also the capital of the entire British India and this he hoped would reduce the administrative pressures and divide the population on religious grounds, quelling the Indian Independence Movement. The government announced the idea for partition in January 1904, the idea was opposed by Henry John Stedman Cotton, Chief Commissioner of Assam 1896–1902. The partition was made on 16 October, by Viceroy Curzon, the former province of Bengal was divided into two new provinces Bengal and Eastern Bengal and Assam with Dacca as the capital of the latter. Partition was promoted for administrative reasons since Bengal was geographically as large as France and had a larger population. Curzon stated the eastern region was neglected and under-governed, by splitting the province, an improved administration could be established in the east, where subsequently, the population would benefit from new schools and employment opportunities. Most of the factories and mills in Bengal were established in and around Calcutta, furthermore, most of the educational institutions of the Province were in Calcutta, including the lone university in Bengal. As a result of the partition, Dacca, the capital of East Bengal and this included the construction of administrative buildings like the Curzon Hall and High court, as well as the foundation of educational institutions in East Bengal and Assam. The opposition to the partition was led by the middle class of western Bengal. Following the partition, a movement formed in opposition to the Partition. This involved non-violent and violent protests, boycotts and even an attempt against the Governor of the new province of West Bengal. The opening years of the century were stormy. The political scenario was undergoing a change, and the British were beginning to feel a bit uneasy, political discontent was growing from the inability of the government to organise effective relief during the period of plague and famine. To stem the discontent, the British played the political trump card with great aplomb, for the first time, they used their divide-and-rule political game with great force
35.
Eastern Bengal and Assam
–
Eastern Bengal and Assam was an administrative subdivision of the British Raj between 1905 and 1912. Headquartered in the city of Dacca, it covered territories in what are now Bangladesh, as early as 1868, British administrators saw the need for an independent administration in the eastern portion of the Bengal Presidency. They felt that Fort William in Calcutta, the capital of British India, was already overburdened, by 1903, it dawned on the colonial government on the necesscity of partitioning Bengal and creating prospects for Assams commercial expansion. The British promised increased investment in education and jobs in the new province called Eastern Bengal, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, proposed the Partition of Bengal and put it into effect on 16 October 1905. Dacca, the former Mughal capital of Bengal, regained its status as a seat of government, Sir Joseph Bampfylde Fuller was the provinces first Lieutenant Governor. He served for a year in office, and resigned in 1906 after disagreements with Lord Minto and he was succeeded by Sir Lancelot Hare, who in turn was succeeded by Sir Charles Stuart Bayley. The partition stoked controversy among hardline Hindu nationalists, who described it as an attempt to divide, the merchant class in Calcutta also feared losing their economic influence in the region. In 1906, the All India Muslim League was formed in Dacca during the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference and this in turn sparked the creation of the All India Hindu Mahasabha. At the Delhi Durbar in 1911, King George V announced that the British government had decided to annul the partition, the move by the colonial government was seen as an appeasement of hardline communal forces. Eastern Bengal was reunited with western Bengali districts, and Assam was made a chief commissioners province, however, the partition had enjoyed general support among the Bengali and Assamese population in the region. Eastern Bengal and Assam had an area of 111,569 sq m and was situated between 20°45 and 28°17 N. and between 87°48 and 97°5 E. It was bounded by Tibet and the Kingdom of Bhutan to the north, British Burma to the east, within these limits, were the princely states of Hill Tippera, Cooch Behar and Manipur. The Viceroy represented the British monarch and the Lieutenant Governor was the chief administrator, Dacca was the provincial capital, with the Legislative Council and the High Court. Five commissioners acted under the Lieutenant Governor, the Eastern Bengal and Assam Legislative Council was composed of 40 members. Elected councillors included representatives of municipalities, district boards, Muslim electorates, the gentry, the tea industry, the jute industry. Nominated members included government officials, educationists and commercial leaders, the High Court of Dacca was subordinate to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. Shillong was the capital of Eastern Bengal and Assam. There were 4 administrative divisions in the province, including the Assam Valley Division, Chittagong Division, Dacca Division, Rajshahi Division, Cooch Behar fell under the jurisdiction of Rajshahi Division, Manipur under the Assam Valley Division and Hill Tippera under Chittagong Division
36.
Partition of Bengal (1947)
–
The Partition of Bengal in 1947, part of the Partition of India, divided the British Indian province of Bengal based on the Radcliffe Line between India and Pakistan. Predominantly Hindu West Bengal became a province of India, and predominantly Muslim East Bengal became a province of Pakistan, liberal Muslim leaders had earlier proposed an independent United Bengal, but met opposition from various parties, particularly Muslim and Hindu conservatives. The partition, with the transferred to Pakistan and India on 14–15 August 1947, was done according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan. India’s independence on 15 August 1947 ended over 150 years of British influence in the Indian subcontinent, in 1905, the first partition in Bengal was implemented as an administrative preference, making governing the two provinces, West and East Bengal, easier. While the Muslims were in favour of the partition, as they would have their own province and this controversy led to increased violence and protest and finally, in 1911, the two provinces were once again united. This was followed by the meeting of the members of the non-Muslim-majority areas of Bengal who by a division of 58–21 voted for partition of the province. This set the stage for the creation of West Bengal as a province of the Union of India, also in accordance with the Mountbatten Plan, in a referendum held on 7 July, the electorate of Sylhet voted to join East Bengal. Further, the Boundary Commission headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe decided on the demarcation between the two newly created provinces. Power was transferred to Pakistan and India on 14 and 15 August, respectively, most important of all, Calcutta, then the largest city in India, an industrial and commercial hub and the largest port, would also go to the western part. Suhrawardy floated his idea on 24 April 1947 at a conference in Delhi. However, the plan directly ran counter to that of the Muslim Leagues, initially, Bengal provincial Muslim League leadership opinion was divided. Barddhamans League leader Abul Hashim supported it, on the other hand, Nurul Amin and Mohammad Akram Khan initially opposed it. But Muhammad Ali Jinnah realised the validity of Suhrawardys argument and gave his support to the plan. After Jinnahs approval, Suhrawardy started gathering support for his plan, on the Congress side, only a handful of leaders agreed to the plan. Among them was the influential Bengal provincial congress leader Sarat Chandra Bose, however most other BPCC leaders and Congress leadership including Nehru and Patel rejected the plan. The Hindu nationalist party Hindu Mahasabha under the leadership of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee vehemently opposed it. They also opined that though the plan asked for a sovereign Bengal state, in practice it will be a virtual Pakistan. Like Suhrawardy, Bose also felt that the partition would severely hamper Bengals economy, the agreement was published on 24 May 1947
37.
East Bengal
–
East Bengal was the name used during two periods in the 20th century for a territory that roughly corresponded to the modern state of Bangladesh. Both instances involved a violent partition of Bengal which made one half East Bengal or Bangladesh, the area compromises roughly two-thirds of the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. The first instance of the name was during the British rule of India, British governance of large swathes of Indian territory began with Robert Clives victory over the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The victory gave the British East India Company dominion over Bengal, after the Indian rebellion of 1857, the British government took direct control away from the East India Co. and established its imperial capital at Calcutta, the city founded by the Company. By 1900, the British province of Bengal constituted a huge territory, with the assumption of Lord Curzon to the office of Viceroy of India, British India was finally put under the charge of a man who considered himself an expert in Indian affairs. Curzon, seeing the logistical problems of administering such a large province, Bengal, henceforth, would encompass Calcutta and the western territories, roughly comprising modern West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Orissa. Eastern Bengal and Assam, the new province, would roughly encompass modern Bangladesh, the partition of Bengal, effected in July 1905, sparked a firestorm in the nationalist movement. In the now divided Bengal, East Bengal comprised an area of 196,540 square miles that included 18 million Muslims and 12 million Hindus, the Bengal area had 141,580 square miles with a majority of 42 million Hindus and 9 million Muslims. Bengal was divided into two provinces on 3 July 1946 in preparation for the partition of India - the Muslim-majority East Bengal, the two provinces each had their own Chief Minister. In August 1947, West Bengal became part of India, tensions between East Bengal and the western wing of Pakistan led to the One Unit policy. In 1955, most of the wing was combined to form a new West Pakistan province while East Bengal became the new province of East Pakistan. This system lasted until 1971 when East Pakistan declared independence during the Liberation War of Bangladesh, after absorption into the Dominion of Pakistan, the province of East Pakistan was administered by a ceremonial Governor and an indirectly elected Chief Minister. During the year from May 1954 to August 1955, executive powers were exercised by the Governor, British India History of Pakistan History of Bangladesh Barak Valley East Bengal CFL2015 points table top
38.
East Pakistan
–
Inter-religious violence during the partition drove Bengali Muslims and Hindus further apart, leading to political upheaval in Bengal. From 1947 until 1954, East Bengal was an independent administrative unit which was governed by the Pakistan Muslim League led by Nurul Amin. In 1955, the Bengali Prime minister Muhammad Ali Bogra devolved the province of East Bengal, in the 1954 elections the Pakistan Muslim League were completely defeated by the United Front coalition of the Awami League, the Krishak Praja Party, the Democratic Party and Nizam-e-Islam. The Awami League gained the control of East Pakistan after appointing Huseyn Suhrawardy for the office of prime minister and this authoritarian period that existed from 1958 until 1971, is often regarded as period of mass repression, resentment, and political neglect and ignorance. Allying with the population of West Pakistan, the Easts population unanimously voted for Fatima Jinnah during the 1965 presidential elections against Ayub Khan. The elections were widely believed to be rigged in the favour of Ayub Khan using state patronage. The economic disparity, impression that West Pakistan, despite being less populated than East Pakistan, was ruling and prospering at its cost further popularize the Bengali nationalism. As response to this operation, the Awami League announced the declaration of independence of East Pakistan on 26 March 1971, East Pakistan had an area of 147,610 km2. India bordered it on three sides with the Bay of Bengal to the South, East Pakistan was one of the largest provincial states of Pakistan, with the largest population, the largest political representation, and the largest economy. Finally, on 16 December 1971, East Pakistan was officially disestablished and was succeeded by the independent state of Bangladesh, many notable Muslim Bengali figures were among the Founding fathers of present date, State of Pakistan. The country came into existence on 14 August 1947 confronted by seemingly insurmountable problems, until 1947, the East Wing of Pakistan, separated from the West Wing by 1,600 km of Indian territory, had been heavily dependent on Hindu management. Bengal was divided into two provinces on the midnight of 14 August 1947 following the Radcliffe Line, the two provinces each had their own chief ministers and governors. In August 1947, the West Bengal became part of India, throughout this time, the tensions between East Bengal and the West Pakistan led to the One-Unit policy by Bengali Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra. In 1955, most of the wing was combined to form a new West Pakistan province while East Bengal became the new province of East Pakistan. In 1955, Bogra appointed communist leader Abu Hussain Sarkar as chief minister, the main objective of the new government was to end disruptive provincial politics and to provide the country with a new constitution. After a revision, the Supreme Court of Pakistan declared that the Pakistan Constituent Assembly must be called, governor-General Ghulam Mohammad was unable to circumvent the order, and the new Constituent Assembly, elected by the provincial assemblies, met for the first time in July 1955. Bogra, who had support in the new assembly, fell in August and was replaced by Choudhry. Ghulam Mohammad, plagued by health, was succeeded as governor-general in September 1955 by Mirza
39.
West Bengal
–
West Bengal is an Indian state, located in East India on the Bay of Bengal. It is Indias fourth-most populous state, with over 91 million inhabitants and it has a total area of 34,267 sq mi, making it similar in size to Serbia. A part of the ethno-linguistic Bengal region, it borders Bangladesh in the east and Nepal and it also has borders five Indian states, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim and Assam. The state capital is Kolkata, the seventh-largest city in India, the geography of West Bengal includes the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region in its extreme north, the Ganges delta, the Rarh region and the coastal Sundarbans. The main ethnic group are the Bengali people, with Bengali Hindus forming the demographic majority, Ancient Bengal was the site of several major janapadas, including Vanga, Radha, Pundra and Suhma. In the 2nd century BC, the region was conquered by the emperor Ashoka, in the 4th century AD, it was absorbed into the Gupta Empire. From the 13th century onward, the region was ruled by sultans, powerful Hindu states and Baro-Bhuyan landlords. The British East India Company cemented their hold on the following the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Between 1977 and 2011, the state was administered by the worlds longest elected Communist government, a major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to Indias net domestic product. It is noted for its activities and the presence of cultural and educational institutions. The states cultural heritage, besides varied folk traditions, ranges from stalwarts in literature including Nobel-laureate Rabindranath Tagore to scores of musicians, film-makers and artists. West Bengal is also distinct from most other Indian states in its appreciation and practice of playing football besides cricket. The origin of the name Bengal is unknown, one theory suggests that the word derives from Bang, a Dravidian tribe that settled the region around 1000 BC. The word might have derived from the ancient kingdom of Vanga. Although some early Sanskrit literature mentions the name, the early history is obscure. At the end of British Rule over the Indian subcontinent, the Bengal region was partitioned in 1947 along religious lines into east and west, the east came to be known as East Bengal and the west came to known as West Bengal, which continued as an Indian state. In 2011, the Government of West Bengal proposed a change in the name of the state to Poschimbongo. This is the name of the state, literally meaning western Bengal in the native Bengali language
40.
Tripura
–
Tripura /ˈtrɪpuːrɑː/ is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers 10,491 km2 and is bordered by Bangladesh to the north, south, and west, in 2011 the state had 3,671,032 residents, constituting 0. 3% of the countrys population. The Bengali Hindu people form the majority in Tripura. Indigenous communities, known in India as scheduled tribes, form about 30 per cent of Tripuras population, the Kokborok speaking Tripuri people are the major group among 19 tribes and many subtribes. The area of modern Tripura was ruled for centuries by the Tripuri dynasty. The independent Tripuri Kingdom joined the newly independent India in 1949, Tripura lies in a geographically disadvantageous location in India, as only one major highway, the National Highway 8, connects it with the rest of the country. Five mountain ranges—Boromura, Atharamura, Longtharai, Shakhan and Jampui Hills—run north to south, with intervening valleys, Agartala, the state has a tropical savanna climate, and receives seasonal heavy rains from the south west monsoon. Forests cover more than half of the area, in which bamboo, Tripura has the highest number of primate species found in any Indian state. Due to its isolation, economic progress in the state is hindered. Poverty and unemployment continue to plague Tripura, which has a limited infrastructure, most residents are involved in agriculture and allied activities, although the service sector is the largest contributor to the states gross domestic product. The sculptures at the archaeological sites Unakoti, Pilak and Devtamura provide historical evidence of fusion between organised and tribal religions. The Ujjayanta Palace in Agartala was the royal abode of the Tripuri king. Tripur was the 39th descendant of Druhyu, who belonged to the lineage of Yayati, one of the Puranas, the text about the exploits of Shiva, tells the story of the sack of Tripura. Variants of the name include Tripra, Tuipura and Tippera, although there is no evidence of lower or middle Paleolithic settlements in Tripura, Upper Paleolithic tools made of fossil wood have been found in the Haora and Khowai valleys. An ancient name of Tripura is Kirat Desh, probably referring to the Kirata Kingdoms or the generic term Kirata. However, it is whether the extent of modern Tripura is coterminous with Kirat Desh. The region was under the rule of the Twipra Kingdom for centuries, the boundaries of the kingdom changed over the centuries. At various times, the borders reached south to the jungles of the Sundarbans on the Bay of Bengal, east to Burma, the Mughals had influence over the appointment of the Tripuri kings
41.
Barak Valley
–
The Barak Valley is located in the southern region of the Indian state of Assam. The main city of the valley is Silchar, the region is named after the Barak river. The Barak valley mainly consists of three districts of Assam State - namely Cachar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi. Among these three districts, Cachar and Hailakandi belonged to the erstwhile Cachar district in British India, whereas Karimganj belonged to the Sylhet district, Karimganj was separated from Sylhet after the 1947 referendum, with the rest of Sylhet falling under East Pakistan and Karimganj under India. The name Barak has derived from the Dimasa words Bra & Kro, Bra means bifurcation and Kro upper portion/stream. The river Barak is bifurcated near Haritikar in the Karimganj district into Surma River, the upstream of this bifurcated river was called Brakro by the local Dimasa people. Over the years, Brakro got converted into Barak, the official language of Barak valley is Bengali and English. The majority of the people are of Sylheti decent and they speak Sylheti language, Sylheti speaking people consider themselves as Indigenous of the valley Hindusim is the majority religion in Barak valley. Religious composition of the population according to Census report of 2011 is Hindus,50. 0%, Muslim,48. 1%, Christians 1. 6%. Barak Valley is same as other places in India where Muslims are in second largest minority groups after Hindus, Hindus are majority in Cachar district while Muslims are majority in Hailakandi district and Karimganj district. Apart from Sylhetis, Barak Valley is also the homeland of Bengalis, Dimasas, Manipuris, of the three districts, Hailakandi District and Karimganj District have Muslim majority while Cachar have Hindu majority. The region was part of the Tripura kingdom, which was annexed by Chilarai in the 16th-century to the Koch kingdom. After the death of Nara Narayan, the kingdom, which came to be called the kingdom of Khaspur, the Kachari kingdom was annexed to British-India in 1832. However, the dominance of Mughal Empire in Karimganj and Hailakandi finally ended with the introduction of British rule in Bengal, the undivided Cachar district was included to Assam by British Rulers in 1832. The headquarters of the district was Silchar, the British Companies established a very large number of Tea Gardens in the area and Silchar emerged as a very important center in this part of the country. All modern were introduced to the region in early twentieth century, geographically the region is surrounded by hills from all three sides except its western plain boundary with Bangladesh. In the undivided Surma Valley of which Barak valley was sort of an extension had leaders such as Basanta Kumar Das and Abdul Matin Choudhury, in the Barak Valley region, it was Kamini Kumar Chanda, Arun Kumar Chanda and Abdul Matlib Mazumdar. Kamini Kumar Chanda died well before the eve of independence, but his son Arun Chanda, while Chanda was instrumental in garnering support of the Bengali Hindua, Mazumdar was one of the prominent Muslim leaders of eastern India to oppose the partition of India on communal lines
42.
Assam
–
Assam (English pronunciation, /əˈsæm/ listen is a state in northeastern India. Located south of the eastern Himalayas, Assam comprises the Brahmaputra Valley, Assam, along with Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, and Meghalaya, is one of the Seven Sister States. Geographically, Assam and these states are connected to the rest of India via a 22 kilometres strip of land in West Bengal called the Siliguri Corridor or Chickens Neck. Assam shares a border with Bhutan and Bangladesh, and its culture, people. Assam is known for Assam tea and Assam silk, the first oil well in Asia was drilled here. The state has conserved the one-horned Indian rhinoceros from near extinction, along with the water buffalo, pygmy hog, tiger. It provides one of the last wild habitats for the Asian elephant, the Assamese economy is aided by wildlife tourism, centred around Kaziranga National Park and Manas National Park which are World Heritage Sites. Sal tree forests are found in the state which, as a result of abundant rainfall, Assam receives more rainfall compared to most parts of India. This rain feeds the Brahmaputra River, whose tributaries and oxbow lakes provide the region with a hydro-geomorphic and aesthetic environment, the precise etymology of Assam came from Ahom Dynasty. In the classical period and up to the 12th century the region east of the Karatoya river, largely congruent to present-day Assam, was called Kamarupa, in medieval times the Mughals used Asham and Kamrup, and during British colonialism, the English used Assam. Though many authors have associated the name with the 13th century Shan invaders the precise origin of the name is not clear. It was suggested by some that the Sanskrit word Asama was the root, which has been rejected by Kakati, among possible origins are Tai and Bodo. Assam and adjoining regions have evidences of settlements from all the periods of the Stone ages. The hills at the height of 1, 500–2,000 feet were popular habitats probably due to availability of exposed dolerite basalt, useful for tool-making. According to a text, Kalika Purana, the earliest ruler of Assam was Mahiranga Danav of the Danava dynasty. The last of these rulers, also Naraka, was slain by Krishna, narakas son Bhagadatta became the king, who fought for the Kauravas in the battle of Kurukshetra with an army of kiratas, chinas and dwellers of the eastern coast. Samudraguptas 4th century Allahabad pillar inscription mentions Kamarupa and Davaka as frontier kingdoms of the Gupta Empire, ruled by three dynasties Varmanas, Mlechchha dynasty and Kamarupa-Palas, from their capitals in present-day Guwahati, Tezpur and North Gauhati respectively. All three dynasties claimed their descent from Narakasura, an immigrant from Aryavarta, in the reign of the Varman king, Bhaskar Varman, the Chinese traveller Xuanzang visited the region and recorded his travels
43.
Bengalis
–
The Bengalis, also spelled as the Bangalees, are a major Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group. They are native to the region of Bengal in South Asia and they speak the Bengali language, the most easterly branch of the Indo-European language family. Bengalis are the third largest ethnic group in the world after the Han Chinese, apart from Bangladesh and West Bengal, Bengali-majority populations also reside in Indias Tripura state, the Barak Valley in Assam state and the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The global Bengali diaspora has well-established communities in Pakistan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and they have four major religious subgroups, including Bengali Muslims, Bengali Hindus, Bengali Christians and Bengali Buddhists. Archaeologists have discovered remnants of a 4,000 years old Chalcolithic civilisation in the greater Bengal region, however evidence of much older Palaeolithic human habitations are found in the form of a Stone Implement and a Hand Axe in Rangamati and Feni districts of Bangladesh. The origin of the word Bangla ~ Bengal is unknown, though it is believed to be derived from a tribe called Bang that settled in the area around the year 1000 BCE. Kingdoms of Anga, Vanga and Magadha were formed in and around Bengal and were first described in the Atharvaveda around 1000 BCE as well as in Hindu epic Mahabharata, from the 6th century BCE, Magadha expanded to include most of the Bihar and Bengal regions. It was one of the four kingdoms of India at the time of Buddha and was one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas. One of the earliest foreign references to Bengal is the mention of a land ruled by the king Xandrammes named Gangaridai by the Greeks around 100 BCE, the word is speculated to have come from Gangahrd in reference to an area in Bengal. Later from the 3rd to the 6th centuries CE, the kingdom of Magadha served as the seat of the Gupta Empire, one of the first recorded independent kings of Bengal was Shashanka, reigning around the early 7th century. After a period of anarchy, Gopala came to power in 750, atisha was a renowned Bengali Buddhist teacher who was instrumental in revival of Buddhism in Tibet and also held the position of Abbot at the Vikramshila university. Tilopa was also from Bengal region, the Pala dynasty was later followed by a shorter reign of the Hindu Sena Empire. Islam was introduced to Bengal in the century by Sufi missionaries. Subsequent Muslim conquests helped spread Islam throughout the region, bakhtiar Khilji, a Turkic general of the Slave dynasty of Delhi Sultanate, defeated Lakshman Sen of the Sena dynasty and conquered large parts of Bengal. Consequently, the region was ruled by dynasties of sultans and feudal lords under the Bengal Sultanate for the few hundred years. Islam was introduced to the Sylhet region by the Muslim saint Shah Jalal in the early 14th century, Mughal general Man Singh conquered parts of Bengal including Dhaka during the time of Emperor Akbar. Few Rajput tribes from his army permanently settled around Dhaka and surrounding lands, later on, in the early 17th century, Islam Khan conquered all of Bengal. Other figures have been considered to be part of the Renaissance and he is considered one of the fathers of radio science, and is also considered the father of Bengali science fiction
44.
Bangal
–
Bangal is a term used to refer to the people of East Bengal, now in Bangladesh. The term is used to describe Bengalis from the east, who are marked by a distinct accent, some of the people from East Bengal, mainly Hindus, migrated to West Bengal during the Partition of India in 1947. These refugees were sometimes referred to as Bangals by the population of West Bengal. The terms Ghoti and Bangal are mostly used in West Bengal while in Bangladesh, amongst the high-caste Bengali Hindus, Bangal and Ghoti are used as social sub-groups. The term as used here has little relation to actual geography, historically, in addition to marrying within their castes, people from these groups also preferred to marry within the group, whether Bangal or Ghoti. Bangals and Ghotis keep up their rivalry through their respective support of the football clubs East Bengal. They also cherish a rivalry through claim of supremacy of their respective cuisines and especially river-food delicacies, chingri for Ghotis and Ilish for Bangals. Partition of India Partition of Bengal Bengali language East Bengal Habul Sen Boria Majumdar, a social history of Indian football, striving to score
45.
Ghotis
–
Ghoti, also called Paschimbangiya or Edeshi, are a social group native to West Bengal, India. Their dialects, folk traditions and cuisine are distinct from those of the Purbabangiyas or the natives of erstwhile eastern Bengal, the term came into greater use after many people from Bangladesh migrated to West Bengal during and after the Partition of Bengal in 1947. Initially there was a cultural and sociological clash between the population and the refugees. Ghotis are frequently distinguished by their Bangla accent and use of local dialects. Also, certain sweets, like Sponge Rosogolla, Ledikeni, Langcha, Mihidana, Rasakadamba, amongst the Bengali Hindus of India, Bangal and Ghoti are used as social sub-groups indicating the ancestral origin of a family. Those whose families came from East Bengal are Bangals and those whose families originated in West Bengal are Ghotis, the term Bangal as used here has little relation to actual geography, since most members of these groups all now live in India. The term is used freely and not considered derogatory within this social class, however, there is a subtle difference between the terms Ghoti and Edeshi. Ghoti is specifically used to refer to living in Districts like Hooghly, Howrah, Purba Medinipur, Paschim Medinipur, Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum. South Bengal west of the Hugli river, the native people of districts like North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Murshidabad, Maldah, Uttar Dinajpur, etc. i. e. Though there are exceptions, often it is considered that among the neighborhoods of Kolkata. There are approximately 5 lakh Hindu Ghoti in Kolkata, mostly in North Kolkata and this doesnt include Ghoti/Bangal mix population. Neither does it include Edeshi population,5 lakh Ghoti Bengalis of Kolkata includes 1 lakh Brahmins and Baidyas, around 20,000 Bengali Rajputs who are different then other 40,000 Bengali Kshatriyas. Rest 3 lakh belong to other castes from which Bengali Ghotis belong to Mahisya, Suvarna Banik and Gandha, Ugra Khatriyas, Tili. There are also namasudra castes in Kolkata, however, some Bangals also use these surnames. Some of other surnames for Ghoti people include Roy, Kar, Jana, Mondal, Bagui, Chandra, Laha, Manna, Karak, and so on. Traditionally Bengali people like football and most of the Ghotis are supporters of Mohun Bagan AC whereas the Bangals are traditionally supporters of East Bengal Club, though there are several exceptions but in general both these communities share an immense rivalry between them regarding the Kolkata derby. They also cherish a rivalry through claim of supremacy of their respective cuisines and especially river-food delicacies, chingri for Ghotis and Ilish for Bangals
46.
Bengali Muslims
–
Bengali Muslims are an ethnic, linguistic, and religious population who make up the majority of Bangladeshs citizens and the largest minority in the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. Ethnic Bengalis who adhere to Islam, they speak the Bengali language and they form the second largest Muslim ethnolinguistic group in the world. Bengal was a power of the medieval Islamic East. The Bengali Muslim population emerged as a synthesis of Islamic and Bengali cultures, after the Partition of India in 1947, they comprised the demographic majority of Pakistan until the independence of East Pakistan as Bangladesh in 1971. A Bengali is a person of ethnic and linguistic heritage from the Bengal region in South Asia speaking the Indo-Aryan Bengali language, the mighty Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers allowed the Bengali people to develop a great civilisation. Islam arrived in the first millennium and influenced the native Bengali culture, the influx of Persian, Turkic, Arab and Mughal settlers further added to the rich cultural melting pot of Bengal. Today, most Bengali Muslims live in the state of Bangladesh. The dominant majority of Bengali Muslims are Sunnis who follow the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, there are also minorities of Shias and Ahmadiyas, as well as people who identify as non-denominational. Rice-cultivating communities existed in Bengal since the second millennium BCE, the region was home to a large agriculturalist population influenced by Indian religions, but was not fully integrated into the caste system. Buddhism influenced the region in the first millennium, the Bengali language developed from Apabhramsa and Magadhi Prakrit between the 7th and 10th centuries. It once formed a single Indo-Aryan branch with Assamese and Oriya, early Muslim traders and merchants visited Bengal while traversing the Silk Road. This increased trade with seaports like Chittagong from the 9th century, coins of the Abbasid Caliphate have been discovered in many parts of the region. Early Muslim explorers visited the Bengal region while traversing the Silk Road in the first millennium, one of the earliest mosques in South Asia is under excavation in northern Bangladesh, indicating the presence of Muslims in the area around the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad. Starting in the 9th century, Muslim merchants increased trade with Bengali seaports, coins of the Abbasid Caliphate have been discovered in many parts of the region. The Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent took place between the 12th and 16th centuries, Bengal became a province of the Delhi Sultanate in 1204. In the 14th century the Sultanate of Bengal became independent and emerged as a regional power and it adopted Bengali as one of its official languages, alongside Persian, the diplomatic language of the Islamic world, and Arabic, the liturgical language of the religion. The Sultanate also ruled parts of Arakan and Assam, the Sur Empire briefly overtook the region in the 16th century. During the sultanate period, Hindu aristocrats occupied prominent positions in the administration, the Mughal Empire eventually controlled the region under its Bengal Subah viceregal province
Bangladesh
India
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
Qatar
United States
Malaysia
Kuwait
Italy
Singapore
Bahrain
Canada
Australia
South Korea
Japan
Islam – Bangladesh 89.8%, Assam 48.01%, West Bengal 27.01% Tripura 8.60%[24]
Hinduism – West Bengal 70.54%, Tripura 67%, Assam 50.10%, Bangladesh 8.3%
Buddhism, Bahá'í Faith, Christianity, Atheism and others – 1%[25][26]
.png)
![[icon]](/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small}
