14 Facts About The Indian Armed Forces That’ll Make You Respect Them Even More

The Indian Armed Forces, consisting of the Indian Army, the Indian Air Force, the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard are India’s shield and sword, which keep our interests safe, our enemies at bay and the people of our country secure and free. They are respected and adored for their valor and sense of duty by the entire country. Many of us would know about their triumphs and stellar contributions to civilian life. But here are a few facts which will increase your respect for the Indian military ten-fold.

1. India controls the highest battlefield in the world, the Siachen glacier, at 5000 metres above Mean Sea Level (MSL).

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2. India has the biggest "voluntary" army in the world.

All serving and reserve personnel have actually “opted” for service. There is a provision for conscription (forced recruitment) in the constitution, but it has never been used.

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3. Indian soldiers are considered among the very best in high altitude and mountain warfare.

The Indian army’s High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) is one of the most elite military training centers in the world and is frequented by Special Ops teams from the U.S, U.K & Russia. U.S Special Forces trained at HAWS before their deployment during the invasion of Afghanistan.

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4. India covertly tested its nuclear arsenal in the early 1970s and late 1990s without the CIA even knowing what was happening.

Till date, it is considered to be one of the CIA’s biggest failures in espionage and detection.

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5. Unlike other government organisations and institutions in India, there are no provisions for reservations based on caste or religion.

Soldiers are recruited based on their overall merit and fitness based on stringent tests and trials. And once a citizen of India joins the forces, he/she becomes a soldier. Nothing else. Nothing more.

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6. In the Battle of Longewala, on which the famous Bollywood movie “Border” is based, there were only two casualties on the Indian side.

The Battle of Longewala was fought in December 1971 between India and Pakistan, in which just 120 Indian Soldiers with 1 jeep mounted M40 recoilless rifle held the fort against 2000 Pakistani soldiers backed by 45 tanks and 1 mobile infantry brigade. Despite being heavily out-numbered, the Indian soldiers held their ground throughout the night and with the help of the Air Force, were able to completely rout the aggressors.

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7. Operation Rahat (2013) was one of the biggest civilian rescue operations ever carried out in the world.

It was carried out by the Indian Air Force to evacuate civilians affected by the floods in Uttarakhand in 2013. It was the biggest civilian rescue operations in the world carried out by any Air Force using helicopters. During the first phase of the operation from 17 June 2013, the IAF airlifted a total of about 20,000 people; flying a total of 2,140 sorties and dropping a total of 3,82,400 kg of relief material and equipment.

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8. The Ezhimala Naval Academy in Kerala is the largest of its kind in Asia.

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9. The Indian army has a horsed cavalry regiment. It is among one of the last 3 such regiments in the world.

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10. The Indian Air Force has an out-station base in Tajikistan and is seeking another in Afghanistan.

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11. The Indian Army built the highest bridge in the world.

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

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12. The Military Engineering Services (MES) is one of the biggest construction agencies in India.

The MES and Border Roads Organisation (BRO) are together responsible for the construction and maintenance of some of the most awesome roads and bridges ever to have been built. To name a few, the Khardungla Pass (the highest motorable road in the world), the Magnetic Hill in Leh, etc.

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13. The Indo Pakistan War of 1971 came to end with the surrender of about 93,000 combatants and officials of the Pakistani Army.

This is the largest number of POWs taken into custody since World War II. The war resulted in the creation of the independent state of Bangladesh.

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14. Many popular celebrities are often awarded honorary ranks in the armed forces.

While Sachin Tendulkar has been granted the rank of Honorary Group captain in the I.A.F, M.S Dhoni is an Honorary Lt Col in the Indian Army.

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Thanks to the men and women of the Indian Armed Forces, we are able to live our lives with freedom and great peace of mind. We thank them with all our heart.

13 incredible science facts you probably didn't learn at high school

We learn about some awesome science in high school - like Einstein's theory of relativity, the Periodic table, and DNA replication. 

The knowledge we pick up there sets the foundations for all the other amazing things we go on to study. But science definitely doesn't end at high school, and it's once you take your learning to the next level that things get really interesting.

In no particular order, here are some mind-bendingly incredible facts that we didn't learn at high school, but wish we did. Because I certainly would have paid a whole lot more attention if my teacher had shared a few of these insights in class.

Side note: if you did learn about all of this and more at school, then you had a kick-ass teacher and you should probably tell them that.

1. Water can boil and freeze at the same time'

Seriously, it's called the 'triple point', and it occurs when the temperature and pressure is just right for the three phases (gas, liquid, and solid) of a substance to coexist in thermodynamic equilibrium. This video shows cyclohexane in a vacuum.

2. Lasers can get trapped in a waterfall

Oh my gosh, yes. Not only is this an incredible example of total internal reflection, it also shows how fibre optic cables work to guide the flow of light.

3. We've got spacecraft hurtling towards the edge of our Solar System really, really fast

We all know rockets are fast, and space is big. But sometimes when we're talking about how long it takes for us to get to distant parts of the Solar System (eight months to get to Mars, are you kidding me?) it can feel like our spacecraft are just crawling along out there.

This gif shows just how wrong that idea is by comparing the speed of the New Horizons probe, which flew past Pluto last year, to a 747 and SR-71 Blackbird.

4. An egg looks like a crazy jellyfish underwater

A cracked egg on land might make a big mess, but 18 metres (60 feet) below the surface of the ocean, the pressure on the egg is 2.8 times atmospheric pressure, and it holds it all together like an invisible egg shell. True story.  

5. You can prove Pythagoras' theorem with fluid

Not buying what your maths teacher is selling when they tell you a2 + b2 = c2? You can actually prove it with liquid.

6. This is what happens when a black hole swallows a star

As the star gets sucked up into the black hole, a huge jet of plasma is burped out, spanning hundreds of light-years. "When the star is ripped apart by the gravitational forces of the black hole, some part of the star's remains falls into the black hole, while the rest is ejected at high speeds," explains Johns Hopkins University researcher, Suvi Gezari. 

7. You CAN see without your glasses

According to MinutePhysics, all you need to do is make a pinhole with your hand, which will help you focus the light coming into your retina. Sure, it won't give you 20/20 vision, but it's a good start if you've left your glasses at home.

8. This is how a face forms in the womb

Embryonic development is an incredibly complex process that scientists are still just beginning to understand. But one thing researchers have been able to map out is how the embryo folds to create the structures of the human face in the womb. We could watch this all day.

9. Popping your knuckles isn't necessarily bad for you

One researcher popped the knuckles of one hand for 60 years but not the other, and found no discernible difference in the amount of arthritis between the two of them at the end of his experiment.

10. A single solar flare can release the equivalent energy of millions of 100-megaton atomic bombs

nd they're happening all the time.

11. Cats always land on their feet, thanks to physics

As Smarter Every Day demonstrated with this awesome slow-mo footage, cats actually use the two halves of their bodies separately to ensure rapid rotation (don't try this at home).

12. You'd be better off surviving a grenade on land rather than underwater

Those balloons? That's what would happen to your lungs if an explosion went off near you underwater.

13. If you spin a ball as you drop it, it flies

I mean, it really flies. It's thanks to the Magnus effect, which occurs when the air on the front side of a spinning object is going the same direction as its spin, which means it gets dragged along with the object and deflected back.

Meanwhile, the air on the other side of the ball is moving in the opposite direction, so the air flow separates.

20 Amazing Shocking Facts Of India That Most Indians Don’t Know

India is the most amazing country of the World. There are lot of mind blowing facts about India which are not yet popular and known to all people. India is a country that can boast of places with weird things, facts & culture. Here's a collection of some craziest, incredible facts from around the india. Lets have a look at the Top Interesting Things You Need To Know About India.

1. If you have read Bhagvad Gita, Ramayan, Mahabharata then you will realize that there is not even a single text which mentions the word "Hindu". It was a name which was given by foreigners because our land was on other side of river "Indus" and hence came the name "Hindu". But eventually, some people made it a religion.

The word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan and Sanskrit, Sanskrit word Sindhu, which means "a large body of water", covering "river, ocean". It was used as the name of the Indus river and also referred to its tributaries.

2. Though india is a country of multiple regional and local languages but in terms of English speaking countries in the world, it ranks number 2, yes, india is second largest english speaking country in the world, 10% of indians can speak in English which is about 125 million people.

3. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, India ranks third behind the USA and the UK in the number of records claimed each year.

In 2011, India made the third greatest number of record applications to Guinness World Records – behind only U.S. and United Kingdom.

4. Mahatma Gandhi is not the Father of the nation.

Indians widely describe Gandhi as the father of the nation (Hindi: राष्ट्रपिता).[11][12] The title "The Father of the Nation" for Gandhi is not an official title and has not been officially accorded by Government of India. An RTI query filed by a 10-year-old girl from Lucknow in February 2012 revealed that PMO has no records of ever according such title to Gandhi. MHA and National Archives of India also communicated of not having any records. Origin of this title is traced back to a radio address (on Singapore radio) on 6 Jul 1944 by Subhash Chandra Bose where Bose addressed Gandhi as "The Father of the Nation". On 28 Apr 1947, Sarojini Naidu during a conference also referred Gandhi as "Father of the Nation". The RTI applicant had also pleaded for Gandhi to be officially declared as "Father of the Nation" to which the MHA informed that Gandhi cannot be accorded with the title by Government of India since the Indian constitution does not permit any titles except educational and military titles.

5. India has an Ice Hockey team and they are even member of International Ice Hockey Federation.

The India national ice hockey team is the national ice hockey team of India, and a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation.

6. A man can be imprisoned for up to 5years for committing adultery i.e. having an intercourse with a married woman without the consent of her husband (section 497 of IPC).The woman on the other hand goes Scott free.

Criminal intercourse with a married woman tended to adulterate the issues or children being born out of such a relation, thereby burdening the woman’s husband to support and provide for ‘another man's children’. The ‘purity of bloodline’ of the children born out of such adulterous relationships is lost, and the chain of inheritance (of property) gets altered due to such relations.It was to prevent this mischief of altering the chain of inheritance that section 497 IPC was introduced.

7. That it is illegal for a child in india to neglect their parents after their retirement.( Thank god it exists )

Right to maintenance— Maintenance is a right to livelihood when one is incapable ofsustaining oneself. Right to maintenance forms a part of the personal law. Obligation of a husband to maintain his wife arises out of the status of the marriage. Hindu law, one of the most ancient systems of law, recognises right of any dependent person including wife,children, aged parents and widowed daughter or daughter-in-law to maintenance. The Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956, provides for this right.

8. Kerela tops the "Highest liquor consuming State" list in India, not Punjab.

Kerala accounts for the country's highest consumption of alcohol followed by Maharashtra and Punjab.

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9. Only 3% of Indians pay income tax.

Only 3% of Indians pay income tax, in a population of 1.2bn. One explanation for this is that agriculture is exempt and two-thirds of Indians live in rural areas. A large chunk of the economy is also informal, unorganised labour, for which it's harder to collect taxes. Many argue that some of the country's financial problems would be solved in one fell swoop, if this massive tax hole could be filled.

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10. The first rocket in India was transported on a cycle.

The first rocket was so light and small that it was transported on a bicycle to the Thumba Launching Station in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

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11. Largest religious gathering on earth, Kumbh Mela

Believed to be the largest religious gathering on earth, Kumbh Mela is held every 12 years in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.It is thought that 30 million Hindu pilgrims gathered to bathe during the festival in 2013.

12. India has a spa for elephants

Every year a group of pampered elephants at the Punnathoor Cotta Elephant Yard Rejuvenation Centre receive elaborate spa treatments. The elephant yard is attached to the Guruvayurappan Hindu temple in Kerala, India.

The rejuvenation centre – which is attached to the famous Guruvayurappan Hindu temple – can host up to 59 elephants, and the tusked giants are happy to laze in the water while workers scrub them clean with brushes.The elephants play a key role in Kerala’s legendary temple processions and – with July considered a month of rejuvenation for humans and animals alike – these ellies are certainly not complaining.

13. India’s Has floating Post office

India’s first floating Post office is on Dal Lake in Srinagar, the first of its kind in the country. It was inaugurated by Minister of State for Communications and IT Mr. Sachin Pilot and Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Mr. Omar Abdullah on August 22'2011.

This innovation by India Post is the star attraction for the tourists visiting the lake. Besides offering normal services, the place will also have a philately museum and a shop that will sell postage stamps and other products. It functions from 10 am to 6 pm on all days including Sundays during the tourist season.

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14. The world's biggest family: The man with 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren,India

He is head of the world's biggest family – and says he is 'blessed'  to have his 39 wives. Ziona Chana also has 94 children, 14-daughters-in-law and 33 grandchildren. They live in a 100-room, four storey house set amidst the hills of Baktwang village in the Indian state of Mizoram, where the wives sleep in giant communal dormitories.

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15. A polling station is set up in a forest for a lone voter in every election since 2004.

He remains one of India's most prized voters. Mahant Bharatdas Darshandas is the lone voter in the midst of Gujarat's Gir forest, home to the Asiatic lion, for whom an entire election team sets up a polling booth every election – and will do so again on April 30.

16. Largest Funeral attended:Funeral of CN Annadurai, India, 1969

Widely thought to be the largest funeral attendance in history, 15 million people took to the streets of Chennai in memory of the former chief minister of Tamil Nadu, a southern Indian state. was widely respected as a writer and speaker and also extremely popular after he made Tamil the official language of the state, rejecting Hindi.

17. HINDI is not the national language of India.

Infact there is no national language in India. Rather we have many regional languages. The Union Of India has Hindi(devnagri script) and English as Official languages. And every state legislature has these two plus the regional language as the official language. English is a more popular language in South India than Hindi.

18. The Tirupati Balaji temple and the Kashi Vishwanath Temple both, receive more visitors than the Vatican City and Mecca combined.

19. Takshila is said to be the first every university in the world; it started around 700 BC.

20. Today, India has the world’s largest school in terms of students, the City Montessori School in Lucknow. It has more than 45 thousand students!

10 Strange Facts About Famous Historical Villains

Many times, history only allows certain facts about people to be remembered. This is quite common for villains and criminals because of their heinous acts. But often, whether it was habits in their personal lives or things they created, they did much more than that for which they are remembered.

10Billy The Kid Was Almost Pardoned

At just 19 years old, William Henry McCarty Jr., aka “Billy the Kid,” had already achieved national infamy as one of the most well-known outlaws of the day. But by 1878, tired of his life of crime, he wrote to the newly appointed governor of New Mexico, Lew Wallace, that he was tired of fighting.

In response, Wallace suggested that he would pardon Billy if he would testify before a grand jury about the Lincoln County War, a frontier conflict between two factions of New Mexico. Wallace had been appointed governor of New Mexico because of the Lincoln County War and, in an effort to end the violence, had offered amnesty to anyone involved. Billy turned himself in, testifying as promised, but Wallace refused to pardon him.

None of those who came forward were given amnesty. In fact, Billy’s testimony helped over 50 men get charged. Billy escaped from confinement, embarking on his famous crime spree and prompting Wallace to offer a $500 reward for Billy’s capture. While being chased by the authorities, Billy murdered more people. In April 1881, he was finally captured, tried, and sentenced to hang. Billy made a daring escape, killing two guards as he fled. He was killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in July 1881.

Interestingly, in 2002, newly elected Governor Bill Richardson announced that he was looking into a posthumous pardon for Billy, 129 years after his death. A self-proclaimed history buff, Richardson began looking into the letters exchanged between Wallace and Billy. The descendants of Garrett and Wallace both say that Wallace had no intention of giving Billy a pardon. Others disagree. Finally, Richardson announced that he would not pardon Billy due to insufficient evidence.

9Al Capone Started One Of The First Soup Kitchens

During the Great Depression and before the New Deal programs established by President Franklin Roosevelt, many unemployed citizens of America had nowhere to go when they were starving. However, churches, the wealthy, and other organizations established soup kitchens to help out. In Chicago, Al Capone established one such soup kitchen.

During Prohibition and the Great Depression, many people hated the government. However, public opinion of bootleggers like Capone was high. His donations to charity and his establishment of a soup kitchen only made him more popular.

In 1931, the Chicago Tribune proclaimed that “120,000 meals are served by Capone Free Soup Kitchen,” cementing Capone’s status as a “Robin Hood.” Many of those served by Capone said that he was doing more for the poor than the government. Capone played up his status as a good citizen by offering them jobs (with his front business, of course) and feeding over 5,000 men, women, and children on Thanksgiving Day in 1930.

Despite being arrested and placed in prison, Capone kept the soup kitchen open. The building that housed the kitchen was demolished in the 1950s and is now a parking lot.

8Osama bin Laden Had An Extensive Collection Of Pornography

After the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, books and computer files—including some containing pornography—were discovered in the compound where he had been hiding. This was a surprise considering bin Laden had long denounced the West for its obsession with sexuality.

Bin Laden was 54 and living with three wives at the time he was killed. He had often complained about America’s exploitation of women. “Your nation exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools, calling upon customers to purchase them,” he once said.

While it is not known whether the pornography belonged to bin Laden or to other men in the compound, it’s telling of the behavior of those who were in hiding. Despite their extremism when it came to “Western decadence,” they still had the same desires as most other men. The content of the pornography has not been declassified. According to a spokesperson for the director of national intelligence, these materials won’t be released because of the nature of the content.

7Custer Had A Love Child With A Cheyenne Mistress

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer will always be remembered for his defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. But research by historians has shown that he may have had a relationship with a Cheyenne woman, resulting in an illegitimate son, despite his being married. This fact escaped history but was recently unearthed by researchers who were looking into his life.

After the 1868 Washita River Massacre, Custer captured numerous women and children, making them prisoners of war. One of them was a Cheyenne woman, Meotzi, who became his interpreter despite her inability to speak English. Meotzi was a beautiful woman and Custer began to court her. She considered him her husband, becoming pregnant by him. Meotzi’s child was named Yellow Swallow because of his blond hair, a trait he no doubt inherited from his father.

In 1869, Custer made peace with the Cheyenne Indians. He left Meotzi but promised to return. However, Custer and his men were killed in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Custer was spared the mutilation of his men because he was recognized by the Cheyenne Indians as the husband of one of their own.

6Ted Kaczynski Wanted A Sex Change

Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, is no longer a threat because he’s in prison for the rest of his life. But during the time he was free, he did much damage against society. He was a social critic and mathematical genius. But what finally made Kaczynski attack and harm people?

According to him, it happened after a psychiatric visit when he was experiencing the desire to have a male-to-female operation. “Just then there came a major turning point in my life,” he said. “Like a Phoenix, I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope. I thought I wanted to kill that psychiatrist because the future looked utterly empty to me.”

Kaczynski had been experiencing issues with gender identity. Compounded with his other mental issues, that must have made him a very unstable man. When he lost the nerve to tell his psychiatrist about his problems, he decided to isolate himself from society. From there, he began to work on his twisted ideology, ultimately deciding that he would have to bomb buildings to get his message out. He began an 18-year crime spree to bomb and attack society until people would listen to his demands.

5Richard III Was Not A Hunchback

In nearly every portrayal of the famed King Richard III, he is shown to be severely deformed in his back. However, in 2012, the skeleton of Richard III was discovered buried beneath a Leicester parking lot. When the body was uncovered, Richard’s spine was examined. It was indeed very bent. He suffered from a particularly severe form of scoliosis, a disease which causes the spine to curve.

In 2014, the University of Leicester used CT scans of Richard’s spine and the rest of his body to produce a 3-D model of what Richard III may have looked like. What they found was a reasonably normal-looking man despite his dramatic scoliosis.

Being a royal, Richard III could have easily afforded a tailor to make his clothes hide any deformities. However, the reason his scoliosis wasn’t so bad was because the bones of his spine were well-balanced. He was left short by a few centimeters, but only his insiders would have known about his deformity. According to most accounts written while he was alive, he was “of person and bodily shape comely enough.”

4Jeffrey Dahmer May Have Been A Born-Again Christian

Jeffrey Dahmer was one of the most infamous serial killers in American history, but his story took a strange turn after he went to prison. In the months before he was killed in 1994, Dahmer became increasingly interested in the idea of salvation. We’ll never know whether his intentions were sincere.

However, Curt Booth, a prison minister who visited Dahmer frequently, believes he was sincere. Booth said that Dahmer had come to him, expressing regret for what he had done and requesting a Bible course.

After he completed the course, Dahmer requested to be baptized. But he was concerned that no minister would want to do so. Booth contacted Reverend Roy Ratcliff to make the proper arrangements.

After his baptism, Dahmer received more Bible courses, which he distributed to other inmates, from minister David Hartman. During his correspondence with Hartman, Dahmer ominously mentioned a July 1994 attack on his life. The letter foreshadowed his murder in November of that year.

3Fidel Castro Trafficked In Cocaine During The 1980s

Although Fidel Castro may have talked like he was against drugs in his country, he knew that they made an astronomical amount of money. During the 1980s, many of the Soviet countries that supported Cuba were struggling. As his country could barely stay afloat under these conditions, Castro allowed Cuba to be used to funnel drugs into the US.

According to the CIA, Castro accepted cocaine as payment for weapons smuggled to Colombian Marxist guerrillas. Then Castro would have the cocaine distributed to America, using the profits to help keep Cuba afloat. “Castro saw it as a money-earning transaction for Cuba’s national security,” said a former CIA agent.

When the DEA videotaped a sting operation, Cuban-American cocaine trafficker Reinaldo Ruiz bragged that he was shipping cocaine through Cuba. “The money that was paid to Fidel is in the drawer,” he said. Cuban officials accused Ruiz of lying.

After the Iran-Contra affair, the CIA initially made plans to stop cocaine trafficking in Cuba but dropped them in 1989. General Jose Abrantes, who was involved in the trafficking, was going to be kidnapped by the CIA. But he was jailed and died of an apparent heart attack instead. Soon afterward, Castro washed his hands of the affair, conducting a show trial for the world of several high-ranking generals who were ultimately punished for trafficking cocaine.

2Kim Jong Il Was An Opera Impresario

Before taking over North Korea in 1994, Kim Jong Il was credited with staging the opera Sea of Blood, based on a book written by his father, Kim Il Sung. Premiering in 1971 in Pyongyang, the opera was highly successful. In fact, the touring company was named “Sea of Blood.”

The oppressive nature of the North Korean government is well known, so it might seem that the opera was praised because it was written by the leader of North Korea. But it actually has its merits. When the opera company staged the Chinese drama Dream of the Red Chamber in Beijing in 2010, it received wide acclaim by both Chinese and Western critics. When the company was asked about their success, they responded, “We took the guidance and suggestions of our Dear Leader.”

Kim Jong Il was trained in theater, music, and film. He focused on North Korea’s film industry while his father was dictator. After successfully managing films, Kim Jong Il moved on to opera, staging Sea of Blood. He went on to produce and stage Dream of the Red Chamber and Eugene Onegin. It seems odd that an artsy type like Kim Jong Il would simultaneously starve and enslave his people while staging spectacular musical productions.

1Saddam Hussein Was A Novelist

Saddam Hussein may have been one of the most brutal dictators in history, but he was also a man of letters. In 2000, Zabibah and the King was published in Iraq, becoming an instant best seller. Of course, seeing as it was written by their ruler Saddam Hussein, his people bought the book.

When it was first published, Hussein remained anonymous, with the book credited to “he who wrote it.” The book was a metaphor about a medieval Iraqi king (Hussein), his romance with commoner Zabibah (the people), and a conflict with a brutal man who rapes her (the US). It covered politics, romance, and even bestiality.

According to the CIA, the book was ghostwritten. But after Zabibah and the King was published, the same anonymous author wrote another romantic novel, The Impenetrable Fortress. Like the first book, this novel became a best seller.

Hussein published two more novels before he was forced to go into hiding. Even when he had clearly lost control of Iraq, he wrote another novel and some poetry. He continued like this until his execution in 2004.