General Knowledge on India & Indian History in English-Top 30 Facts

Top 30 Unique Facts About India in English Language For Preparation of  Competitive Exams
If you have interest in Indian history then this post is for you. Here we are going to discuss top 30 facts about India and Indian History. Its our third general knowledge based post on India. Soon you will see more GK based articles on our portal.

 

Simla Agreement
1-Shimla agreement was signed after 1971 Indo Pak war between Indian Prime Minister Indra Gandhi and Pakistani PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto on 2 July, 1972. Main objective of this Simla agreement was to reverse the consequences of last war like exchange of PoWs and captured areas by both sides.

 

Lal Bahadur Shastri
2-Third Indian PM Lal Bahadur Shastri died in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on 11 Jan, 1966 one day after signing the Tashkent declaration. His death was suspicious. He came in power on 9 June, 1964. Gulzarilal Nanda served as acting PM of India before and after Lal Bahadur Shastri both times for 13 days only.

 

Sonia Gandhi
3-Real name of Sonia Gandhi is Sonia Maino. She was born on 9 December, 1946 in Italy. She got married with Rajiv Gandhi (Son of Indian PM Indra Gandhi) on 25th February, 1968. Couple have 2 children i.e Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. Her tenure as President Indian National Congress was more than any other President of past. She remained on this post from 1998 to 2017 (19 Years).

 

Giani Zail Singh
4-Giani Zail Singh was the first Sikh President of India. He stayed in presidency from 25 July, 1982 to 25 July, 1987. He is notorious for not resigning on the occasion of operation blue star. He was born on 5 May, 1916 and died on 25 December, 1994.

 

Navjot Singh Sidhu
5-Famous Indian cricketer and politician Navjot Singh Sidhu has become the hero of Sikh community all over the world as on his personal request Pakistan government opened the Kartarpur corridor.

 

General Knowledge on India & Indian History in English-Top 30 Facts

 

Lord Mountbatten
6-Lord Mountbatten served as the first Governor General of India after independence from 15 August, 1947 to 21 June, 1948. IRA assassinated him on 27 August, 1979.

 

C. Rajagopalachari
7-C. Rajagopalachari was the last Governor General of India. He was also the one and only Indian born Governor General of India. He remained in office from 21 June, 1948 to 26 January, 1950. Chakravarti Rajagopalachari was born on 10 December, 1878 and died on 25 December, 1972 at the age of 94 years.

 

Smiling Buddha & Pokhran-II
8-India became the atomic power on 18 May, 1974. This was the day of Buddha Jayanti (a festival in Hindustan marking the birth of Buddha). On this date India tested her first atomic bomb in Pokhran (Rajasthan). It was an underground test with the code name of Smiling Buddha. Pokhran-II was the 2nd instance of nuclear testing conducted by India in May 1998.

 

India-Birth Place of 5 Religions
9-Indian is the birth place of 5 religions i.e Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Budhism and Ahmadyat.

 

Prithvi
10-Prithvi is the name of first Indian Indigenously developed ballistic missile. Pakistan tested Ghori missile to respond this initiative of India. Remember that Muhammad Ghori defeated Prithvi Raj in 1200 AD.

 

Dassault Rafale
11-India is going to buy 36 Dassault Rafale super fighter jets from France to compete with JF Thunder and F-16 jets of PAF.

 

Rahul Gandhi
12-Rahul Gandhi was born on 19 June, 1970. He remained the President of Indian National Congress from 16 December, 2017 to 3 July, 2019. He is still a bachelor. He resigned from President-ship of Congress after defeat from Modi and BJP in general election 2019. Still he is future hope for INC.

 

Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty 1971
13-Indo-Soviet Treaty of friendship was signed in August 1971 for 20 years. Purpose of this treaty was to stop China from defending Pakistan in 1971 Indo Pak war.

 

India-US Strategic Partnership
14-After the Fall of USSR now India has become the strategic partner of USA. US-India Strategic Partnership is against China. Pakistan is their secondary target.

 

Manmohan Singh
15-Economist Manmohan Singh was the first Sikh Prime Minister of India. He completed 2 terms in the PM office (22 May, 2004 to 22 May, 2009 and 22 May, 2009 to 26 May, 2014). He was born on 26 September, 1932.

 

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
16-Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was the first education minister of India after independence.He also served as President of Indian National Congress before partition. He was born on 11 November, 1888 and died on 22 February, 1958. He was a strong lawyer of one nation theory but Quaid e Azam used to call him show boy of Congress.

 

Annexation of Goa
17-India annexed the Goa in December, 1961. Goa was a colony of Portugal before that.

 

Demolition of the Babri Masjid
18-Historic Babri mosque of 16th century was demolished by extremist Hindu activists of Vishva Hindu Parishad and the Bharatiya on 6th December, 1992 in Ayodhya. Extremist Hindu claim that Babri mosque was built on ruins of Ram Janmabhoomi and now they want to build Ram Mandar at that place.

 

Lahore Declaration
19-Lahore Declaration was signed on 21 February, 1999 between India (PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee) and Pakistan (PM Nawaz Sharif) to ensure peace in the region after atomic tests by both countries in 1998. Indian PM came Lahore by dosti bus to sign on this historic declaration.

 

Shiv Sena
20-Shiv Sena was founded on 19 June, 1966 in Mumbai by Bal Thackeray. Uddhav Thackeray is its current leader. This regional and extremist Hindu party was founded to protect the rights of local Maharashtrians.

 

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
21-Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam played an important role in missile and atomic program of India. He also served as 11th President of India from 25 July, 2002 to 25 July, 2007. Abdul Kalam was born on 15 October, 1931. He died on 27 July, 2015.

 

Rajendra Prasad
22-Rajendra Prasad was first President of India who ruled the country for 12 years and 107 days.

 

Aam Aadmi Party
23-Aam Aadmi Party was founded on 2 October, 2012. Arvind Kejriwal is its current President and leader. This party is challenging the 2 parties system of India by raising the issues of common people.

 

Dalai Lama
24-14th Dalai Lama took refuge in India on 30th March, 1959. He is demanding the autonomy for Tibet and India is supporting him in his struggle against Chinese occupation on Tibet.

 

RAW
25-RAW is the abbreviation of Research and Analysis Wing. This foreign intelligence agency of India was founded in 1968. RAW and ISI are working against each other on many fronts.

 

Osho
26-Osho was also known as Acharya Rajneesh. He claimed to be Bhagwan. This controversial trend setter religious leader and mystic was impressed by Grigori Rasputin. Full name of Osho was Chandra Mohan Jain. Guru Rajneesh was born on 11, 1931 and died on 19 Jan, 1990.

 

Butcher of Gujarat
27-Indian PM Narendra Modi is also known as Butcher of Gujarat due to his involvement in Gujarat riots 2002 in which more than 2000 Muslims were killed by extremist Hindus under the patron-ship of state govt.

 

First Woman President of India
28-Pratibha Patil was the first female President of India. She remained President from 25 July, 2007 to 25 July, 2012.

 

Kargil War
29-Last war between India and Pakistan was fought in 1999 at Kargil.

 

 

Indra Gandhi
30-Indra Gandhi was the first woman Prime Minister of India. She was born on 19 November, 1917. She was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru and grand daughter of Motilal Nehru. Her full name was Indira Priyadarshini Nehru. She was assassinated on 31 October, 1984 by his body guards who killed her for taking the revenge of operation blue star.

 

Read our following two posts too related to general knowledge about India and Indian history;

 

Top 40 Unique & Interesting Facts About India-Surprising General Knowledge

 

General Knowledge on India and Modern Indian History-Top 20 GK Based Facts