At the stroke of today’s midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom”, said Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, on 15th August 1947 after the country got freedom from the British rule. Today we are celebrating India’s 70th Independence Day. 70 years ago, on this day, India was born as a free democratic country which had many challenges ahead. During the past 70 years, India overcome different hurdles and Indians earned global recognition in various fields. This Independence Day, don’t just celebrate the freedom, but take pride in what India have achieved.
India has gone through several changes over the years. From political arena to the social life, Indians have witnessed major changes in their lives. No doubt, life in several rural parts of the country are yet to get basic facilities like water and electricity, but it is also a fact that many cities are now being compared with New York or Bangkok. Be it physics, maths, medicine, chemistry, literature, music, film, sports or space, India has achieved new heights and great achievements in different fields.
- India designed and built Asia’s first nuclear reactor Apsara nuclear reactor on August 4 1956. India currently has 21 nuclear reactors in operation in 7 nuclear power plants.
- India designed first space satellite, Aryabhata, in 1975. The first space satellite was named after an Indian astronomer Aryabhata.
- Indian Space Research Organisation, India’s space agency, successfully launched Mars Orbiter Mission to probe Mars. India became the fourth country to reach Mars orbit, after the Soviet space program, NASA, and the European Space Agency. It is the first Asian nation to reach Mars orbit, and the first nation in the world to do so in its first attempt.
- India successfully launched Chandrayaan in order to explore the moon. The vehicle inserted into lunar orbit in its first attempt. One of the greatest achievements of Chadrayaan was the discovery of the widespread presence of water molecules in the lunar soil.
- The Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in Delhi won the Best Airport award from the Airports Council International within 25–40 million annual passengers category in 2015. It also bags two awards for The Best Airport in Central Asia/India and Best Airport Staff in Central Asia/India at the prestigious Skytrax World Airport Awards.
- Railway network in India was nationalized in 1951 and Indian Railways became one of the largest railway networks comprising 115,000 km (71,000 mi) of track over a route of 67,312 km (41,826 mi) and 7,112 stations.
- Indian Railways carries more than 23 million passengers daily from one place to another. The Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai and the Mountain Railways of India have been declared as World Heritage Site by the UNESCO.
- India has won a total of 26 Olympic medals. India won its first gold medal in men’s field hockey in the 1928 Olympic Games. Abhinav Bindra became the first Indian to win an individual gold medal at the Olympic Games.
- India is lowest cost producer of nuclear energy ($ 1700 per kilowatt).
- India has one of the largest supplies of thorium in the world.
- India is among the first country to develop satellite for domestic communication.
- India produces one of the lowest cost cars.
- Indian companies with Hero MotoCorp are the world’s largest manufacturer of two wheelers.
- India has the largest single location oil refinery capacity nearly 70m tonnes in the world
- India’s Aryabhata invented the number ZERO.
- A vast majority of the historian believes that Chess was invented in India.
- India has 5600 different newspapers and 3500 different magazines with approximately 120 million readers every day.
- India gave birth to Satya Nadella who is the current CEO of Microsoft.
- India’s Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Google.
- India’s Mahendra Singh Dhoni is ranked 23rd in the list of world’s highest paid athletes 2015.
Teacher
Amishi Gupta
Class: IX-A
K.R. Mangalam World School Vikaspuri
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