West Bengal

West Bengal is a state in the northeast of India. Neighbouring regions are Nepal and Sikkim to the northwest, Bhutan to the north, Assam to the northeast, Bangladesh to the east, the Bay of Bengal to the south, Orissa to the southwest and Jharkhand and Bihar to the west.

Its capital city is Kolkata. Darjeeling in the north is well known for its high quality teas.

Bengal was divided between India and Pakistan in 1947. The Pakistani part later became Bangladesh.

Bengal is the cultural hub of India. It's the birthplace of India's only Noble laureate in literature, Rabindranath Tagore. The world famous film director Satyajit Ray was also born here. Apart from this, Bengal gave birth to an innumerable number of well known poets and writers who enriched the Indian literature ceaselessly. During independence movement, Bengal took a leading and especially militant role. Subhas C Bose, who was belovedly called "Netaji" is still a burning example of courage for Indian youth. Satyendra Nath Bose, from whom the boson particle and Bose-Einstein theory get their names, was also a Bengali. In spirituality, Bengal gave birth to the missioneries like Swami Vivekananda, Śrī Aurobindo, and Prabhupada A.C. Bhaktivedanta the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.