Portal:West Bengal
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Wikipedia portals: Culture · Geography · Health · History · Mathematics · Natural sciences · Philosophy · Religion · Society · Technology The West Bengal PortalWest Bengal is a state in eastern India. With Bangladesh, which lies on its eastern border, the state forms the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. To its northeast lie the states of Assam and Sikkim and the country Bhutan, and to its southwest, the state of Orissa. To the west it borders the state of Jharkhand and Bihar, and to the northwest, Nepal. The region that is now West Bengal was a part of a number of empires and kingdoms during the past two millennia. The British East India Company cemented their hold on the region following the Battle of Plassey in 1757 CE, and the city of Kolkata, then Calcutta, served for many years as the capital of British India. A centre of the Indian independence movement through the early 20th century, Bengal was divided in 1947 into two separate entities, West Bengal - a state of India, and East Pakistan belonging to the new nation of Pakistan. Following India's independence in 1947, West Bengal's economic and political theatres were dominated for many decades by intellectual Marxism, Naxalite movements and trade unionism. From late 1990s, economic rejuvenation led to a spurt in the state's economic and industrial growth. An agriculture-dependent state, West Bengal occupies only 2.7% of the India's land area, though it supports over 7.8% of Indian population, and is the most densely populated state in India. West Bengal has been ruled by the CPI(M)-led Left Front for three decades, making it the world's longest-running democratically-elected communist government. Many notable poets, writers, artists and performers are native to West Bengal. Selected article
Cooch Behar is the district headquarters and the largest town of Cooch Behar District of the Indian state of West Bengal. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayan Foothills and located at 26°22′N 89°29′E / 26.367°N 89.483°E. Cooch Behar is a well-planned town and an important tourist place of West Bengal. The town is famous for the Cooch Behar Palace and Madan Mohan Bari. It has also been declared a heritage town.
During the British Raj, the town of Cooch Behar was the seat of the princely state of Koch Bihar, ruled by the Koch dynasty. In course of time, Cooch Behar has been transformed from a kingdom to a ztate and then from a state to the present status of a district, and the town of Cooch Behar its district headquarters. Before 28 August 1949, Cooch Behar was a princely ptate ruled by the king of Cooch Behar, who had been a feudatory ruler under British Government. Selected pictureBaul singers at Santiniketan during colour festival Holi. Bauls are a group of mystic minstrels from Bengal, which comprises Bangladesh and West Bengal. Bauls constitute both a syncretic religious sect and a musical tradition used as a vehicle to express Baul thought. They can be often identified by their distinctive clothes and musical instruments, like the ektara. Though Bauls comprise only a small fraction of the Bengali population, their influence on the culture of Bengal is considerable. In 2005, the Baul tradition was included in the list of "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO. Selected biography
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (b.26 June1838- d.8 April1894), ('Chattopadhyay' in the original Bengali; 'Chatterjee' as spelt by the British) was a Bengali Indian poet, novelist, essayist and journalist, most famous as the author of Vande Mataram or Bande Mataram, that inspired the freedom fighters of India, and was later declared the National Song of India.
Chatterjee began his literary career as a writer of verse. He soon realized, however, that his talents lay in other directions, and turned to fiction. His first fiction to appear in print was Rajmohan's Wife. It was written in English. Durgeshnondini, his first Bengali romance and the first ever novel in Bengali, was published in 1865. Wikipedia in Bengali
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