Kharagpur

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      The moment we hear name of  the place Kharagpur, first and foremost thing that come in our mind is about IIT Kharagpur and railway station. It's quite obvious as  Kharagpur has been known as first Indian Institute of technology since May 1950. Also it has one of the largest railway workshops in India, and the third longest railway platform in the world (1072.5 m). It's an Industrial city located in Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal.              Kharagpur junction                    IIT KHARAGPUR          Name of this place as Kharagpur was given by its 12th king Mallabhum Dynasty, kharga malla. It's said that initially it was part of Hijli kingdom and ruled by oriya rulers under Gajapati kings of Odisha.       In 16th century this place was said to be a small village surrounded by a dense forest. Only habitant based over there was Hijli which was a small island village situated on the banks of the Rasalpur river in the delta of bay of Bengal. Later in the yea

The Gift of a King- Darjeeling

Darjeeling, the land from where the eponymous tea, famously described as the champagne of teas comes, is situated in the foothills of the Himalayas, located in the state of West Bengal, India. Ranging from 100-4200 meters this mountainous region borders Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet.



The name
 'Darjeeling' came from the Tibetan words, 'dorje' meaning thunderbolt (originally the scepter of Indra) and 'ling' a place or land, hence 'the land of thethunderbolt'. A land-mark year in the History ofDarjeeling was 1835, but it would be appropriate to traceits History before that.
  It was founded by East India company and settled in 1815, by Treaty of Sugauli.
            

The Gift of a King- Darjeeling 


The-Gift-of-a-King--Darjeeling















Darjeeling is the window to the beautiful and exotic Kanchenjunga Mountains. It is a part of West Bengal state today but during the company’s rule Darjeeling- the Land of Thunderbolt was a part of the Sikkim Kingdom and was ruled by the Royal lineage of Chogyal Phuntsog Namgyal. 

The British spent over 200 years in India and were always on the lookout for hill stations as cool retreats from the heat and dust of the Indian plains. One such attempt was their acquisition of the heavenly and beautiful Darjeeling hill area. The Sikkim-Patti was ‘Convinced’ to cede this territory to British through a deed of a grant on 1st February 1835. 

In the 18th century Sikkim faced many Ghurkha incursions, the impact of these invasions resulted in Sikkim turning on the British side during the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1815-1816 AD. Sikkim covered twice the area as large as it is now but the size was reduced due to annexations by neighbouring powers and in 1935 the hill area of Darjeeling was ‘Presented’ to the British out of Friendship. 

This retreat soon became a fashionable resort for British residents in Kolkata who were eager to gaze on Kanchenjunga mountain ranges. In 1840 tea arrived in Darjeeling with a Scottish surgeon Dr Campbell who planted tea bushes brought from China. 

This stamp was issued by the Sikkim State during the British Raj. This stamp depicts the image of Kanchenjunga Mountain. Sikkim became the protectorate of India in 1947 and on 26th April 1975 Sikkim became the 22nd state of the Indian union.


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