Ask Battista Minola 1616 Anything - One

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Off the very top of your head, what do you know about India?

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Off the very top of your head, what do you know about India?

India is one of the vastest countries in the world. I think 3 million something km²?
India is the second most populous country in the world at roughly 1,300,000,000 people.
India has twenty-something national/official/whatever languages, including Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Manipuri (?). Most of them are Indo-European. Tamil, Telugu and some others are Dravidic. Some are neither (Manipuri I think is Sino-Tibetan).
India has a Hindu plurality (majority?), and sizable Muslim, Sikh and Christian minorities.
Not all of India was technically a British possession before 1947 because it was full of semi-autonomous so-called "princely states".
India has had religious riots, including one in Mumbai in I think 1992 (or was it 1993?)
India's prime minister is called Narendra Modi and to my knowledge is sort of a Hindu nationalist.
The capital of India is New Delhi.
The "film capital" of India is Mumbai (Bollywood).
The most famous thing in all of India, the Taj Mahal, is I think in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is also the most populated subnational entity in the world.
I have heard very ugly stuff about rape culture in the state of Haryana.
Etc.


I swear I did not search any one of these things on Google while writing my post.
I have an Indian "pen friend" or to be more precise message friend. She is 25, has just graduated from university in New Delhi, comes from Manipur, is Christian and speaks Paite as her mother tongue.
I also watched "Slumdog Millionaire" like 3 days ago.
Ah and I am a geography geek.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

I am not kidding at all.

What do you know about Italy?  

Well to make things more interesting and in the context of our two nations, India and Italy just recently re-established semi-friendly relations after Gentiloni and Modi met in 2017.  As you know, India has been pretty pissed at Italy for the Enrica Lexie affair.