Funtastic Facts

Seventeen-year-old Balamurali Ambati of India, has become the world youngest doctor. He received his degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York on May 19, 1995, breaking the record of an Israeli medical student who graduated from the University of Perugia in Italy at the age of 18.

Eight-year-old Sonali Pandya is the youngest ever student in Britain to gain a General Certificate of Secondary Education (CCSE). She passed her examination in computer studies in 1994.

Miss Lata Mangeshkar (b.1928), between 1948 and 1985, has reportedly recorded not less than 30,000 solo, duet and chorus-backed songs in 20 Indian languages. She frequently had five recording sessions in a day and has backed more than 2,000 films.

Ms. Shakuntala Devi demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers 7,686,369,774,870 x 2,465,099,745,779 picked at random by the Computer Department of Imperial College, London, on June 18, 1980 in 28 seconds. Her correct answer was 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730

S. Haridas, a mathematics teacher of Thrissur, Kerala, calculated the 101st root of a 250-digit number within eight seconds while the computer took 11 seconds to figure out the sum. The Guinness record holder took 10.5 seconds for arriving at the 23rd root of a 200-digit number.

Abhishek Jain from Punjab won the World Typing Championship for Juniors at Brussels in 1991 (110 words/minute). He retained the championship in July 1995 at Amsterdam.

Indian Railways is the world’s largest employer with over 1.7 million people on its payroll.

State Bank of India has over 11,000 branches (assets in 1987 – $26 billion).

In 1989, more films were produced in India than any other country in the world. A total of 781 films were produced: 176 in Hindi, 152 in Telugu, 146 in Tamil, 96 in Malayalam, 75 in Kannada, 50 in Bengali, and 86 in other languages.

The little maestro, Sumil Gavaskar, is featured no less than three times in the Guinness Book of World Records – for most runs in test cricket (10,122), the most test centuries (34), and for the most tests played (125).

Ravi Shastri has the distinction of scoring the fastest – 200 runs in first class cricket in 113 minutes.

Bapu Nadkarni holds the record for the greatest number of consecutive maidens (over 21). Another of India’s popular cricketers, Kapil Dev, is also featured in the Guinness Book as a holder of three records: a double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in the shortest time span (1 year, 107 days) at the youngest age (21 years, 27 days); a double of 2,000 runs and 200 wickets at the youngest age (24 years, 68 days); and a double of 3,000 runs and 300 wickets at the youngest age (28 years, 1 day).