Kolkata in the context of Carding

The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company, under the leadership of Robert Clive, over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757. The victory was made possible by the defection of Mir Jafar, Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah's commander in chief, as well as much of the Bengal Subah's armies being earlier committed against an Afghan invasion led by Ahmad Shah Durrani against the Mughal Empire. The battle helped the British East India Company take complete control of Bengal in 1773. Over the next hundred years, they continued to expand their control over vast territories in the rest of the Indian subcontinent and Burma.

The battle took place at Palashi (Anglicised version: Plassey) on the banks of the Hooghly River, about 150 kilometres (93 mi) north of Calcutta (now Kolkata) and south of Murshidabad in West Bengal, then capital of Bengal State. The belligerents were the British East India Company, and the Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal. He succeeded Alivardi Khan (his maternal grandfather). Siraj-ud-Daulah had become the Nawab of Bengal the year before, and he had ordered the English to stop the extension of their fortification. Robert Clive bribed Mir Jafar, the commander-in-chief of the Nawab's army, and also promised to make him Nawab of Bengal. Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah at Plassey in 1757 and captured Calcutta.

Hugli-Chuchura (pronounced [ɦuɡli-tʃutʃuɽa]), also known by its former names Chinsurah or Hooghly-Chinsurah, is a city of Hooghly district and the district headquarters of Hooghly division in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is one of the densely populated cities of West Bengal. It lies on the bank of Hooghly River, 35 km north of Kolkata, the state capital. It is located in the district of Hooghly and is home to the district headquarters. Chuchura houses the Commissioner of the Burdwan Range. The District Court building of Chinsurah is the longest building in West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA).

Chinsurah is the home to the new state-of-the-art 1000 KW DRM transmitter of Prasar Bharti which enables 'Akashvaani Maitree' to be broadcast across Bangladesh. This special Bangla service of All India Radio was launched in the wake of the Bangladesh Liberation Movement and played a key role during the war, broadcasting Indian news bulletins in Bangladesh. It continued till April 2010 but was discontinued thereafter due to decommissioning of the Super Power Transmitter at Chinsurah. The headquarters of the Hooghly District Sports Association (HDSA) and the famous Imambara Sadar District Hospital is situated here. Chinsurah is also the home of the oldest Armenian church in India and old Hindu Temples. It is one of the Literate cities in West Bengal. The literacy percent of this city is 91%.

A satellite city or satellite town is a smaller municipality or settlement that is part of (or on the edge of) a larger metropolitan area and serves as a regional population and employment center. It differs from mere suburbs, subdivisions and especially bedroom communities in that it has employment bases sufficient to support its residential population, and conceptually, could be a self-sufficient community outside of its larger metropolitan area. However, it functions as part of a metropolis and experiences high levels of cross-commuting (that is, residents commuting out of and employees commuting into the city).

A pantheon is the particular set of all gods of any individual polytheistic religion, mythology, or tradition.

East Indiamen were merchant ships that operated under charter or licence for European trading companies which traded with the East Indies between the 17th and 19th centuries. The term was commonly used to refer to vessels belonging to the British, Dutch, French, Danish, Swedish, Austrian or Portuguese East India companies.

Several East Indiamen chartered by the British East India Company (EIC) were known as clippers. The EIC held a monopoly granted to it by Elizabeth I in 1600 for all English trade between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. This grant was progressively restricted during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, until the monopoly was lost in 1834. EIC East Indiamen usually ran between Britain, the Cape of Good Hope and India, where their primary destinations were the ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India comprising 836 islands, of which only 31 are inhabited. The islands are grouped into two main clusters: the northern Andaman Islands and the southern Nicobar Islands, separated by a 150 km (93 mi) wide channel. The capital and largest city of the territory, Port Blair (officially Sri Vijaya Puram), is located approximately 1,190 km (740 mi) from Chennai and 1,255 km (780 mi) from Kolkata in mainland India. The islands are situated between the Bay of Bengal to the west and the Andaman Sea to the east. The northernmost point is 901 km (560 mi) from the mouth of the Hooghly River. Indira Point, located at 6°45'10″N and 93°49'36″E on the southern tip of Great Nicobar, is the southernmost point of India.

The territory shares maritime borders with Indonesia located about 165 km (103 mi) to the south, Myanmar located 280 km (170 mi) to the north-east and Thailand located 650 km (400 mi) to the south-east. The islands occupy a total land area of approximately 8,249 km (3,185 sq mi) with a population of 380,581 as per the 2011 census. The territory is divided into three districts: Nicobar, South Andaman, and North and Middle Andaman with the capitals at Car Nicobar, Port Blair and Mayabunder respectively.

West Bengal is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal. It had a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of 88,752 km (34,267 sq mi) as of 2011. The population estimate as of 2023 is 99,723,000. West Bengal is the fourth-most populous and thirteenth-largest state by area in India, as well as the eighth-most populous country subdivision of the world. As a part of the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, it borders Bangladesh in the east, and Nepal and Bhutan in the north. It also borders the Indian states of Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, Sikkim and Assam. The state capital is Kolkata, the third-largest metropolis, and seventh largest city by population in India. West Bengal includes the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region, the Ganges delta, the Rarh region, the coastal Sundarbans and the Bay of Bengal. The state's main ethnic group are the Bengalis, with the Bengali Hindus forming the demographic majority.

The area's early history featured a succession of Indian empires, internal squabbling, and a tussle between Hinduism and Buddhism for dominance. Ancient Bengal was the site of several major Janapadas, while the earliest cities date back to the Vedic period. The region was part of several ancient pan−Indian empires, including the Vangas, Mauryans, and the Guptas. The citadel of Gauḍa served as the capital of the Gauda kingdom, the Pala Empire, and the Sena Empire. Islam was introduced through trade with the Abbasid Caliphate, but following the Ghurid conquests led by Bakhtiyar Khalji and the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate, the Muslim faith spread across the entire Bengal region. During the Bengal Sultanate, the territory was a major trading nation in the world, and was often referred by the Europeans as the "richest country to trade with". It was absorbed into the Mughal Empire in 1576. Simultaneously, some parts of the region were ruled by several Hindu states, and Baro-Bhuyan landlords, and part of it was briefly overrun by the Suri Empire. Following the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in the early 1700s, the proto-industrialised Mughal Bengal became a semi-independent state under the Nawabs of Bengal, and showed signs of the first Industrial Revolution. The region was later annexed into the Bengal Presidency by the British East India Company after the Battle of Buxar in 1764. From 1772 to 1911, Calcutta was the capital of all of East India Company's territories and then the capital of the entirety of India after the establishment of the Viceroyalty. From 1912 to India's Independence in 1947, it was the capital of the Bengal Province.

The Hooghly River (/ˈhuːɡli/; Bengali: Hugli [ˈɦuɡli]) is the westernmost distributary of the Ganges, situated in West Bengal, India. It is known in its upper reaches as the Bhagirathi. The Bhagirathi splits off from the main branch of the Ganges at Giria. A short distance west, it meets the man-made Farakka Feeder Canal, which massively increases its flow. The river then flows south to join the Jalangi at Nabadwip, where it becomes the Hooghly proper. The Hooghly continues southwards, passing through the metropolis of Kolkata. Thereafter, it empties into the Bay of Bengal. Its tributaries include the Ajay, Damodar, Rupnarayan, and Haldi.

The Hooghly has religious significance as Hindus consider the river sacred. It also plays a major role in the agriculture, industry, and climate of the state.

St. John the Baptist Church of Chinsura (Armenian: Սուրբ Յովհաննէս Մկրտիչ Եկեղեցի), is located in Chinsura, India. The church was built in 1695–1697 and is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. It is the second-oldest Christian church in Bengal, and the oldest Armenian church in India.The church is well preserved due to its proximity to Kolkata and the care committee of the Armenian Churches.

The Armenian Church of Chinsura was started in 1699. A spire was added to the church in 1822, for which the Dutch resident of Bengal Daniel Anthony Overbeek laid the foundation stone.

Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, 1st Baronet, KCB (2 April 1807 – 19 June 1886) was an English civil servant and colonial administrator. As a young man, he worked with the colonial government in Calcutta, India. He returned to Britain and took up the post of Assistant Secretary to the Treasury. During this time he was responsible for facilitating the government's response to the Great Famine in Ireland. In the late 1850s and 1860s, he served there in senior-level appointments. Trevelyan was instrumental in the process of reforming the British Civil Service in the 1850s.

Today Trevelyan is mostly remembered for his reluctance to disburse direct government food and monetary aid to the Irish during the famine due to his strong belief in laissez-faire economics. Trevelyan's defenders say that larger factors than his own acts and beliefs were more central to the problem of the famine and its high mortality.

Sir William Jones FRS FRAS FRSE (28 September 1746 – 27 April 1794) was a Welsh scholar and judge. Born in Westminster, London to Welsh mathematician William Jones, he moved to the Bengal Presidency where Jones served as a puisne judge on the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William and also became a scholar of ancient Indian history. As part of his research, he was the first to assert the kinship of the Indo-European languages. Jones also founded the Asiatic Society in Calcutta in 1784.

East India is a region consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odishaand West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The states of Bihar and West Bengal lie on the Indo-Gangetic plain. Jharkhand is situated on the Chota Nagpur Plateau. Odisha lies on the Eastern Ghats and the Deccan Plateau. West Bengal's capital Kolkata is the largest city of this region. The Kolkata Metropolitan Area is the country's third largest metropolitan region. The region is bounded by Bhutan, Nepal and the state of Sikkim in the north, the states of Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh on the west, the state of Andhra Pradesh in the south and the country of Bangladesh in the east. It is also bounded by the Bay of Bengal in the south-east. It is connected to the Seven Sister States of Northeast India by the narrow Siliguri Corridor in the north east of West Bengal. East India has the fourth-largest gross domestic product of all Indian regions.

The Manusmṛti (Sanskrit: मनुस्मृति), also known as the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra or the Laws of Manu, is one of the many legal texts and constitutions among the many Dharmaśāstras of Hinduism.

Over fifty manuscripts of the Manusmriti are now known, but the earliest discovered, most translated, and presumed authentic version since the 18th century is the "Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) manuscript with Kulluka Bhatta commentary". Modern scholarship states this presumed authenticity is false, and that the various manuscripts of Manusmriti discovered in India are inconsistent with each other.

Bidhannagar, also known as Salt Lake City, is a city and a municipal corporation of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of the Bidhannagar subdivision. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) and is located on the north-eastern side of Kolkata.

Bidhannagar's Salt lake is a planned region of Kolkata. It was planned and developed between 1958 and 1965 to accommodate the burgeoning population of Kolkata. Bidhannagar (including Salt lake) in Kolkata metropolitan area is under the administration of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation. Keeping with its original name, it is commonly referred to as Salt Lake City.

Jadavpur University (abbr. JU) is a public state funded technical and research university with its main campus located at Jadavpur, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was established on 25 July in 1906 as Bengal Technical Institute and was converted into Jadavpur University on 24 December in 1955. As of the 2025 NIRF rankings, Jadavpur University has been ranked 9th among universities, 1st among state public universities, 18th among engineering institutes, and 18th overall in India. Also Nature Index ranked Jadavpur University in 1st among universities in India and 22nd overall in India in terms of research output (2023–2024). The university has been recognized by the UGC as an institute with "Potential for Excellence" and accredited an "A+" grade by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).

Durga Puja (ISO: Durgā Pūjā, Assamese pronunciation: [duɹɡäpuzä] , Bengali pronunciation: [d̪uɾɡapud͡ʒa] ), also known as Durgotsava or Sharadotsava, is a major Hindu festival honouring the goddess Durga and commemorating her victory over Mahishasura. In 2021, 'Durga Puja in Kolkata' was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The festival is observed in the Indian calendar in the month of Ashvin (September–October) on the Hindu luni-solar calendar. It lasts ten days, with the final five being most prominent. Even though Durga Puja and Navaratri are both dedicated to the Hindu goddess Durga and are observed simultaneously, they are not the same festival.

Kali Puja (ISO: Kālī Pūjā), also known as Shyama Puja or Mahanisha Puja, is a festival originating from the Indian subcontinent, dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali. It is celebrated on the new moon day (Dipannita Amavasya) of the Hindu calendar month of Ashwayuja (according to the amanta tradition) or Kartika (according to the purnimanta tradition). The festival is especially popular in the regions of Barasat, Naihati, Kolkata, Basirhat and Tamluk in West Bengal, Bhagalpur in Bihar's Anga, and other places like Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam, and Tripura. Along with the neighbouring country of Bangladesh.