West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India. It is bordered by the countries of Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, and the Indian states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim, and Assam The state capital, Kolkata, was the workplace of several social reformers, like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, and Swami Vivekananda. Other notable scholars who were born, worked or studied in the geographic area of the state include physicists (Satyendra Nath Bose, Meghnad Saha, and Jagadish Chandra Bose) and Nobel laureates (Rabindranath Tagore, C. V. Raman, and Amartya Sen). Durga Puja in October is the most popular festival in the West Bengal. Rice and fish are traditional favorite foods, leading to a saying in Bengali, machhe bhate bangali, which translates as "fish and rice make a Bengali". Part of the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, is located in southern West Bengal.

Education Status

According to the Census 2011, West Bengal has a literacy rate of 77.08% (male literacy rate 82.67% and female literacy rate 71.16%).

The secondary schools are affiliated with the CISCE, CBSE, NIOS or the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. West Bengal has eighteen universities. The University of Calcutta, the oldest public university in India, has 136 affiliated colleges. Kolkata has played a pioneering role in the development of the modern education system in India. The Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) is the first research institute in Asia where C. V. Raman Nobel laureate discovered Raman Effect.