The Bengal Basin

The Bengal Basin, consisting of Bangladesh (East Bengal) and the eastern part of India (West Bengal) has unique geographic features. It has one of the world’s largest flat alluvial deltaic plains where three big rivers — the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna (BGM) flow. Due to these geographic characteristics and the tropical monsoon, the Bengal Basin is vulnerable to various water problems. During the monsoon, the Bengal Basin experience wide spread flooding, but lacks drinking water in the dry months because of drought.

Western Part of Bengal Basin belongs to West Bengal, India	Easter Part of Bengal Basin belongs to Bangladesh

 

 

History of Bengal

Early evidence suggests that Mongols and, soon after, Aryans from Central Asia settled in the area in the fifth and sixth centuries BC. Portuguese traders and missionaries were the first Europeans to reach the area, which was then known as Bengal, in the latter part of the 15th century, followed by the Dutch and the French. The British East India Company, which, by the end of the 17th century, had established a strong presence on the Indian subcontinent centered in Calcutta, extended its commercial contracts and administrative control to Bengal during the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1857, the British established Bengal as a region of India.

Bengal was probably the richest place on the Earth only 400 years ago, where many outstanding world-class scholars, poets, writers, scientists, philosophers, spiritual leaders, artists, and social reformers were born. These include: Rabindranath Tagore, Subhash Chandra Bose, SK Mujjibur Rahman, Raja Rammohan Roy, Shree Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh, Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, Madhusudan Dutta, Meghnad Saha, Najrul Islam, Santidev Ghosh, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay, Satyen Bose, Sayed Nazrul Islam, Maharaja T.N Chakroborty, Amartya Sen, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, Satyajit Ray etc