West Bengal is situated in the East of India adjoining Bangladesh. Its capital is Kolkata (Calcutta) which was the first capital of British India until 1912 when the capital was shifted to Delhi. Bengal was divided into East and West after partition on religious lines. The main languages are Bengali and English. From 1976 the state has had a democratically elected Communist government. It is the cultural hub of India and is relatively westernised. The Nobel laurette Rabindranath Tagore, as well as Kishore Kumar and Ravi Shanker came from this state. The literacy rate is very high and many intellectuals emanate from this region.

During the Colonial days, Calcutta was the centre of jute and shipping industry which was controlled by large British owned industrial houses. It was the pioneer as a financial and trading centre of the East which attracted large scale industrial workers especially from China. Since the late 1960s, Calcutta’s importance has gone down due to closure of many industries on account of labour trouble and the attitude of the Communist Government. However, the present State Government is anxious to revive the industries and bring back Calcutta’s importance as one of the financial centres. Calcutta is also a port city being 70 miles up the River Hoogli upstream from the Bay of Bengal.

The other important areas in this state include Haldia which has a large refinery together with a petro-chemical complex, Darjeeling which is famous for its tea and Chandernagore which was formerly a French territory.  The state also has leather tanning industries.

Today, it is a lucrative place for the retail industry, for restaurants and bars. It also has a film industry and Satyajit Ray’s films are world renown. Kolkatta has IT parks and a modern metro-rail system.