Kolkata (Calcutta)

Kolkata (Calcutta), capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, grew from the English East India Company's settlement of 1690 and served as the de facto capital of British India until 1911. Home of the University of Calcutta, the first modern university in South Asia, it was a hub of the Bengal Renaissance. From 1798 Jews from Aleppo and then Baghdad settled in the city and built several synagogues; the community peaked at over 6,000 during the Second World War before emigrating. The city was also an early centre of the modern Buddhist revival: the Maha Bodhi Society moved its offices there in 1892 and remains there, and the laywoman Dipa Ma taught insight meditation in Calcutta from 1967.

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