Culture of West Bengal Culture of West Bengal The culture of West Bengal is an Indian Culture which has its roots in the Bengali literature, music, fine arts, drama and cinema. Different geographic regions of West Bengal have subtle as well as more pronounced variations between each other, with Darjeeling Himalayan hill region and Duars showing particularly different socio-cultural aspects. West Bengal's capital Kolkata—as the former capital of India—was the birthplace of modern Indian literary and artistic thought, and is referred to as the "cultural [or literary] capital of India". The presence of "paras", which are cluster of neighbourhoods that possess a strong sense
Geography of West Bengal at places. West Bengal stands third in the country in terms of mineral production. The state contributes about one-fifth to the total production of minerals in the country. Coal constitutes 99% of the minerals extracted in West Bengal; fireclay, china clay, limestone, copper, iron, wolfram, manganese and dolomite are mined in small quantities. There are good possibilities of obtaining mineral oil and natural gas in the areas near the Bay of Bengal, in Purba Medinipur, Sundarbans, South 24 Parganas and North Bengal plains. Research is ongoing in various places to locate natural gas. West Bengal is the third largest state