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Calcutta, the capital city of the State of West Bengal in Eastern India, is home to 13-14 million people. The city was founded by the British in 1690, and as the capital city of the British East India Company, grew to become the largest city in Asia, and a primary political, commercial, and intellectual center. Independence from Britain in 1947, and the partition of the subcontinent into "Hindu" India and "Muslim" Pakistan (including modern-day Bangladesh) resulted in large-scale communal rioting and bloodshed. Calcutta was flooded with millions of immigrants in 1947, 1951, and 1971. These huge waves of immigrants, combined with communal violence, political turmoil, and corruption, have contributed to the enormous economic depression in Calcutta that has brought the city to an advanced state of decay and poverty today. Operation World describes Calcutta as the city with the lowest urban standard of living in the world, with 5.5 million residents living in squatter conditions. Calcutta is named for Kali, the Hindu goddess of death and destruction. More than 2,000 altars and shrines devoted to Kali are found throughout the city today. The people groups of Calcutta have only scarcely been touched with the Gospel. Approximately 76% of Calcutta's residents are Hindus, and 23% are Muslims. Less than one-tenth of 1% of Calcuttans are Evangelical Christians - a tiny minority.
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