India Unbound
Uniquely Indian
Why does Darjeeling tea get a special badge? Some foods and crafts are so closely linked to one place that the law protects their name! Let's find out how.
Did you know?
Hyderabadi Haleem, a rich dish of meat, wheat and lentils, got a GI tag in 2010. It was the first meat dish in India to get one!
It takes about 1,50,000 saffron flowers to make just 1 kg of saffron! Each flower has only three red threads, picked by hand. Kashmir saffron got its GI tag in 2020.
Kadaknath, a chicken breed from Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, is grey-black all over. Even its meat and bones are dark! Its meat got a GI tag in 2018.
Try this: GI Detective
Ask your family about famous products from your state: a sweet, a fabric, a fruit or a toy. Look at packets and labels at home for the words 'GI' or 'Geographical Indication'. Then draw a simple map of India and mark at least five GI products you discover, with a small picture of each.
Go further: What Is a GI Tag?
A Geographical Indication (GI) tag is a special label for a product that comes from a particular place and is special because of it: its soil, its climate or the skills of its people. Only producers from that area may use the name. Darjeeling tea was the first product in India to get a GI tag, in 2004. Today India has hundreds of GI products, from Pochampally Ikat of Telangana to Channapatna toys of Karnataka.