Portal:India/Featured article/2005

Featured articles
June 10

Goa (गोवा) is India's smallest state in terms of area and the fourth smallest in terms of population after Sikkim, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. It is located on the west coast of India, in the region known as the Konkan, and is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the east and south. The Arabian Sea makes up the state's west coast. Panaji is the state's capital, and Vasco its largest town. Portuguese merchants first landed in Goa in the 16th century but soon after colonised it forcibly, persecuting Hindus and converting the majority of the locals to Christianity. The Portuguese colony existed for about 450 years, until it was annexed as part of India in 1961.

Internationally renowned for its beaches, Goa is visited by hundreds of thousands of foreign and domestic tourists each year. Besides beaches, Goa is also known for its world heritage architecture including the Bom Jesus Basilica (Portuguese for "Good Jesus"). Goa also has rich flora and fauna, owing to its location on the Western Ghats range, which are classified as a biodiversity hotspot.

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June 26

Tamil is a classical language and one of the major languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. It is predominantly spoken in South India and Sri Lanka, with smaller communities of speakers in many other countries. As of 1996, it was the 18th most spoken language in the world with over 74 million speakers worldwide.

As one of the few living classical languages, Tamil has an unbroken literary tradition of over two millennia. The written language has changed little during this period, with the result that classical literature is as much a part of everyday Tamil as modern literature. Tamil schoolchildren, for example, are still taught the alphabet using the átticúdi, an alphabet rhyme written around the first century CE.

The name 'Tamil' is an anglicised form of the native name தமிழ் (IPA ). The final letter of the name, usually transcribed as the lowercase l or zh, is a retroflex r believed to only exist in Tamil and Malayalam. In phonetic transcriptions, it is usually represented by the retroflex approximant.

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July 3

Indian Railways (IR) is the state-owned railway company of India having a complete monopoly over the country's rail transport. It has one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting over 5 billion passengers and over 350 million tonnes of freight annually. IR is also the world's largest commercial or utility employer, having more than 1.6 million regular employees on its payroll.

The railways traverse through the length and breadth of the country covering a total length of 63,140 km (39,200 s). IR owns a total of 216,717 wagons, 39,236 coaches and 7,739 locomotives and runs a total of 14,444 trains daily, including about 8,702 passenger trains.

Railways were first introduced to India in 1853, and by 1947, the year of India's independence, it had grown to forty-two rail systems. In 1951 the systems were nationalised as one unit, to become one of the largest networks in the world. Indian Railways operates both long distance, as well as suburban rail systems.

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July 3

Gangtok is the capital and largest town of the Indian state of Sikkim. It is situated in the lower Himalayas, located at 27.2°N, 88.4°W. Known for its clean surroundings and temperate climate, this hill station of about fifty thousand people is the centre of Sikkim's tourist industry.

Gangtok was a small hamlet until the construction of the Enchey Monastery in 1840 made it a pilgrimage center. It became a major stopover between Tibet and British India at the end of the 19th century. Following India's independence in 1947, Sikkim became a nation-state with Gangtok as its capital. In 1975 the monarchy was abrogated and Sikkim became India's twenty-second state, with Gangtok remaining as its capital.

The precise meaning of the name Gangtok is unclear, though it is generally held to mean "lofty hill". Gangtok is also a centre of Tibetan Buddhist culture and learning with numerous monasteries and religious educational institutions.

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July 31

The Flag of India sometimes also known as the Tiranga (तिरंगा), which in Hindi means tricolour, was adopted as the national flag of the Republic of India on 1947-07-22, during an ad hoc meeting of the Constituent Assembly just before India's independence on 1947-08-15. In India, the term "tricolour" almost always refers to the Indian national flag.

The flag is a horizontal tricolour of saffron at the top, white in the middle and green at the bottom. In the centre is a navy blue wheel with twenty-four spokes, known as the Chakra or the Ashoka Chakra, taken from the Ashoka pillar at Sarnath. The diameter of this chakra is three-fourths of the height of the white strip. The ratio of the height of the flag to its width is 2:3. The flag is also the Indian army's war flag, hoisted daily on military installations.

The Indian National Flag was designed by Pingali Venkayya. Official flag specification requires that the flag be made only of khadi–a special type of hand-spun yarn. The display and use of the flag are strictly enforced by the Indian Flag Code.

A heraldic description of the flag would be Party per fess Saffron and Vert on a fess Argent a "Chakra" Azure.

Gangtok is the capital and largest town of the Indian state of Sikkim. It is situated in the lower Himalayas, located at 27.2°N, 88.4°W. Known for its clean surroundings and temperate climate, this hill station of about fifty thousand people is the centre of Sikkim's tourist industry.

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August 7

The Tamil people are an ethnic group from South Asia with a recorded history going back almost two millennia. The oldest Tamil communities are those of southern India and north-eastern Sri Lanka. In addition, there are also a number of Tamil emigrant communities scattered around the world, especially in Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji, Mauritius, and South Africa, with more recent emigrants also found in Australia, Canada, and parts of Europe.

Unlike many ethnic groups, the Tamils have at no point of time been under one political entity - Tamil̲akam, the traditional name for the Tamil lands, has always been under the rule of more than one kingdom or state. Despite this, the Tamil identity has always been strong. The identity has historically been primarily linguistic, with Tamils being those whose first language was Tamil. In recent times, however, the definition has been broadened to also include emigrants of Tamil descent who maintain Tamil traditions though they no longer speak the language.

Tamils are ethnically, linguistically and culturally related to the other Dravidian peoples of South Asia. There are an estimated 74 million Tamils around the world.

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August 21

Mumbai (Marathi: मुंबई ) ( in Marathi, and in English), formerly known as Bombay, is the capital of the Indian  state of Maharashtra and is the most populous  Indian city with a 2005 estimated population of about 13 million. Mumbai is located on an island off the  west coast of India. Along with the neighbouring towns, it forms one of the world's most populous metropolitan areas, with an extended population of 17 million. The city, which has a deep natural harbour, is also the largest port in western India, handling over half of India's passenger traffic.

Mumbai is the commercial capital of India, and houses important financial institutions such as the Reserve Bank of India, the Bombay Stock Exchange, and the corporate headquarters of many Indian companies. Owing to the immense business opportunities available in Mumbai and the relatively high standard of living, it has attracted migrants from all over India and South Asia, making the city a  potpourri of various communities and  cultures. Within Mumbai is located Bollywood, the epicentre of the country's Hindi film and television industry, producing the world's highest number of films annually. Mumbai is also one of the rare cities to accommodate a National Park within its municipal limits.

The appellation Mumbai is an eponym, etymologically derived from Mumba &mdash; the name of the local Hindu goddess Mumbadevi, and Aai &mdash; meaning mother in Marathi. In the 16th century, the Portuguese named the area Bom Bahia, which means Good Bay. This was later corrupted to Bomaím or Bombaim, by which name it is still known in Portuguese; and after the British gained possession, it was  anglicised to Bombay. The name was officially changed from Bombay to Mumbai in 1995, but the former name is still popularly used in the West and by many of the city's inhabitants and famous institutions.

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September 4

The economy of India is the fourth largest in the world, with a GDP of $3.363 trillion at PPP, and is the tenth largest in the world, with a GDP of $691.9 billion at 2004 USD exchange rates and has a real GDP growth rate of 6.2% at PPP. However India's huge population results in a relatively low per capita income which hovers at around $3,100. The country's economy is diverse and encompasses agriculture, handicrafts, industries, and a multitude of services. Services are the major source of economic growth in India today, though two-thirds of Indian workforce earn their livelihood directly or indirectly through agriculture. In recent times, India has also capitalised on its large number of highly-educated populace fluent in the English language to become a major exporter of software services, financial services and software engineers.

For most of India's independent history, a socialist inspired approach was adhered to, with strict government control and regulation on private sector participation, foreign trade and foreign direct investment. Since the early 1990s, India has gradually opened up its markets through economic reforms by reducing government controls on foreign trade and investment. Privatisation of public-owned industries and opening up of certain sectors to private and foreign players has proceeded slowly amid political debate.

The socio-economic problems India faces are the burgeoning population, growing inequality, lack of infrastructure, growing unemployment and growing poverty, which has seen a decrease of just 10% since the 1980s.

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September 19

The Governor-General of India (or Governor-General and Viceroy of India) was the head of the British administration in India. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William. The officer had direct control only over Fort William, but supervised other British East India Company officials in India. Complete authority over all of British India was granted in 1833, and the official became known as the Governor-General of India.

In 1858, India came under the direct control of the British Crown. The title "Governor-General" applied to his relationship to the British provinces of India (Punjab, Bengal, Bombay, Madras, United Provinces, etc.). However, much of British India was not ruled directly by the government; the territory was divided into hundreds of nominally sovereign princely states or "native states" whose relationship was not with the British government, but directly with the monarch. To reflect the Governor-General's role as representative from the monarch to the feudal rulers of the princely states, the term Viceroy of India was applied to him; the title was abandoned when India became independent in 1947. The office of Governor-General continued to exist until India adopted a republican constitution in 1950.

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