Portal:India/Today's selected article/March 20, 2006



Kolkata is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal and was capital of British India until 1912. The city's name was officially changed from Calcutta to Kolkata in January 2001. The urban agglomeration of Kolkata covers several municipal corporations, municipalities, city boards and villages and is the third largest urban agglomeration in India after Mumbai and Delhi. As per the census of 2001, the urban agglomeration's population was 13,216,546 while that of the city was 4,580,544. Kolkata city's population growth has been pretty low in the last decade. The city is situated on the banks of the Hoogli River (a distributary of the Ganges). Some of the renowned engineering marvels associated with Kolkata include the bridges like, Howrah Bridge, Vivekananda Setu and Vidyasagar Setu. Kolkata is the main business, commercial and financial hub of eastern India. The city's economic fortunes turned the tide as the early nineties economic liberalization in India reached Kolkata's shores during late nineties. (more...)