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Hyderabad, a city located in the southern part of India, is a historic as well as a modern city. It is now a common capital for the two states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. It, however, belongs to Telangana, whose Chief Minister is K Chandrasekhar Rao.

It is the sixth largest city in India in terms of population, according to the Indian Census of 2011, with a population of just over 6.8 million. It is located on the Deccan plateau.

The local lingos of Hyderabad are Telugu and Dakhni Urdu. Since it had Moslem (Muslim) rulers, it has a substantial number of people who practice Islam. These rulers are credited with having built some memorable monuments like Charminar, Falaknuma Palace, Qutb Shahi tombs, Golconda Fort, etc. The city also houses Salar Jung museum, considered to be home to the largest one-man collection of antiques in the world. Birla temple atop a hillock is another of its tourist attractions.

Before 1948, Hyderabad had monarch for a king, who was known as Nizam. Hyderabad has a twin city by the name Secunderabad, which was a British cantonment from 1806 to 1947. Secunderabad has a large number of Indian Air Force as well as Indian Army personnel residing there. Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minster, was said to have been posted here in the 1890s. Now both the cities fall under the ambit of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). One part of the city is home to monuments dating back to over a hundred to four hundred years old. while there is a new Hyderabad, which houses facilities of information technology (IT) companies, such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Oracle, IBM, among others, besides Indian software majors, such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Cognizant Technology Solutions, etc. The part of the city where most of these offices are located is known as the HITEC City or Cyberabad. Prior to 2000, Hyderabad was unknown to most outside India. It received a fillip as a lot of people from Hyderabad were among the first movers in IT industry, as Y2K boom made them jump onto the software bandwagon. Now, Hyderabad is directly connected to US cities including Chicago, New York, London, among others.

It is the city which houses Microsoft’s biggest facility outside the United States. Even Facebook chose Hyderabad set up its first Asian office. It is also home to one of Google’s first premises in India. This has prompted the US to set up its Consulate General office here. In fact, the current Microsoft chief executive officer (CEO) hails from Hyderabad, and so does Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.

Earlier, the city earned the sobriquet of ‘city of pearls’ as it is the center of pearl trade in India. It is also famous for its cuisine, which includes Hyderabadi biryani, Pathar ka gosht, bagara baingan, etc.

It has many research institutions, including those belonging to the defense, such as International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), etc., alongside biotech industries, such as Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Sanofi-Shantha, Mylan,etc.

Hyderabad has quite a few specialty hospitals in LV Prasad Eye Institute, Basavatarkam Indo American Cancer Institute and Research, Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, Apollo Hospital, etc.

The prominent educational institutions in Hyderabad are Indian School of Business (ISB), Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) University of Law, English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad Central University (HCU), Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), etc.

Hyderabad is also the base for Telugu film industry (Tollywood), which is the second largest cinema investment center after the Hindi cinema industry - referred to as Bollywood- in the country. It, in fact, houses Ramoji Film City, which is one of the largest film studios in the world.

Popular Hindu festivals of Hyderabad are Ganesh Chaturthi, Diwali (Deepavali), Bonalu, Ugadi, while popular Muslim festivals are Eid ul-Fitr (Last day of Ramadan) and Eid al-Adha (Bakrid). Getaway places for Hyderabad are Shamirpet, which has a lake and serene surroundings, Osmansagar, a lake that supplies drinking water to Hyderabad, among others.

There are many prominent premium hotels in Hyderabad, including Novotel Hyderabad Airport, Radisson Hyderabad Hitec City, Trident, Park Hyatt, Grand Kakitya, Taj Krishna,Westin Hyderabad Mindspace, Courtyard by Mariott, among others.

Pubs like Hard Rock Café and Thank God Its Friday (TGIF) are also present in Hyderabad, in addition to local ones, such as 10 Downing Street, Bottles and Chimneys, Dublin, Cuba Libre, among others. Hyderabad International Trade Expositions Ltd (HITEX) hosts many important conventions and other events of international repute. Hyderabad is only 560 kilometers away from Bangalore (Bengaluru), referred to as the Silicon Valley of India, and 700 kilometers away from Mumbai (earlier Bombay), the financial hub of India.