India's IT capital, Bangalore to be renamed Bengaluru

Bangalore, India's information technology capital would be officially renamed Bengaluru on Wednesday, government officials and media reports said. We have specified this name change in our previous post which dealt with all the "fevers of India"

The renaming of Bangalore, the fourth largest city in India and capital of Karnataka state, follows the renaming of several key cities in India over the past decade.

Provincial authorities have attempted to shake off the British colonial past by replacing anglicized names of the cities with the traditional ones.

'English people could not pronounce it properly, we want to correct these things. On November 1 such orders will be given and hereafter, it will be known as Bengaluru,' Karnataka Home Minister M P Prakash told the CNN-IBN TV network. Bangalore is known as Bengaluru in Kannada, a Dravidian language spoken in the state.

State officials said the decision to revert to the city's traditional name was taken last year following a suggestion by prominent literateurs. 'But it was decided that the change of name would come into effect from November 1, 2006, the 50th anniversary of the formation of Karnataka state,' an official in the state information department said. Hundreds of IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies including multinationals have set up operations and research centres in Bangalore, which has come to be known as India's Silicon Valley in the recent years.

The Karnataka government also has plans to rename all nine major cities in the state, the Zee TV network reported. Apart from Bangalore, Gulbarga would be known as Kalburgi, Shimoga as Shivamogga, Chikmaglur as Chikka-magaluru and Mysore would be known as Mysooru.

A number of Indian cities have reverted to their traditional names over the last decade. In 1995, India's commercial capital, Bombay, was renamed Mumbai. India's southern metropolis of Madras was renamed Chennai a year later. In 2001, Calcutta, the biggest city in India's east, was renamed Kolkata.

The Indian capital has also seen renaming its major landmarks. In 1996, one of New Delhi's best known commercial addresses, Connaught Place, named after the Duke of Connaught, was renamed Rajiv Chowk, after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Source : news.google.com