1.
Pune
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Pune is the second largest city in the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ninth most populous city in the country. In the 18th century, Pune was the centre of the Indian subcontinent. Considered to be the capital of Maharashtra, Pune is known as Oxford of the East due to the presence of several well-known educational institutions in the city. The city has emerged as an educational hub in recent decades. Since the 1950s and 1960s, Pune has had a traditional old-economic base as most of the old industries continue to grow, a few college in the Europe have also actively engaged in Student-exchange programs with several colleges in Pune. Pune is also one of the fastest growing cities in the Asia-Pacific region, the ‘Mercer 2015 Quality of Living rankings’ evaluated local living conditions in more than 440 cities around the world where Pune ranked at 145, second in India after Hyderabad. It also highlights Pune among evolving business centres and emerging nine cities around the world with citation Hosts IT, the oldest reference to the place is found inscribed on a Rashtrakuta Dynasty copper plate dated AD937, which refers to the town as Punya-Vishaya meaning Sacred News. By the 13th century, it had come to be known as Punawadi, copper plates dated 858 AD and 868 AD show that by the 8th century an agricultural settlement known as Punnaka existed where Pune is today. The plates indicate that this region was ruled by the Rashtrakuta dynasty, the Pataleshwar rock-cut temple complex was built during this era. Pune was part of the territory ruled by Seuna Yadavas of Devagiri from the 9th century to 1327, in 1595, Maloji Raje Bhosale was granted the jagirdari of Pune by the Ahmadnagar Sultanate. Pune was ruled by the Ahmadnagar Sultanate until it was annexed by the Mughals in the 17th century, Pune was part of the Jagir granted to Maloji Bhosale in 1599 for his services to the Nizamshahi of Ahmadnagar. His grandson, Shivaji, the founder of Maratha Empire, was born in Shivneri fort not far from Pune, Shivaji was brought up by his mother in Pune. Pune changed hands several times between the Mughals and the Marathas in the period between 1660 and 1705 and he stabilised the revenue collection and administrative systems of areas around Pune and in neighbouring area of the Maval region. In addition, he developed methods to manage disputes and to enforce law. Construction on the Lal Mahal began in 1631 AD, the Lal Mahal was completed in 1640 AD. Jijabai is said to have commissioned the building of the Kasba Ganapati temple, the Ganesha idol consecrated at this temple has been regarded as the presiding deity of the city. Shivaji encouraged the development of dams in the Parvati and Kondhwa regions of Pune for agricultural purposes, Pune and its surrounding villages were the major recruitment areas for Shivajis army between 1645 AD and 1680 AD. Between 1660 AD and 1670 AD the town was captured by Mughal General Shahista Khan, Shivaji often used Pune as his transit base during his major campaigns such as Varhad-Karanja, AhemadaNagar District, Karnataka, and Jalna
2.
Bombay Presidency
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The Bombay Presidency, also known as Bombay and Sind from 1843 to 1936 and the Bombay Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India. The English East India Company transferred its Western India headquarters from Surat, its first colony in that region, the Presidency was brought under British Parliament control along with other parts of British India through Pitts India Act. Aden was annexed in 1839, while Sind was annexed by the Company in 1843 after defeating the Talpur dynasty in the Battle of Hyderabad and it was made a part of the Bombay Presidency. The districts and provinces of the presidency were directly under British rule, while the administration of the native or princely states was in the hands of local rulers. The presidency, however, managed the defence of princely states, the Bombay Presidency along with the Bengal Presidency and Madras Presidency were the three major centres of British power. In 1661 Bombay was ceded to the Kingdom of England as part of the dowry of the infanta Catherine of Braganza on her marriage to King Charles II, as English trade in Bombay increased, Surat began its relative decline. In 1687, Bombay was made the headquarters of all the East India Companys possessions in India, however, in 1753 the governor of Bombay became subordinate to that of Calcutta. During the 18th century, the Hindu Maratha Empire expanded rapidly, claiming Konkan, in western Gujarat, including Kathiawar and Kutch, the loosening of Mughal control allowed numerous local rulers to create virtually independent states. The British annexed Surat in 1800, British territory was enlarged in the Second Anglo-Maratha War which ended in 1803. The East India Company received the districts of Bharuch, Kaira, etc. in 1803 the Bombay Presidency included only Salsette, the islands of the harbour, Surat and Bankot, but between this date and 1827 the framework of the presidency took shape. The Gujarat districts were taken over by the Bombay government in 1805, in 1858, under the terms of Queens Proclamation issued by Queen Victoria, the Bombay Presidency, along with the rest of British India, came under the direct rule of the British crown. Henry Bartle Frere was the first Governor appointed by the Crown, under Sir Bartle Frere agricultural prosperity reached its highest point, as a result of the American Civil War and the consequent enormous demand for Indian cotton in Europe. The money thus poured into the country produced an epidemic of speculation known as the Share Mania, which ended in a commercial crisis, but the peasantry gained on the whole more than they lost, and the trade of Bombay was not permanently injured. However, the important portfolios like finance, police and irrigation were reserved with members of the Governors Executive Council, in 1932, Aden was separated from Bombay and made a separate province, and Sindh became a separate province on 1 April 1936. The Government of India Act 1935 made the Bombay Presidency into a regular province and it enlarged the elected provincial legislature and expanded provincial autonomy vis a vis the central government. In the 1937 elections, the Indian National Congress won the elections in Bombay, the Cooper ministry did not last long and a Congress ministry under B. G. Kher was sworn in. Council of Ministers in Khers Cabinet, In 1939, all of the Congress ministries in British Indian provinces resigned and Bombay was placed under the Governors rule. After the end of World War II, the Indian National Congress re-entered politics, the Bombay Presidency became the Bombay State when India was granted independence on 15 August 1947 and Kher continued as the Chief Minister of the state, serving until 1952
3.
British India
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Provinces of India, earlier Presidencies of British India and still earlier, Presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in the subcontinent. Collectively, they were called British India, in one form or other they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods. During 1612–1757, the East India Company set up factories in several locations, mostly in coastal India and its rivals were the merchant trading companies of Holland and France. By the mid-18th century, three Presidency towns, Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta had grown in size, during the period of Company rule in India, 1757–1858, the Company gradually acquired sovereignty over large parts of India, now called Presidencies. However, it increasingly came under British government oversight, in effect sharing sovereignty with the Crown. At the same time it gradually lost its mercantile privileges, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Companys remaining powers were transferred to the Crown. In the new British Raj, sovereignty extended to a few new regions, increasingly, however, unwieldy presidencies were broken up into Provinces. In 1608, the English East India Company established a settlement at Surat, and it was followed in 1611 by a permanent factory at Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast, and in 1612 the company joined other already established European trading companies in Bengal. Company rule in Bengal, however, ended with the Government of India Act 1858 following the events of the Bengal Rebellion of 1857 and these rulers were allowed a measure of internal autonomy in exchange for British suzerainty. British India constituted a significant portion of India both in area and population, in 1910, for example, it covered approximately 54% of the area, in addition, there were Portuguese and French exclaves in India. Independence from British rule was achieved in 1947 with the formation of two nations, the Dominions of India and Pakistan, the latter also including East Bengal, present-day Bangladesh. The term British India also applied to Burma for a time period, starting in 1824, a small part of Burma. This arrangement lasted until 1937, when Burma commenced being administered as a separate British colony, British India did not apply to other countries in the region, such as Sri Lanka, which was a British Crown colony, or the Maldive Islands, which were a British protectorate. It also included the Colony of Aden in the Arabian Peninsula, the original seat of government was at Allahabad, then at Agra from 1834 to 1868. Bombay Presidency, East India Companys headquarters moved from Surat to Bombay in 1687, the East India Company, which was incorporated on 31 December 1600, established trade relations with Indian rulers in Masulipatam on the east coast in 1611 and Surat on the west coast in 1612. The company rented a trading outpost in Madras in 1639, meanwhile, in eastern India, after obtaining permission from the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to trade with Bengal, the Company established its first factory at Hoogly in 1640. Almost a half-century later, after Emperor Aurengzeb forced the Company out of Hooghly, by the mid-18th century the three principal trading settlements, now called the Madras Presidency, the Bombay Presidency, and the Bengal Presidency were each administered by a Governor. After Robert Clives victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, in 1772, the Company also obtained the Nizāmat of Bengal and thereby full sovereignty of the expanded Bengal Presidency
4.
Mumbai
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Mumbai is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India and the ninth most populous agglomeration in the world, Mumbai lies on the west coast of India and has a deep natural harbour. In 2008, Mumbai was named a world city. It is also the wealthiest city in India, and has the highest GDP of any city in South, West, Mumbai has the highest number of billionaires and millionaires among all cities in India. The seven islands that came to constitute Mumbai were home to communities of fishing colonies, during the mid-18th century, Bombay was reshaped by the Hornby Vellard project, which undertook reclamation of the area between the seven islands from the sea. Along with construction of roads and railways, the reclamation project, completed in 1845. Bombay in the 19th century was characterised by economic and educational development, during the early 20th century it became a strong base for the Indian independence movement. Upon Indias independence in 1947 the city was incorporated into Bombay State, in 1960, following the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, a new state of Maharashtra was created with Bombay as the capital. Mumbai is the financial, commercial and entertainment capital of India and it is also home to some of Indias premier scientific and nuclear institutes like BARC, NPCL, IREL, TIFR, AERB, AECI, and the Department of Atomic Energy. The city also houses Indias Hindi and Marathi film and television industry, Mumbais business opportunities, as well as its potential to offer a higher standard of living, attract migrants from all over India, making the city a melting pot of many communities and cultures. The oldest known names for the city are Kakamuchee and Galajunkja, in 1508, Portuguese writer Gaspar Correia used the name Bombaim, in his Lendas da Índia. This name possibly originated as the Old Portuguese phrase bom baim, meaning good little bay, in 1516, Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa used the name Tana-Maiambu, Tana appears to refer to the adjoining town of Thane and Maiambu to Mumbadevi. Other variations recorded in the 16th and the 17th centuries include, Mombayn, Bombay, Bombain, Bombaym, Monbaym, Mombaim, Mombaym, Bambaye, Bombaiim, Bombeye, Boon Bay, and Bon Bahia. After the English gained possession of the city in the 17th century, Ali Muhammad Khan, imperial diwan or revenue minister of the Gujarat province, in the Mirat-i-Ahmedi referred to the city as Manbai. By the late 20th century, the city was referred to as Mumbai or Mambai in the Indian statewise official languages of Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, Kannada and Sindhi, the Government of India officially changed the English name to Mumbai in November 1995. According to Slate magazine, they argued that Bombay was a corrupted English version of Mumbai, Slate also said The push to rename Bombay was part of a larger movement to strengthen Marathi identity in the Maharashtra region. A resident of Mumbai is called mumbaikar in the Marathi language, the term has been in use for quite some time but it gained popularity after the official name change to Mumbai. Mumbai is built on what was once an archipelago of seven islands, Bombay Island, Parel, Mazagaon, Mahim, Colaba, Worli and it is not exactly known when these islands were first inhabited
5.
Maharashtra
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Maharashtra is a state in the western region of India and is Indias second-most populous state and third-largest state by area. It is the wealthiest Indian state and it is also the worlds second-most populous sub-national entity. It has over 112 million inhabitants and its capital, Mumbai, has a population of approximately 18 million, Nagpur is Maharashtras second capital as well as its winter capital. Maharashtras business opportunities along with its potential to offer a standard of living attract migrants from all over India. Ancient and medieval Maharashtra included the empires of the Satavahana dynasty, Rashtrakuta dynasty, Western Chalukyas, Mughals, the major rivers of the state are Godavari, and Krishna. The Narmada and Tapti Rivers flow near the border between Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, Maharashtra is the second most urbanised state in India. The state has several popular Hindu places of pilgrimage including Pandharpur, Dehu and Alandi, other places that attract pilgrims from other parts of India and beyond include Hazur Sahib Gurudwara at Nanded, Sai Baba shrine at Shirdi and Dikshabhumi at Nagpur. Maharashtra is the wealthiest and one of the most developed states in India, as of 2011, the state had a per capita income of ₹1.0035 lakh, more than the national average of ₹0.73 lakh. Its GDP per capita crossed the ₹1.20 lakh threshold for the first time in 2013, however, as of 2014, the GDP per capita reduced to ₹1.03 lakh Agriculture and industries are the largest parts of the states economy. Major industries include chemical products, electrical and non-electrical machinery, textiles, petroleum, Jai Maharashtra The modern Marathi language developed from the Maharashtri Prakrit, and the word Mahratta is found in the Jain Maharashtri literature. The terms Maharashtra, Maharashtri, Marathi and Maratha may have derived from the same root, however, their exact etymology is uncertain. But the Marathas as a people do not seem to be mentioned before the thirteenth or fourteenth century, the most widely accepted theory among the linguistic scholars is that the words Maratha and Maharashtra ultimately derived from a combination of Maha and rashtrika. The word rashtrika is a Sanskritized form of Ratta, the name of a tribe or dynasty of petty chiefs ruling in the Deccan region. Another theory is that the term is derived from Maha and ratha / rathi, an alternative theory states that the term derives from the word Maha and Rashtra. However, this theory has not found acceptance among scholars who believe it to be the Sanskritised interpretation of later writers. Maharashtra was ruled by the Maurya Empire in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE, around 230 BCE Maharashtra came under the rule of the Satavahana dynasty for 400 years. The greatest ruler of the Satavahana Dynasty was Gautamiputra Satakarni, in 90 CE Vedishri, son of the Satavahana king Satakarni, the Lord of Dakshinapatha, wielder of the unchecked wheel of Sovereignty, made Junnar, thirty miles north of Pune, the capital of his kingdom. The state was ruled by Western Satraps, Gupta Empire, Gurjara-Pratihara, Vakataka, Kadambas, Chalukya Empire, Rashtrakuta Dynasty, and Western Chalukya before finally
6.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
7.
Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art
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The Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art is the oldest art institution in Mumbai, and is affiliated with the University of Mumbai. The school grants bachelors degrees in art and sculpture. The School was founded in March 1857, named after Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy, a businessman and philanthropist, operations were managed by a committee headed by the Chief Justice of Bombay. The Schools first class was in drawing, and began on 2 March 1857, classes were held at the Elphinstone Institution. John Griffiths became Principal of the School in 1865 and he later became famous for copying the murals in the Ajanta Caves temple complex, a project which lasted from 1872 to 1891, and which the Schools students assisted in. In 1866, management of the School was taken over by the Government of India and he was the father of the author Rudyard Kipling, who was born on the Schools campus. In 1878, the moved to its own building, where it is currently situated. The building was designed by architect George Twigge Molecey, in neo Gothic architecture, drawing instruction as a subject was introduced in 1879 and a programme for training drawing teachers was started in 1893. In 1891 the Lord Reay Art Workshops were established, the School had an important tradition in architecture. The School offered its first course in architecture, taught by John Begg, later Consulting Architect of Bombay, a complete 4-year programme was established in 1908 under Beggs assistant George Wittet. In 1896, the Draughtsmans classes, the nucleus of the Department of Architecture, were added and this Department was later organised for a 3 years Diploma Course which was duly recognised by the R. I. B. A. In 1910, the Sir George Clarke Studies and Laboratories were built for the study of crafts. In 1929, the head of the School was renamed Director, and in 1935, in 1937 M. R. Acharekar was appointed deputy director and continued his tenure till 1939. V. S. Adurkar was the first Indian head of the school, in 1958, the school was divided, with the Departments of Architecture and Applied Art becoming the Sir J. J. College of Architecture and Sir J. J. In 1981, the School became affiliated with the University of Mumbai
8.
Cinema of India
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The cinema of India consists of films produced across India. Cinema as a medium has gained popularity in the country. Indian films have come to be followed throughout South Asia. Dadasaheb Phalke is known as the father of Indian cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, for lifetime contribution to cinema, was instituted in his honour, by the Government of India in 1969, and is the most prestigious and coveted award in Indian cinema. In the 20th century, Indian cinema, along with the Hollywood and Chinese film industries, as of 2013, in terms of annual film output, India ranks first, followed by Nollywood, Hollywood and China. In 2012, India produced 1,602 feature films, the Indian film industry reached overall revenues of $1.86 billion in 2011. This is projected to rise to $3 billion in 2016, in 2015, India had a total box office of US$1.6 billion, the fourth largest in the world outside North America. Enhanced technology paved the way for upgrading from established norms of delivering product. Visual effects based, super hero science fiction, and epic films like Enthiran, Baahubali, Indian cinema found markets in over 90 countries where films from India are screened. The Indian government extended film delegations to countries such as the United States of America. The provision of 100% foreign direct investment has made the Indian film market attractive for foreign enterprises such as 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, tax incentives to multiplexes have aided the multiplex boom in India. By 2003 as many as 30 film production companies had been listed in the National Stock Exchange of India, the South Indian film industry defines the four film cultures of South India as a single entity. They are the Tamil, the Telugu, the Malayalam and the Kannada industries, although developed independently over a long period, gross exchange of film performers and technicians as well as globalisation helped to shape this new identity. Music in Indian cinema is another substantial revenue generator with the music rights alone accounting for 4–5% of the net revenues generated by a film in India. Following the screening of the Lumière moving pictures in London, cinema became a sensation across Europe, in the next year a film presentation by one Professor Stevenson featured a stage show at Calcuttas Star Theatre. With Stevensons encouragement and camera Hiralal Sen, an Indian photographer, made a film of scenes from that show, the Wrestlers by H. S. Bhatavdekar showing a wrestling match at the Hanging Gardens in Bombay was the first film ever to be shot by an Indian. It was also the first Indian documentary film, the first Indian film released in India was Shree Pundalik a silent film in Marathi by Dadasaheb Torne on 18 May 1912 at Coronation Cinematograph, Bombay. The female roles in the film were played by male actors, the film marked a historic benchmark in the film industry in India
9.
Indian cinema
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The cinema of India consists of films produced across India. Cinema as a medium has gained popularity in the country. Indian films have come to be followed throughout South Asia. Dadasaheb Phalke is known as the father of Indian cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, for lifetime contribution to cinema, was instituted in his honour, by the Government of India in 1969, and is the most prestigious and coveted award in Indian cinema. In the 20th century, Indian cinema, along with the Hollywood and Chinese film industries, as of 2013, in terms of annual film output, India ranks first, followed by Nollywood, Hollywood and China. In 2012, India produced 1,602 feature films, the Indian film industry reached overall revenues of $1.86 billion in 2011. This is projected to rise to $3 billion in 2016, in 2015, India had a total box office of US$1.6 billion, the fourth largest in the world outside North America. Enhanced technology paved the way for upgrading from established norms of delivering product. Visual effects based, super hero science fiction, and epic films like Enthiran, Baahubali, Indian cinema found markets in over 90 countries where films from India are screened. The Indian government extended film delegations to countries such as the United States of America. The provision of 100% foreign direct investment has made the Indian film market attractive for foreign enterprises such as 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, tax incentives to multiplexes have aided the multiplex boom in India. By 2003 as many as 30 film production companies had been listed in the National Stock Exchange of India, the South Indian film industry defines the four film cultures of South India as a single entity. They are the Tamil, the Telugu, the Malayalam and the Kannada industries, although developed independently over a long period, gross exchange of film performers and technicians as well as globalisation helped to shape this new identity. Music in Indian cinema is another substantial revenue generator with the music rights alone accounting for 4–5% of the net revenues generated by a film in India. Following the screening of the Lumière moving pictures in London, cinema became a sensation across Europe, in the next year a film presentation by one Professor Stevenson featured a stage show at Calcuttas Star Theatre. With Stevensons encouragement and camera Hiralal Sen, an Indian photographer, made a film of scenes from that show, the Wrestlers by H. S. Bhatavdekar showing a wrestling match at the Hanging Gardens in Bombay was the first film ever to be shot by an Indian. It was also the first Indian documentary film, the first Indian film released in India was Shree Pundalik a silent film in Marathi by Dadasaheb Torne on 18 May 1912 at Coronation Cinematograph, Bombay. The female roles in the film were played by male actors, the film marked a historic benchmark in the film industry in India
10.
Hindi language
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Hindi, or Modern Standard Hindi is a standardised and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language. Along with the English language, Hindi written in the Devanagari script, is the language of the Government of India. It is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India, Hindi is the lingua franca of the so-called Hindi belt of India. Outside India, it is a language which is known as Fiji Hindi in Fiji, and is a recognised regional language in Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana. Hindi is the fourth most-spoken first language in the world, after Mandarin, apart from specialized vocabulary, Hindi is mutually intelligible with Standard Urdu, another recognized register of Hindustani. Part XVII of the Indian Constitution deals with Official Language, under Article 343, official language of the Union has been prescribed, which includes Hindi in Devanagari script and English. Gujarat High Court, in 2010, has observed that there was nothing on record to suggest that any provision has been made or order issued declaring Hindi as a language of India. Article 343 of the Indian constitution states The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script, the form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the international form of Indian numerals. It was envisioned that Hindi would become the working language of the Union Government by 1965. Each may also designate a co-official language, in Uttar Pradesh, for instance, depending on the formation in power. Similarly, Hindi is accorded the status of language in the following Union Territories, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu. National-language status for Hindi is a long-debated theme, an Indian court clarified that Hindi is not the national language of India because the constitution does not mention it as such. Outside Asia, Hindi is a language in Fiji as per the 1997 Constitution of Fiji. It is spoken by 380,000 people in Fiji, Hindi is also spoken by a large population of Madheshis of Nepal. Hindi is quite easy to understand for some Pakistanis, who speak Urdu, apart from this, Hindi is spoken by the large Indian diaspora which hails from, or has its origin from the Hindi Belt of India. Like other Indo-Aryan languages, Hindi is considered to be a descendant of an early form of Sanskrit, through Sauraseni Prakrit. It has been influenced by Dravidian languages, Turkic languages, Persian, Arabic, Portuguese, Hindi emerged as Apabhramsha, a degenerated form of Prakrit, in the 7th century A. D. By the 10th century A. D. it became stable, Braj Bhasha, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Khari Boli etc. are the dialects of Hindi
11.
Telugu language
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Telugu is a Dravidian language native to India. It is also spoken by significant minorities in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and it is one of six languages designated a classical language of India by the Government of India. Telugu ranks third by the number of speakers in India. It is one of the scheduled languages of the Republic of India. Approximately 10,000 inscriptions exist in the Telugu language, the speakers of the language call it Telugu or Tenugu. The older forms of the name include Teluṅgu, Tenuṅgu and Teliṅga, the etymology of Telugu is not certain. Some historical scholars have suggested a derivation from Sanskrit triliṅgam, as in Trilinga Desa, tradition holds that Shiva descended as a lingam on three mountains, Kaleshwaram, Srisailam, and Bhimeswaram, which are said to have marked the boundaries of the Trilinga Desa. Atharvana Acharya in the 13th century wrote a grammar of Telugu, Appa Kavi in the 17th century explicitly wrote that Telugu was derived from Trilinga. Scholar Charles P. Brown comments that it was a strange notion as all the predecessors of Appa Kavi had no knowledge of such a derivation. George Abraham Grierson and other linguists doubt this derivation, holding rather that Telugu was the older term, another view holds that tenugu is derived from the proto-Dravidian word ten– south to mean the people who lived in the south/southern direction. The name telugu then, is a result of n -> l alternation established in Telugu, according to the natve tradition Telugu grammar has a hoary past. Sage Kanva was said to be the first grammarian of Telugu, a Rajeswara Sarma discussed the hisoricity and content of Kanvas grammar written in Sanskrit. He cited twenty grammatical aphorisms ascribed to Kanva, and concluded that Kanva wrote an ancient Telugu Grammar which was lost, according to the Russian linguist M. S. Andronov, Telugu split from the Proto-Dravidian languages between 1500 and 1000 BC. According to linguist Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Telugu, as a Dravidian language, descends from Proto-Dravidian, linguistic reconstruction suggests that Proto-Dravidian was spoken around the third millennium BC, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin in peninsular India. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of the associated with the Neolithic societies of South India. A legend gives the Lepakshi town a significant place in the Ramayana — this was where the bird Jatayu fell, when Sri Rama reached the spot, he saw the bird and said compassionately, “Le Pakshi” — ‘rise, bird’ in Telugu. This indicates the presence of Telugu Language during Ramayana period, there is a mention of Telugu people or Telugu country in ancient Tamil literature as Telunka Nadu. Telugu words were found in Hebrew literature, inscriptions with Telugu words dating back to 400 BC to 100 BC have been discovered in Bhattiprolu in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh
12.
English language
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English /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/ is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now the global lingua franca. Named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England, English is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. It is the third most common language in the world, after Mandarin. It is the most widely learned second language and a language of the United Nations, of the European Union. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch, English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England, Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the King James Bible, and the start of the Great Vowel Shift. Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, modern English spread around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries, English is an Indo-European language, and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Most closely related to English are the Frisian languages, and English, Old Saxon and its descendent Low German languages are also closely related, and sometimes Low German, English, and Frisian are grouped together as the Ingvaeonic or North Sea Germanic languages. Modern English descends from Middle English, which in turn descends from Old English, particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into a number of other English languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian and Forth and Bargy dialects of Ireland. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares new language features with other Germanic languages such as Dutch, German and these shared innovations show that the languages have descended from a single common ancestor, which linguists call Proto-Germanic. Through Grimms law, the word for foot begins with /f/ in Germanic languages, English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as the palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic. The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon, in the fifth century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain and the Romans withdrew from Britain. England and English are named after the Angles, Old English was divided into four dialects, the Anglian dialects, Mercian and Northumbrian, and the Saxon dialects, Kentish and West Saxon. Through the educational reforms of King Alfred in the century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex. The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the period of Old English were written using a runic script. By the sixth century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms and it included the runic letters wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩, and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ð⟩, and ash ⟨æ⟩
13.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
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Indonesian language
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Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. It is a register of Malay, an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world, of its large population, the majority speak Indonesian, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. However, most formal education, and nearly all national mass media, governance, administration, judiciary, the Indonesian name for the language is Bahasa Indonesia or sometimes simplified as Bahasa. This term is occasionally found in English and other languages. Indonesian is a register of Riau Malay, which despite its common name is not the Malay dialect native to Riau. Originally spoken in Northeast Sumatra, Malay has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for half a millennium and it might be attributed to its ancestor, the Old Malay language. The Kedukan Bukit Inscription is the oldest surviving specimen of Old Malay, trade contacts carried on by various ethnic peoples at the time were the main vehicle for spreading the Old Malay language, which was the main communications medium among the traders. Ultimately, the Old Malay language became a lingua franca and was spoken widely by most people in the archipelago, Indonesian is essentially the same language as the official Malaysian, Singaporean and Brunei standards of Malay. However, it does differ from Malaysian in several respects, with differences in pronunciation and these differences are due mainly to the Dutch and Javanese influences on Indonesian. Indonesian was also influenced by the Melayu pasar, which was the lingua franca of the archipelago in colonial times, and thus indirectly by other spoken languages of the islands. Malaysian Malay claims to be closer to the classical Malay of earlier centuries, even though modern Malaysian has been influenced, in lexicon as well as in syntax. The question of whether High Malay or Low Malay was the parent of the Indonesian language is still in debate. Some linguists have argued that it was the more common Low Malay that formed the base of the Indonesian language, however, the language had never been dominant among the population of the Indonesian archipelago as it was limited to mercantile activity. The VOC adopted the Malay language as the language of their trading outpost in the east. Following the bankruptcy of the VOC the Dutch crown took control of the colony in 1799 and it was then that education in. Even then, Dutch administrators were reluctant to promote the use of Dutch compared to other colonial regimes. Dutch thus remained the language of a elite, in 1940
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Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
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Urdu language
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Urdu is a persianized standard register of the Hindustani language. It is the language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also one of the 22 official languages recognized in the Constitution of India, hyderabad, Rampur, Bhopal and Lucknow are noted Urdu-speaking cities of India. Urdu is historically associated with the Muslims of the northern Indian subcontinent, apart from specialized vocabulary, Urdu is mutually intelligible with Standard Hindi, another recognized register of Hindustani. Urdu, like Hindi, is a form of Hindustani, Urdu developed under the influence of the Persian and Arabic languages, both of which have contributed a significant amount of vocabulary to formal speech. Around 99% of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit, Urdu words originating from Chagatai and Arabic were borrowed through Persian and hence are Persianized versions of the original words. For instance, the Arabic ta marbuta changes to he or te, nevertheless, contrary to popular belief, Urdu did not borrow from the Turkish language, but from Chagatai. Urdu and Turkish borrowed from Arabic and Persian, hence the similarity in pronunciation of many Urdu, Arabic influence in the region began with the late first-millennium Arab invasion of India in the 7th century. The Persian language was introduced into the subcontinent a few centuries later by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties including that of the Delhi Sultanate. With the advent of the British Raj, Persian was no longer the language of administration but Hindustani, still written in the Persian script, the name Urdu was first used by the poet Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi around 1780. From the 13th century until the end of the 18th century Urdu was commonly known as Hindi, the language was also known by various other names such as Hindavi and Dehlavi. The communal nature of the language lasted until it replaced Persian as the language in 1837 and was made co-official. Urdu was promoted in British India by British policies to counter the previous emphasis on Persian and this triggered a Brahman backlash in northwestern India, which argued that the language should be written in the native Devanagari script. At independence, Pakistan established a highly Persianized literary form of Urdu as its national language, English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a co-official language. Owing to interaction with other languages, Urdu has become localized wherever it is spoken, similarly, the Urdu spoken in India can also be distinguished into many dialects like Dakhni of South India, and Khariboli of the Punjab region since recent times. Because of Urdus similarity to Hindi, speakers of the two languages can understand one another if both sides refrain from using specialized vocabulary. The syntax, morphology, and the vocabulary are essentially identical. Thus linguists usually count them as one language and contend that they are considered as two different languages for socio-political reasons
17.
Tamil language
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Tamil is a Dravidian language predominantly spoken by the Tamil people of India and Sri Lanka, and also by the Tamil diaspora, Sri Lankan Moors, Burghers, Douglas, and Chindians. Tamil is a language of two countries, Singapore and Sri Lanka. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and it is also used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia, along with English, Malay and Mandarin. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in the four other South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and it is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India. Tamil is one of the classical languages in the world. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions from 500 BC have been found on Adichanallur and 2 and it has been described as the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past. The variety and quality of classical Tamil literature has led to it being described as one of the classical traditions. A recorded Tamil literature has been documented for over 2000 years, the earliest period of Tamil literature, Sangam literature, is dated from ca.300 BC – AD300. It has the oldest extant literature among other Dravidian languages, the earliest epigraphic records found on rock edicts and hero stones date from around the 3rd century BC. More than 55% of the inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India are in the Tamil language. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka, the two earliest manuscripts from India, acknowledged and registered by the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997 and 2005, were written in Tamil. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiraan Vanakkam, the Tamil Lexicon, published by the University of Madras, was one of the earliest dictionaries published in the Indian languages. According to a 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages, a family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent. It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family, the closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam, the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. According to linguists like Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Tamil, as a Dravidian language, descends from Proto-Dravidian, linguistic reconstruction suggests that Proto-Dravidian was spoken around the third millennium BC, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin in peninsular India. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of the associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India. The next phase in the reconstructed proto-history of Tamil is Proto-South Dravidian, the linguistic evidence suggests that Proto-South Dravidian was spoken around the middle of the second millennium BC, and that proto-Tamil emerged around the 3rd century BC. The earliest epigraphic attestations of Tamil are generally taken to have been shortly thereafter
18.
Zoroastrian
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Ascribed to the teachings of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster, it exalts a deity of wisdom, Ahura Mazda, as its Supreme Being. Zoroastrianism was suppressed from the 7th century onwards following the Muslim conquest of Persia of 633-654, recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians at around 2.6 million, with most living in India and in Iran. Besides the Zoroastrian diaspora, the older Mithraic faith Yazdânism is still practised amongst Kurds, the religious philosophy of Zoroaster divided the early Iranian gods of Proto-Indo-Iranian tradition. The most important texts of the religion are those of the Avesta, in Zoroastrianism, the creator Ahura Mazda, through the Spenta Mainyu is an all-good father of Asha, in opposition to Druj and no evil originates from him. He and his works are evident to humanity through the six primary Amesha Spentas, Spenta Mainyu adjoined unto truth oppose the Spirits opposite, Angra Mainyu and its forces born of Akəm Manah. In Zoroastrianism, the purpose in life is to be among those who renew the world. to make the progress towards perfection. Its basic maxims include, Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta, which mean, Good Thoughts, Good Words, there is only one path and that is the path of Truth. Do the right thing because it is the thing to do. The full name by which Zoroaster addressed the deity is, Ahura, The Lord Creator and he proclaimed that there is only one God, the singularly creative and sustaining force of the Universe. He also stated that human beings are given a right of choice, Zoroasters teachings focused on responsibility, and did not introduce a devil per se. The contesting force to Ahura Mazda was called Angra Mainyu, or angry spirit, post-Zoroastrian scripture introduced the concept of Ahriman, the Devil, which was effectively a personification of Angra Mainyu. The name Zoroaster is a Greek rendering of the name Zarathustra and he is known as Zartosht and Zardosht in Persian and Zaratosht in Gujarati. The Zoroastrian name of the religion is Mazdayasna, which combines Mazda- with the Avestan language word yasna, meaning worship, in English, an adherent of the faith is commonly called a Zoroastrian or a Zarathustrian. An older expression still used today is Behdin, meaning The best Religion | Beh < Middle Persian Weh + Din < Middle Persian dēn < Avestan Daēnā. In Zoroastrian liturgy the term is used as a title for an individual who has formally inducted into the religion in a Navjote ceremony. The term Mazdaism /ˈmæzdə. ɪzəm/ is a typical 19th century construct, taking Mazda- from the name Ahura Mazda, the March 2001 draft edition of the Oxford English Dictionary also records an alternate form, Mazdeism, perhaps derived from the French Mazdéisme, which first appeared in 1871. In older English sources, the terms Gheber and Gueber were used to refer to Zoroastrians, however, Zoroastrian philosophy is identified as having been known to Italian Renaissance Europe through an image of Zoroaster in Raphaels School of Athens by Giorgio Vasari in 1550. The Oxford English Dictionary records use of the term Zoroastrianism in 1874 in Archibald Sayces Principles of Comparative Philology, Zoroastrians believe that there is one universal, transcendent, supreme god, Ahura Mazda, or the Wise Lord
19.
Universal Studios
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Universal Pictures is an American film studio owned by Comcast through the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. The company was founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley and its studios are located in Universal City, California, and its corporate offices are located in New York City. Universal Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America and is one of Hollywoods Big Six studios. Universal Studios was founded by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, one story has Laemmle watching a box office for hours, counting patrons and calculating the days takings. Within weeks of his Chicago trip, Laemmle gave up dry goods to buy the first several nickelodeons, for Laemmle and other such entrepreneurs, the creation in 1908 of the Edison-backed Motion Picture Trust meant that exhibitors were expected to pay fees for Trust-produced films they showed. Soon, Laemmle and other disgruntled nickelodeon owners decided to avoid paying Edison by producing their own pictures, in June 1909, Laemmle started the Yankee Film Company with partners Abe Stern and Julius Stern. Laemmle broke with Edisons custom of refusing to give billing and screen credits to performers, by naming the movie stars, he attracted many of the leading players of the time, contributing to the creation of the star system. In 1910, he promoted Florence Lawrence, formerly known as The Biograph Girl, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company was incorporated in New York on April 30,1912. Laemmle, who emerged as president in July 1912, was the figure in the partnership with Dintenfass, Baumann, Kessel, Powers, Swanson, Horsley. Eventually all would be out by Laemmle. Following the westward trend of the industry, by the end of 1912 the company was focusing its efforts in the Hollywood area. On March 15,1915, Laemmle opened the worlds largest motion picture production facility, Universal City Studios, studio management became the third facet of Universals operations, with the studio incorporated as a distinct subsidiary organization. Unlike other movie moguls, Laemmle opened his studio to tourists, Universal became the largest studio in Hollywood, and remained so for a decade. However, it sought an audience mostly in towns, producing mostly inexpensive melodramas, westerns. In its early years Universal released three brands of feature films — Red Feather, low-budget programmers, Bluebird, more ambitious productions, and Jewel, their prestige motion pictures. Directors included Jack Conway, John Ford, Rex Ingram, Robert Z. Leonard, George Marshall and Lois Weber, despite Laemmles role as an innovator, he was an extremely cautious studio chief. Unlike rivals Adolph Zukor, William Fox, and Marcus Loew and he also financed all of his own films, refusing to take on debt. Character actor Lon Chaney became a card for Universal in the 1920s
20.
Bombay
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Mumbai is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India and the ninth most populous agglomeration in the world, Mumbai lies on the west coast of India and has a deep natural harbour. In 2008, Mumbai was named a world city. It is also the wealthiest city in India, and has the highest GDP of any city in South, West, Mumbai has the highest number of billionaires and millionaires among all cities in India. The seven islands that came to constitute Mumbai were home to communities of fishing colonies, during the mid-18th century, Bombay was reshaped by the Hornby Vellard project, which undertook reclamation of the area between the seven islands from the sea. Along with construction of roads and railways, the reclamation project, completed in 1845. Bombay in the 19th century was characterised by economic and educational development, during the early 20th century it became a strong base for the Indian independence movement. Upon Indias independence in 1947 the city was incorporated into Bombay State, in 1960, following the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, a new state of Maharashtra was created with Bombay as the capital. Mumbai is the financial, commercial and entertainment capital of India and it is also home to some of Indias premier scientific and nuclear institutes like BARC, NPCL, IREL, TIFR, AERB, AECI, and the Department of Atomic Energy. The city also houses Indias Hindi and Marathi film and television industry, Mumbais business opportunities, as well as its potential to offer a higher standard of living, attract migrants from all over India, making the city a melting pot of many communities and cultures. The oldest known names for the city are Kakamuchee and Galajunkja, in 1508, Portuguese writer Gaspar Correia used the name Bombaim, in his Lendas da Índia. This name possibly originated as the Old Portuguese phrase bom baim, meaning good little bay, in 1516, Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa used the name Tana-Maiambu, Tana appears to refer to the adjoining town of Thane and Maiambu to Mumbadevi. Other variations recorded in the 16th and the 17th centuries include, Mombayn, Bombay, Bombain, Bombaym, Monbaym, Mombaim, Mombaym, Bambaye, Bombaiim, Bombeye, Boon Bay, and Bon Bahia. After the English gained possession of the city in the 17th century, Ali Muhammad Khan, imperial diwan or revenue minister of the Gujarat province, in the Mirat-i-Ahmedi referred to the city as Manbai. By the late 20th century, the city was referred to as Mumbai or Mambai in the Indian statewise official languages of Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, Kannada and Sindhi, the Government of India officially changed the English name to Mumbai in November 1995. According to Slate magazine, they argued that Bombay was a corrupted English version of Mumbai, Slate also said The push to rename Bombay was part of a larger movement to strengthen Marathi identity in the Maharashtra region. A resident of Mumbai is called mumbaikar in the Marathi language, the term has been in use for quite some time but it gained popularity after the official name change to Mumbai. Mumbai is built on what was once an archipelago of seven islands, Bombay Island, Parel, Mazagaon, Mahim, Colaba, Worli and it is not exactly known when these islands were first inhabited
21.
Dadasaheb Phalke
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Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, popularly known as Dadasaheb Phalke, was an Indian producer-director-screenwriter, known as the Father of Indian cinema. The Dadasaheb Phalke Award, for contribution to cinema, was instituted in his honour by the Government of India in 1969. The award is one of the most prestigious awards in Indian cinema and is the highest official recognition for film personalities in the country, a postage stamp bearing his face was released by India Post to honour him in 1971. An honorary award from the Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Mumbai was introduced in the year 2001, school of Art, Mumbai in 1885. School in 1890, Phalke went to the Kala Bhavan, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in Vadodara and he began his career as a small town photographer in Godhra but had to leave business after the death of his first wife and child in an outbreak of the bubonic plague. He soon met the German magician Carl Hertz, one of the 40 magicians employed by the Lumiere Brothers, soon after, he had the opportunity to work with the Archaeological Survey of India as a draftsman. However, restless with his job and its constraints, he turned to the business of printing and he specialised in lithography and oleograph, and worked for painter Raja Ravi Varma. Phalke later started his own printing press, made his first trip abroad to Germany, to learn about the latest technology, machinery and for art also. Phalke made his first film, Raja Harishchandra, in 1912, it was first shown publicly on 3 May 1913 at Mumbais Coronation Cinema, around one year before, Ramchandra Gopal had recorded on stage a film drama called Pundalik and shown recording at the same theatre. However, the credit for making the first indigenous Indian feature film is attributed to Dadasaheb Phalke as it is said that Pundalik had British cinematographers. Once again, Phalke proved successful in his new art and proceeded to make silent films, shorts, documentary feature, educational, comic. Film, having proved its viability, soon attracted businessmen who favoured money over aesthetics. He set up a studio and trained technicians, actors but, very soon. In 1920, Phalke resigned from Hindustan Films, made his first announcement of retirement from cinema, lacking his extremely imaginative genius, Hindustan Films ran into deep financial loss, and he was finally persuaded to return. However, Phalke felt constrained by the business and, after directing a few films for the company, the times changed and Phalke fell victim to the emerging technology of sound film. Unable to cope with the talkies, the man who had fathered the Indian film industry became obsolete and his last silent movie Setubandhan was released in 1932 and later released with dubbing. During 1936–38, he produced his last film Gangavataran, before retiring to Nashik, Dadasaheb Phalke, the Father of Indian Cinema. List of Silent films made in India Dadasaheb Phalke at the Internet Movie Database Dadasaheb Phalke @ SPICE Website on Dada Saheb Phalke Film Academy on Dadasaheb Phalke
22.
Fatima Begum
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Fatma Begum was an Indian actress, director, and screenwriter. She is often considered the first female director of Indian cinema. Within four years, she went on to write, produce and she launched her own production house, Fatma Films, and directed Bulbul-e-Paristan in 1926. She lived from 1892-1983 and was mother to three children, Fatma Begum was born into an Urdu Muslim family in India. Fatma Begum was supposedly married to Nawab Sidi Ibrahim Muhammad Yakut Khan III of Sachin State and she was the mother of silent superstars Zubeida, Sultana and Shehzadi. She began her career on the Urdu stage and she later shifted to films and debuted in Ardeshir Iranis silent film, Veer Abhimanyu. It was common practice for men to women in plays and movies. Fatma Begum was fair skinned and wore dark make-up that suited the sepia/black & white images on the screen, most of the roles required whigs for the heroes as well as the heroines. In 1926, she established Fatma Films which later known as Victoria-Fatma Films in 1928. She became a pioneer for fantasy cinema where she used trick photography to have special effects. She was an actress at Kohinoor Studios and Imperial Studios, while writing, directing, producing, Begum became the first female director of Indian cinema with her 1926 film, Bulbul-e-Paristan. While no known prints of the film currently exist, the budget production has been described as a fantasy film featuring many special effects. If true, the film places Begum among early pioneers of fantasy such as George Melies. While continuing to produce and appear in her own work, Fatma worked for Kohinoor Studios and Imperial Studios until her last film in 1938 and she directed many other films, her last being the Goddess of Luck in 1929. She died in 1983 at the old age of ninety one. Her legacy was carried on by her daughter Zubeida, whom besides being a silent film star, acted in Indias first ever talkie, media related to Fatma Begum at Wikimedia Commons Fatma Begum at the Internet Movie Database
23.
Alam Ara
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Alam Ara is a 1931 Indian Bollywood Hindi/Urdu film directed by Ardeshir Irani. It was the first Indian sound film, Irani recognised the importance that sound would have on the cinema, and raced to complete Alam Ara before several contemporary sound films. Alam Ara debuted at the Majestic Cinema in Mumbai on 14 March 1931, the first Indian talkie was so popular that police aid had to be summoned to control the crowds. The film has long been lost and was not available as far back as 1967 according to the National Film Archive of India, the film is a love story between a prince and a gypsy girl, based on a Parsi play written by Joseph David. David later served as a writer at Iranis film company, the story centres on an imaginary, historical royal family in the kingdom of Kumarpur. The main characters are the king and his two warring wives, Dilbahar and Naubahar and their rivalry escalates when a fakir predicts that Navbahar will bear the kings heir. Dilbahar, in a fit, attempts to have an affair with the chief minister. The affair goes sour and a vengeful Dilbahar imprisons him and exiles his daughter, in exile, Alam Ara is brought up by Gypsies. Upon returning to the palace at Kumarpur, Alam Ara meets, in the end, Adil is released, Dilbahar is punished and the lovers marry. Master Vithal Zubeida as Alam Ara Jillo Both the movie and its music were widely successful, including the hit song De de khuda ke naam per and it was sung by actor Wazir Mohammed Khan who played a fakir in the film. As playback singing had yet to start in Indian cinema, it was recorded live with musical accompaniment of a harmonium, the film marked the beginning of filmi music in the Cinema of India, as noted film director Shyam Benegal said, It was not just a talkie. It was a talking and singing film with more singing and less talking and it had a number of songs and that actually set the template for the kind of films that were made later. In fact, the 1932 film Indrasabha had an overwhelming 71 songs in it, Ardeshir Irani handled the sound recording department, using the Tanar Sound System. It was shot with the Tanar single-system camera, which recorded sound directly onto the film, since there were no soundproof studios available at the time, the shooting was done mostly at night, to avoid daytime noises, with microphones hidden near the actors. The film was inspired by Show Boat, released by Universal Pictures and it was the first and partly depending movie version of Jerome Kerns Broadway musical Show Boat, which was itself adaptated from the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. There is no copy of the film today. The National Archives of India says that they do not possess a print and couldnt locate one as far back as 1967. It was incorrectly reported that the last known prints, in Pune’s film archives, were damaged by a fire in 2003 when in fact no copy was ever possessed by the film archive
24.
Kisan Kanya (1937 film)
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Kisan Kanya was a 1937 Hindi Cinecolor feature film which was directed by Moti B. Gidwani and produced by Ardeshir Irani of Imperial Pictures and it is largely remembered by the Indian public on account of it being Indias first indigenously made colour film. The result of his efforts was the color film Kisan Kanya made with the Cinecolor process whose process rights Irani had obtained from an American company, V. Shantaram had earlier produced a Marathi film Sairandhri which had scenes in color. However, the film was processed and printed in Germany Kisan Kanya was, therefore, Kisan Kanya was based on a novel by Saadat Hasan Manto and focussed on the plight of poor farmers. The story revolved on the life of a poor peasant Ram who was being ill-treated by his landlord Ghani, eventually, Ghani is murdered and Ram becomes the prime suspect in the eyes of the public. The film performed moderately at the box-office, padmadevi Jillo Ghulam Mohammed Nissar Syed Ahmed Ghani The first Indian color film to be made entirely in India. This film was more favorably received than its predecessor. Kisan Kanya at the Internet Movie Database Kisan Kanya on indiancine. ma
25.
Talkie
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A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid- to late 1920s, at first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as talking pictures, or talkies, were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects, the first feature film originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927. A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would become the standard for talking pictures. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon, in the United States, they helped secure Hollywoods position as one of the worlds most powerful cultural/commercial centers of influence. In Europe, the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, in Japan, where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance, talking pictures were slow to take root. In India, sound was the element that led to the rapid expansion of the nations film industry. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the concept of cinema itself. On February 27,1888, a couple of days after photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge gave a lecture not far from the laboratory of Thomas Edison, the two inventors privately met. No agreement was reached, but within a year Edison commissioned the development of the Kinetoscope, essentially a peep-show system, as a visual complement to his cylinder phonograph. The two devices were brought together as the Kinetophone in 1895, but individual, cabinet viewing of motion pictures was soon to be outmoded by successes in film projection and these appear to be the first publicly exhibited films with projection of both image and recorded sound. Phonorama and yet another sound-film system—Théâtroscope—were also presented at the Exposition, three major problems persisted, leading to motion pictures and sound recording largely taking separate paths for a generation. The primary issue was synchronization, pictures and sound were recorded and played back by separate devices, sufficient playback volume was also hard to achieve. Finally, there was the challenge of recording fidelity, cinematic innovators attempted to cope with the fundamental synchronization problem in a variety of ways. In 1902, Léon Gaumont demonstrated his sound-on-disc Chronophone, involving an electrical connection he had recently patented, four years later, Gaumont introduced the Elgéphone, a compressed-air amplification system based on the Auxetophone, developed by British inventors Horace Short and Charles Parsons
26.
Lor Girl
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Lor Girl, also known as The Iran of Yesterday and the Iran of Today, was the first sound film ever to be produced in the Persian language. In 1932, it was produced by Ardeshir Irani and Abdolhossein Sepanta under the Imperial Film Company in Bombay, the movie starred Sepanta himself along with Roohangiz Saminejad, Hadi Shirazi and Sohrab Puri. Filming took only seven months to complete, and the movie arrived in Iran in October 1933 and it was released at only two major theatres, Mayak and Sepah. At the time, Iranians went to the cinema mainly to watch European short comedies, lor Girl, as the first Iranian film with sound, was an instantaneous success and shows were ultimately sold out. The movie is about Golnar, a young girl who was kidnapped as a child. The leader of the thieves, Gholi Khan, is beginning to look at her with interest now she is a grown woman. At the teahouse, she meets a man called Jafar who has been sent to Lorestan by the Iranian government to deal with the problem of banditry in the area. They fall in love, and plan to escape together, Gholi Khan catches on to their plans and beats up Jafar. Jafar rejects Khans offer to join the bandits, so he is kidnapped and imprisoned, Golnar helps him escape and the couple attempt to flee. Pursued by the bandits, Jafar and Golner are nearly captured, fearing revenge from the remaining gang, the couple escape to India, living in Bombay to find security from the lawlessness of Iran at the time. They later return to their homeland when they learn that a new government has brought law, the film is set in the period of lawlessness that engulfed the country during and after World War I, especially after the attempted Soviet Communist take-over in 1917 during the Russian Civil War. The escape of the couple to India reflected a common experience of the time, according to Hamīd Dabaši the film served ultimately as propaganda for Reza Shah and his centralised administration. Lor Girl is the first feature film to use a female performer as a star and it was still a taboo at the time to broadcast women in film and even radio at the time. Roohangiz Saminejad was a volunteer and wife of an employee at the time. Her strong Kermani accent required some changes to the script to account for it, in her later years, she moved to Tehran under a changed name and died in old age in virtual anonymity. The movie was remade in the 1970s and titled Jafar-o-Golnar, lor Girl at the Internet Movie Database
27.
Abdolhossein Sepanta
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Abdolhossein Sepanta was a noted Iranian film director and producer. He made the earliest sound films in the Persian language and he was also a writer and journalist and promotor of liberal politics. Abdolhossein Sepanta was born in the Vagonkhaneh Avenue area in Tehran in 1907 and his father, Gholam Reza Khan was the translator of Mozzafar-al-Din Shah, a King of the Qajar dynasty. Abdolhossein began his studies at the Saint Louis and Zoroastrian Colleges in Tehran circa 1925 and he found a keen interest in ancient Persian history and literature. Therefore in 1927, he chose Sepanta as his surname, in 1927, he traveled to India via Bushehr. There, he acquainted with Dinshah Irani as his Indian Translator. After extensive studies in ancient culture, he returned to Iran for a short period, Sepanta soon returned to India again with plans for a lengthier stay. He continued to study ancient Iranian culture and literature, encouraged by his teachers and professors, Sepanta started his activity in cinema. As Sepanta took more interest in film, he found there was a possibility one of his productions could make it to theaters in Iran through some competitive tactics. The leading Iranian films producer at the time was Oganes Oganians and his silent films were a hit in Iran and were modeled after a series of Danish comedies aired in the previous years. Looking at the technology available in British India, Sepanta realized that he could bring to Iranian cinema the first talkie film. In 1931, with an acquaintance Ardeshir Irani, a parsi from the local community, the movie was the first film with people talking in it as well as one of the first productions in a Muslim country to cast a female. The movie was screened in October 1933 in Tehran at two movie theaters, Mayak Cinema and Sepah Cinema, and was surprisingly a major hit. Sepanta wrote the script and played the leading male role as well. The story is about Golnar, a village teahouse maid that falls in love with Jafar, the two fall in love and escape to India until political tensions in troubled Iran die down. The movie is said to be a political commentary on the lack of general public security during a period when the Pahlavi dynasty is replacing the Qajar dynasty in Iran. In the 1930s, there were nine talkie films produced from 1931-1937, of these nine, five are Sepantas films. Hes considered by many to be the Leader of that era and he was director, screenwriter, and many times, the lead role of his films
28.
Parsi people
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Parsi /ˈpɑːrsiː/ is one of two Zoroastrian communities majorly located in India and few in Pakistan. At the time of the Arab conquest of Persia, the dominant religion of the region was Zoroastrianism, Iranians rebelled against Arab invaders for almost 200 years, in Iran this period is now known as the Two Centuries of Silence or Period of Silence. During this time many Iranians who are now called Parsi chose to preserve their religious identity by fleeing from Iran to India, the word پارسیان, pronounced Parsian, i. e. Parsi in the Persian language, literally means Persian. Persian is the language of modern Iran, which was formerly known as Persia, and the Persian languages endonym is Farsi. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Parsi, also spelled Parsee, the Parsis, whose name means Persians, are descended from Persian Zoroastrians who emigrated to India to avoid religious persecution by the Muslims. They live chiefly in Mumbai and in a few towns and villages mostly to the South of Mumbai, there is a sizeable Parsee population in Pune as well in Hyderbad. A few Parsee families also reside in Kolkata and Chennai, although they are not, strictly speaking, a caste, since they are not Hindus, they form a well-defined community. The exact date of the Parsi migration is unknown, according to tradition, the Parsis initially settled at Hormuz on the Persian Gulf, but finding themselves still persecuted they set sail for India, arriving in the 8th century. The migration may in fact have taken place as late as the 10th century and they settled first at Diu in Kathiawar but soon moved to south Gujarāt, where they remained for about 800 years as a small agricultural community. The term Pārsi, which in the Persian language is a demonym meaning inhabitant of Pārs, until that time, such texts consistently use the Persian-origin terms Zartoshti Zoroastrian or Vehdin the good religion. The 12th-century Sixteen Shlokas, a Sanskrit text in praise of the Parsis, is the earliest attested use of the term as an identifier for Indian Zoroastrians. The first reference to the Parsis in a European language is from 1322, subsequently, the term appears in the journals of many European travelers, first French and Portuguese, later English, all of whom used a Europeanized version of an apparently local language term. For example, Portuguese physician Garcia de Orta observed in 1563 that there are merchants and we Portuguese call them Jews, but they are not so. In an early 20th-century legal ruling, Justices Davar and Beaman asserted that Parsi was also a used in Iran to refer to Zoroastrians. In any case, the term Parsi itself is not necessarily an indication of their Iranian or Persian origin, moreover, if heredity were the only factor in a determination of ethnicity, the Parsis would count as Parthians according to the Qissa-i Sanjan. Zoroaster taught that good and evil were opposite forces and that it was a duty to make a choice between the two. The two paths are of asha or righteousness and of druj, the lie, Good is represented by Ahura Mazda and evil by Angra Mainyu. The Zoroastrian holy book, called the Avesta, was written in the Avestan language, the Qissa-i Sanjan is a tale of the journey of the Parsis to India from Iran
29.
Prithviraj Kapoor
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He was also the patriarch of the Kapoor family of Hindi films, four generations of which family, beginning with him, have played active roles in the Hindi film industry. However, his father, Basheshwarnath Nath Kapoor, also played a role in his movie Awaara. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Bhushan in 1969, Kapoor was born on 3 November 1906, in a Punjabi Hindu family, in Samundri, Punjab Province in British India, in what today is the Punjab province of Pakistan. Surinder Kapoor, the famous Bollywood producer and father of actor Anil Kapoor was a first cousin of Prithviraj Kapoor, Kapoor began his acting career in the theatres of Lyallpur and Peshawar. In 1928, he moved to Bombay with a loan from an aunt, there he joined the Imperial Films Company. He acted as an extra in his first film, though he went on to earn a lead role for his film, titled Cinema Girl. After featuring in nine silent films, including Do Dhari Talwar, Sher-e-Arab and Prince Vijaykumar, Kapoor did a role in Indias first film talkie. His performance in Vidyapati was much appreciated and his best-known performance is perhaps as Alexander the Great in Sohrab Modis Sikandar. He also joined the Grant Anderson Theater Company, an English theatrical company that remained in Bombay for a year, through all these years, Kapoor remained devoted to the theatre and performed on stage regularly. He developed a reputation as a fine and versatile actor on both stage and screen. By 1944, Kapoor had the wherewithal and standing to found his own group, Prithvi Theatres. His eldest son, Raj Kapoor, by 1946, had struck out on his own, the films he produced had been successful, Prithviraj invested in Prithvi Theatres, which staged memorable productions across India. The plays were highly influential and inspired people to participate in the Indian independence movement. In over 16 years of existence, the theatre staged some 2,662 performances, Prithviraj starred as the lead actor in every single show. One of his plays was called Pathan, which was performed on stage nearly 600 times in Mumbai. It opened on 13 April 1947, and is a story of a Muslim, the financial returns, through ticket sales and the rapidly diminishing largesse of patrons from the erstwhile princely class of India, was not enough to support such an effort. Many of the actors and technicians that Prithvi Theatres nurtured had found their way to the movies. Indeed, this was the case all of Prithvirajs own sons
30.
Mehboob Khan
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He set up his production company, Mehboob Productions, and later a film studio, the Mehboob Studios in Bandra, Mumbai in 1954. Khan was born Mehboob Khan Ramzan Khan in Bilimora in Gandevi Taluka of Baroda State on 9 September 1907 and he was brought to Bombay from his hometown Gujrat by Mr. Noor Muhammad Ali Muhammed Shipra to work as a horse shoe repairer in a stable. He started as an assistant in the Silent Films Era and an extra in the studios of the Imperial Film Company of Ardeshir Irani, before directing his first film, judgement of Allah, when he started directing films for the Sagar Film Company. Notable films he directed included Deccan Queen, Ek Hi Raasta, directorial features like Aurat followed, with the studios Sagar Movietone and National Studios. In 1945, Khan set up his own house, Mehboob Productions. In 1946 he directed the musical hit Anmol Ghadi which featured singing stars Surendra, Noorjehan and Suraiya in leading roles. His earlier works were in Urdu, but his material, including Mother India, were in Hindi although many say he used Hindustani. Kashmiri was responsible for picking and training Nargis in Hindustani and Urdu dialogue delivery and his last film as a director was the 1962 film Son of India. He died in 1964 at the age of 57, and was buried at Badakabarastan in Marine Lines and his death occurred the next day after the death of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India. In 1961, he was a member of the jury at the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival and he remained the President of the Film Federation of India. Khan was known for having been influenced by Hollywood films and his films often featured lavish sets in the style of the Hollywood era at that time, the oppression of the poor, class warfare and rural life are recurring themes in his work. Mehboob Khan was awarded the title of Hidayat Kar-e-Azam by the Indian government, from his first wife, Fatima he had three sons, Ayub, Iqbal and Shaukat. After separation from his first wife, he married the famous Indian Hindi film actress, Sardar Akhtar, whom he married in 1942 and he adopted Sajid Khan, who has acted in Hindi and foreign English films. As a part his birth centenary celebrations, the Indian postal department released a stamp of Mehboob Khan at a function held at the Mehboob Studios in September 2007. Mother India Amar Aan Anokhi Ada Elaan Anmol Ghadi Zarina Chandrahasa Zarina Dilawar Meri Jaan Watan Al Hilal a. k. a, Mehboob, Indias DeMille, The First Biography. Mehboob Khan, The Romance of History, Mehboob Khan at the Internet Movie Database Mehboob Khan@SPICE Mehboob Khan profile at cineplot. com website Mehboob Khan, Profile at Upperstall. com
31.
Kalidas (1931 Film)
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Kalidas, also known as Kalidasa, is a 1931 Indian Tamil-language biographical film directed by H. M. Reddy and produced by Ardeshir Irani. It is notable for being the first Tamil language sound film, Kalidas, principally in Tamil, contained additional dialogue in Telugu and Hindi. While Rajalakshmi spoke Tamil, Venkatesan spoke only Telugu due to his lack of fluency in Tamil, the sound was recorded using German-made technology. Kalidas was shot in Bombay on the sets of Indias first sound film Alam Ara, Kalidas was released with high expectations on 31 October 1931, coinciding with Diwali day. It was the only Tamil film to be produced and released that year, despite numerous technical flaws, it received critical acclaim, with praise for Rajalakshmis singing performance, and it became a major commercial success. The success of Kalidas spawned other films based upon Kālidāsa, including Mahakavi Kalidasa, Mahakavi Kalidasu, in addition to its commercial success, Kalidas was a major breakthrough for Rajalakshmis career, and made her a bankable singing star. Because no print, gramophone record, or songbook of the film is known to survive, Vidhyadhari is the daughter of Vijayavarman, the king of Thejavathi. His minister wants the princess to marry his son but she refuses, annoyed, the minister sets out to find another potential husband for Vidhyadhari. In the forest, the finds a illiterate cowman sitting in a tree. The minister persuades the cowman to come to the palace and has Vidhyadhari marry him, when Vidhyadhari realises she has been cheated, and is married to a farmhand, she prays to the goddess Kali for a remedy. Kali appears before her, names her husband Kalidas and endows him with literary talents. Kalidas is the first sound film to be produced in South Indian cinema, and it was based on the life of the Sanskrit poet and playwright Kālidāsa. The film was produced by Ardeshir Irani, who directed Indias first sound film Alam Ara, P. G. Venkatesan was chosen to play the title role. L. V. Prasad—who later founded Prasad Studios—appeared in a role as a temple priest. Theatre artiste T. P. Rajalakshmi was chosen to play the female protagonist, according to film historian Randor Guy, before this, Rajalakshmi had acted in many silent films, and Kalidas was her first sound film. Supporting roles were played by Thevaram Rajambal, T. Susheela Devi, J. Sushila, the sound was recorded by German technicians using German-made equipment. Kalidas was shot in Bombay on the sets of Alam Ara, it was completed using either 6,000 feet or 10,000 feet of film, Film historian Film News Anandan stated that Kalidas was produced in a hurry, and was technically flawed. While Kalidas primary language was Tamil, the actors spoke a variety of languages, including Tamil, Telugu
32.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
33.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
34.
First World War
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
35.
Second World War
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
36.
Draupadi (1931 film)
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Draupadi is a 1931 talkie film from Indian cinema. The film was a big-budget mythological production from Ardeshir Iranis Imperial Film Company following their release of the first talkie in India, Alam Ara. It was directed by Bhagwati Prasad Mishra, who had made a name for himself as a photographer and painter and had worked with Irani in his Star, Majestic, the story adaptation from Vyasas Mahabharata and the screenplay, were by Mishra. The star cast included Prithviraj Kapoor who played the role of Arjuna, with Ermeline as Draupadi, the rest of cast included Hadi, Elizer, Rustom Irani and Jilloobai. The cinematographer was Adi M. Irani, the film was based on an episode from the epic Mahabharata showcasing Duryodhans plans of usurping Hastinapur and his subsequent attempt at shaming the Pandavas by disrobing Draupadis sari. Duryodhana plots to attain Hastinapur for himself and his hundred Kaurava brothers, the five Pandavas brothers are sent to exile during which time Arjuna (Prithviraj Kapoor wins Draupadi at her swayamvara. According to his mothers suggestion, the five brothers share Draupadi as their wife. On their return from banishment, the Pandavas establish themselves at Indraprastha, the Rajasuya Yagna takes place and a game of dice follows. The Kauravas cunning uncle Shakuni helps them win the game, wherein the Pandavas first lose their Kingdom, and then as a last wager by the oldest brother Yudhishtra, even Draupadi. When Duryodhan, with the intention of shaming the Pandavas tries to remove Draupadis sari, according to author Prem Chowdhry, Draupadi was referenced in films about eleven times between 1916-44. Draupadi Vastrapaharanam directed by R. Nataraja Mudaliar Draupadi Vastraharan Sairandhari directed by Baburao Painter Draupadi Swayamwar directed by Vishnupant Divekar Draupadi Veni Bandhan a. k. a, Veni Bandhan directed by Vishnupant Divekar Draupadis Fate a. k. a. Draupadi Bhagya directed by Raghupathy Prakash, Draupadi Vastraharan directed by Dadasaheb Phalke Draupadi Vastraharan directed by P. Y. Draupadi 1931 at the Internet Movie Database
37.
IMDb
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In 1998 it became a subsidiary of Amazon Inc, who were then able to use it as an advertising resource for selling DVDs and videotapes. As of January 2017, IMDb has approximately 4.1 million titles and 7.7 million personalities in its database, the site enables registered users to submit new material and edits to existing entries. Although all data is checked before going live, the system has open to abuse. The site also featured message boards which stimulate regular debates and dialogue among authenticated users, IMDb shutdown the message boards permanently on February 20,2017. Anyone with a connection can read the movie and talent pages of IMDb. A registration process is however, to contribute info to the site. A registered user chooses a name for themselves, and is given a profile page. These badges range from total contributions made, to independent categories such as photos, trivia, bios, if a registered user or visitor happens to be in the entertainment industry, and has an IMDb page, that user/visitor can add photos to that page by enrolling in IMDbPRO. Actors, crew, and industry executives can post their own resume and this fee enrolls them in a membership called IMDbPro. PRO can be accessed by anyone willing to pay the fee, which is $19.99 USD per month, or if paid annually, $149.99, which comes to approximately $12.50 per month USD. Membership enables a user to access the rank order of each industry personality, as well as agent contact information for any actor, producer, director etc. that has an IMDb page. Enrolling in PRO for industry personnel, enables those members the ability to upload a head shot to open their page, as well as the ability to upload hundreds of photos to accompany their page. Anyone can register as a user, and contribute to the site as well as enjoy its content, however those users enrolled in PRO have greater access and privileges. IMDb originated with a Usenet posting by British film fan and computer programmer Col Needham entitled Those Eyes, others with similar interests soon responded with additions or different lists of their own. Needham subsequently started an Actors List, while Dave Knight began a Directors List, and Andy Krieg took over THE LIST from Hank Driskill, which would later be renamed the Actress List. Both lists had been restricted to people who were alive and working, the goal of the participants now was to make the lists as inclusive as possible. By late 1990, the lists included almost 10,000 movies and television series correlated with actors and actresses appearing therein. On October 17,1990, Needham developed and posted a collection of Unix shell scripts which could be used to search the four lists, at the time, it was known as the rec. arts. movies movie database
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