University of Mumbai
The University of Mumbai, informally known as, is one of the earliest state universities in India and the oldest in Maharashtra. It offers Bachelors and Doctoral courses, as well as diplomas and certificates in many disciplines like the Arts, Science and Engineering; the language of instruction for most courses is English. The University of Mumbai has one outside Mumbai; the Fort campus carries out administrative work only. Several institutes in Mumbai affiliated to the university are now autonomous institutes or universities; the University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. In 2011, the total number of enrolled students was 549,432; the University of Mumbai has 711 affiliated colleges. In accordance with "Wood's despatch", drafted by Sir Charles Wood in 1854, The University of Bombay was established in 1857 after presentation of a petition from the Bombay Association to the British colonial government in India; the University of Mumbai was modeled on similar universities in the United Kingdom the University of London.
The first departments established were the Faculty of Arts at Elphinstone College in 1835 and the Faculty of Medicine at Grant Medical College in 1845. Both colleges existed before the university was founded and surrendered their degree-granting privileges to the university; the first degrees awarded in 1862 were Bachelor of Licentiate in Medicine. The Town Hall in Mumbai was used as the university's offices; until 1904, the university only conducted examinations, awarded affiliations to colleges, developed curricula and produced guidelines for colleges developing curricula. Teaching departments, research disciplines and post-graduate courses were introduced from 1904 and several additional departments were established. After India achieved independence in 1947, the functions and powers of the university were re-organised under The Bombay University Act of 1953; the name of the University was changed from University of Bombay to University of Mumbai in 1996. In 1949, student enrollment was 42,272 with 80 affiliated colleges.
By 1975, these numbers had grown to 114 respectively. The Kalina campus in suburban Mumbai covers an area of 93 hectares and houses graduate training and research centres. Departments offering courses in the sciences, technology and humanities are located here. Most colleges of engineering and medicine affiliated to the University of Mumbai, are owned; the university does not have its own medicine departments. Centres and institutes located in the Kalina Campus include: Examination House known as Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Bhavan houses the office of the Controller of Examinations. Centralized assessment of answer books for various departments is carried out in a separate four-storey annex. Examination processes were made more efficient by the introduction of online delivery of question papers for examinations, assessment of answer books by scanning at remote examination centers; the academic depository of the university was started in collaboration with CDSL in 2015. The university is the first university in the country to start an academic depository.
National Centre for Nanosciences and Nanotechnology — a research facility Department of Biophysics — the only such department in western India Jawaharlal Nehru Library Garware Institute of Career Education and Development, whose courses include medical transcription and management courses such as agriculture business management, pharma management and tourism management MAST FM, the campus radio station of the university operating at 107.8 MHz frequency modulation Alkesh Dinesh Mody Numismatic Museum which houses displays of currency from around the world Alkesh Dinesh Mody Institute for Financial and Management Studies which offers BMS, MFSM and MMS programmes Department of Extra Mural Studies which conducts weekend courses in many disciples including astronomy, astrophysics and animal taxonomy, hobby robotics, hobby electronics The Institute of Distance and Open Learning which offers courses in humanities, commerce, computer science, information technology Western Regional Instrumentation Centre — a research and training facility for instrumentation engineering and science Centre for African Studies Centre for Eurasian Studies A rose garden where more than a hundred varieties of rose have been cultivated Marathi Bhasha Bhavan Centre which conducts academic and cultural activities associated with the Marathi language The Thane Campus, established in 2014, spans an area of 2.4 ha and is a modern, two-storey complex.
It houses administrative offices, the School of Law, University of Mumbai and undertakes management courses. The University of Bombay was established in 1857 at the Fort campus, located near the southern end of Mumbai island, it houses the administrative division of the university on a 5.3 ha site. It has 116,000 m2 of built-up area, 2,000 m2 of classrooms, 7,800 m2 of laboratory space. There are two post-graduate centres, 354 affiliated colleges, 36 departments, it is built in the Gothic style and the Rajabai Clock Tower stands on the lawns of the campus. One of Mumbai's landmarks, the Rajabai Clock Tower was completed in the 1870s and houses the University of Mumbai's library. Sir George Gilbert Scott modeled the Rajabai Clock Tower on the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster in London. Local businessman Premchand Roychand contributed to the cost of construction and named the tower in memory of his mother, Rajabai; the tower has five storeys. At a height
Karnataka
Karnataka is a state in the south western region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Known as the State of Mysore, it was renamed Karnataka in 1973; the state corresponds to the Carnatic region. The capital and largest city is Bangalore. Karnataka is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, Goa to the northwest, Maharashtra to the north, Telangana to the northeast, Andhra Pradesh to the east, Tamil Nadu to the southeast, Kerala to the south; the state covers an area of 191,976 square kilometres, or 5.83 percent of the total geographical area of India. It is the sixth largest Indian state by area. With 61,130,704 inhabitants at the 2011 census, Karnataka is the eighth largest state by population, comprising 30 districts. Kannada, one of the classical languages of India, is the most spoken and official language of the state alongside Konkani, Tulu, Telugu, Malayalam and Beary. Karnataka contains some of the only villages in India where Sanskrit is spoken.
The two main river systems of the state are the Krishna and its tributaries, the Bhima, Vedavathi and Tungabhadra in North Karnataka Sharavathi in Shivamogga and the Kaveri and its tributaries, the Hemavati, Arkavati, Lakshmana Thirtha and Kabini, in the south. Most of these rivers flow out of Karnataka eastward. Though several etymologies have been suggested for the name Karnataka, the accepted one is that Karnataka is derived from the Kannada words karu and nādu, meaning "elevated land". Karu nadu may be read as karu, meaning "black" and nadu, meaning "region", as a reference to the black cotton soil found in the Bayalu Seeme region of the state; the British used the word Carnatic, sometimes Karnatak, to describe both sides of peninsular India, south of the Krishna. With an antiquity that dates to the paleolithic, Karnataka has been home to some of the most powerful empires of ancient and medieval India; the philosophers and musical bards patronised by these empires launched socio-religious and literary movements which have endured to the present day.
Karnataka has contributed to both forms of Indian classical music, the Carnatic and Hindustani traditions. The economy of Karnataka is the third-largest state economy in India with ₹15.88 lakh crore in gross domestic product and a per capita GDP of ₹174,000. Karnataka's pre-history goes back to a paleolithic hand-axe culture evidenced by discoveries of, among other things, hand axes and cleavers in the region. Evidence of neolithic and megalithic cultures have been found in the state. Gold discovered in Harappa was found to be imported from mines in Karnataka, prompting scholars to hypothesise about contacts between ancient Karnataka and the Indus Valley Civilisation ca. 3300 BCE. Prior to the third century BCE, most of Karnataka formed part of the Nanda Empire before coming under the Mauryan empire of Emperor Ashoka. Four centuries of Satavahana rule followed; the decline of Satavahana power led to the rise of the earliest native kingdoms, the Kadambas and the Western Gangas, marking the region's emergence as an independent political entity.
The Kadamba Dynasty, founded by Mayurasharma, had its capital at Banavasi. These were the first kingdoms to use Kannada in administration, as evidenced by the Halmidi inscription and a fifth-century copper coin discovered at Banavasi; these dynasties were followed by imperial Kannada empires such as the Badami Chalukyas, the Rashtrakuta Empire of Manyakheta and the Western Chalukya Empire, which ruled over large parts of the Deccan and had their capitals in what is now Karnataka. The Western Chalukyas patronised a unique style of architecture and Kannada literature which became a precursor to the Hoysala art of the 12th century. Parts of modern-day Southern Karnataka were occupied by the Chola Empire at the turn of the 11th century; the Cholas and the Hoysalas fought over the region in the early 12th century before it came under Hoysala rule. At the turn of the first millennium, the Hoysalas gained power in the region. Literature flourished during this time, which led to the emergence of distinctive Kannada literary metres, the construction of temples and sculptures adhering to the Vesara style of architecture.
The expansion of the Hoysala Empire brought minor parts of modern Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu under its rule. In the early 14th century and Bukka Raya established the Vijayanagara empire with its capital, Hosapattana, on the banks of the Tungabhadra River in the modern Bellary district; the empire rose as a bulwark against Muslim advances into South India, which it controlled for over two centuries. In 1565, Karnataka and the rest of South India experienced a major geopolitical shift when the Vijayanagara empire fell to a confederation of Islamic sultanates in the Battle of Talikota; the Bijapur Sultanate, which had risen after the demise of the Bahmani Sultanate of Bidar, soon took control of the Deccan. The Bahmani and Bijapur rulers encouraged Urdu and Persian literature and Indo-Saracenic architecture, the Gol Gumbaz being one of the high points of this style. During the sixteenth century, Konkani Hindus migrated to Karnataka from Salcette, while during the seventeenth and eighteenth century, Goan Catholics migrated to North Canara and South Canara from Bardes, Goa, as a result of food shortages and heavy taxation imposed by the Portuguese.
In the period that followed
Satara (city)
For the moth genus, see Satara. Satara is a city located in the Satara District of Maharashtra state of India, near the confluence of the river Krishna and its tributary, the Venna; the city was established in the 16th century and was the seat of the Raja of Satara, Chhatrapati Shahu. It is the headquarters of Satara Tahsil, as well as the Satara District; the city gets its name from the seven forts. The first Muslim invasion of the Deccan took place in 1296. In 1636 the Nizam Shahi dynasty came to an end. In 1663 Shivaji conquered Satara fort. After the death of Shivaji, Shahu Shivaji, heir apparent to the Maratha Kingdom, captured by Mughals when he was only seven years old, remained their prisoner till the death of his father in 1700; the Dowager Maharani Tarabai proclaimed his younger half-brother, her son, Shahu Sambhaji as Chhatrapati Maharaj under her regency. Mughals released Shahu under certain preconditions in 1707, so that Marathas would face an internal war for the throne. Shahu claimed his inheritance.
Aurangzeb's son Muhammad Azam Shah conquered Satara fort after a 6-month siege won by Parshuram Pratinidhi in 1706. In 1708 Chattrapati Shahu, the son of Chhatrapati Sambhaji, was crowned at the Satara fort; the direct descendents of Raja Shivaji continue to live in Satara. Udayanraje Bhonsle is the 13th descendent of Shivaji Maharaj. Dundle is the Sardar Of Chhatrpati Shivaji Maharaj. Satara is well known for its sweet: kandi pedhe. Satara is located at foot of the famous Ajinkyatara fort. Satara has a unique statue of Shivaji standing at Powai Naka. Statue of Shivaji maharaj is seen him riding the horse. Kas plateau / Flower plateau, now a World Natural Heritage site. Satara has two palaces in the heart the of city, the Old Palace and the New Palace adjoining each other; the Old Palace was built around 300 years ago, the New Palace was built about 200 years ago. Thoseghar Waterfalls around 20 km west of Satara, it is one of the best monsoon tourist places in the Western Ghats. People come from all over the Maharashtra to visit the falls during the monsoon season between July and October.
Vajrai Waterfall, India's highest waterfall, around 22 km from Satara. Sajjangad, around 15 km from Satara. Satara hosts'Satara Half Hill Marathon' each year. In 2015, they entered the Guinness World Records book for Most People in a Mountain Run with 2,618 runners. Satara city is known as a Soldier's city as well as Pensioner's city. You can visit Satara by air, it is about 250 km from capital city of Mumbai on national highway no. 48. Train services from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus railway station, Mumbai to Kolhapur via Satara. Private travels and government state transport buses are available from Borivali, Mumbai Central and Thane to Satara. Satara is around 110 km from Pune by road. Satara is located at 17.68°N 73.98°E / 17.68. Satara city is surrounded by seven mountains. National Highway 4 passes between Karad and Khandala. Satara city has a pleasant climate all year round due to mountains surrounding the city. Summers are not too hot and winters are not too cold. Satara city receives moderate rainfall around 1,200 to 1,500 mm all year round.
The famous tourist points near Satara city are: Ajinkyatara Fort Sajjangad Fort Kaas Plateau – Called "Valley of flowers of Maharashtra", a World Heritage Site Baramotichi Vihir Step well, near Limb village, about 16 km from Satara Thoseghar Waterfall Yavateshwar Bamnoli Dhom Dam Raje Baksavar Peer Saaheb Dargha Chaphal As of 2011 India census, Satara had a population of 120,079. Satara has an average literacy rate of 80%, higher than the national average of 74%: male literacy is 84%, female literacy is 76%. In Satara, 10% of the population is under 6 years of age. Marathi is the native and most spoken language. Maharashtra state's sex ratio is 883 girls per 1000 boys, Satara fares worse still at 881, in spite of the high level of literacy; the population of Satara has crossed the municipal limits and actual urban agglomerate population 326,765. Udayanraje Bhosale Narendra Dabholkar Shriram Lagoo Balgandharva Ramshastri Prabhune Bhaurao Patil Satara city is well connected with the rest of Maharashtra by road and rail.
National Highway 4 running between Mumbai and Chennai passes through Satara. A bypass was constructed in the 1990s to avoid traffic congestion in the city. NH4, a part of the Golden Quadrilateral, has been converted to a 4-lane divided highway while the stretch between Pune and Satara has been upgraded to 6-lane. National Highway 548C starts from Satara, Satara-Akluj-Latur Highway connects Satara city to Latur, it passes through Koregaon, Mhaswad, Akluj and Murud, it will be a 4 lane highway, work is going to start soon. State Highway 58 connects Satara with Solapur. Satara railway station lies on the Pune-Miraj line of the Central Railways and is administered by the Pune Railway Division; the railway station is located a small distance east of the city and is served by several express trains. Sahyadri Express, Koyna Express, Mahalaxmi Express, Maharashtra Express, Goa Express are daily trains that have stops at Satara. Satara Mahad Bankot is a newly declared national highway connecting Satara to the Konkan region.
Bhonsle Maratha Maratha Empire List of Maratha dynasties and states Peshwe Paul H. von Tuche
South India
South India is the area including the five Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, as well as the three union territories of Lakshadweep and Nicobar Islands and Puducherry, occupying 19% of India's area. Covering the southern part of the peninsular Deccan Plateau, South India is bounded by the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and the Indian Ocean in the south; the geography of the region is diverse with two mountain ranges–the Western and Eastern Ghats, bordering the plateau heartland. Godavari, Kaveri and Vaigai rivers are important non-perennial sources of water. Chennai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Visakhapatnam and Kochi are the largest urban areas; the majority of the people in South India speak one of the four major Dravidian languages: Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. During its history, a number of dynastic kingdoms ruled over parts of South India whose invasions across southern and southeastern Asia impacted the history and culture in those regions.
Major dynasties that were established in South India include the Cheras, Pandyas, Satavahanas, Chalukyas and Vijayanagara. Europeans entered India through Kerala and the region was colonised by Britain and other nations. After experiencing fluctuations in the decades after Indian independence, the economies of South Indian states have registered higher than national average growth over the past three decades. While South Indian states have improved in some socio-economic metrics, poverty continues to affect the region much like the rest of the country, although it has decreased over the years. HDI in the southern states is high and the economy has undergone growth at a faster rate than most northern states. Literacy rates in the southern states are higher than the national average with 80% of the population capable of reading and writing; the fertility rate in South India is the lowest of all regions in India. South India known as Peninsular India has been known by several other names; the term "Deccan" referring to the area covered by the Deccan Plateau that covers most of peninsular India excluding the coastal areas is an anglicised form of the word Prakrit dakkhin derived from the Sanskrit word dakshina meaning south.
Carnatic derived from "Karnād" or "Karunād" meaning high country has been associated with South India. Carbon dating on ash mounds associated with Neolithic cultures in South India date back to 8000 BCE. Artefacts such as ground stone axes, minor copper objects have been found in the region. Towards the beginning of 1000 BCE, iron technology spread through the region; the region was in the middle of a trade route that extended from Muziris to Arikamedu linking the Mediterranean and East Asia. Trade with Phoenicians, Greeks, Syrians and Chinese began from the Sangam period; the region was part of the ancient Silk Road connecting the Asian continent in the East and the West. Several dynasties such as the Cheras of Karuvur, the Pandyas of Madurai, the Cholas of Thanjavur, the Satavahanas of Amaravati, the Pallavas of Kanchi, the Kadambas of Banavasi, the Western Gangas of Kolar, the Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta, the Chalukyas of Badami, the Hoysalas of Belur and the Kakatiyas of Orugallu ruled over the region from 6th century B.
C. to 14th century A. D; the Vijayanagara Empire, founded in 14th century A. D. was the last Indian dynasty. After repeated invasions from the Sultanate of Delhi and the fall of Vijayanagara empire in 1646, the region was ruled by Deccan Sultanates and Nayak governors of Vijayanagara empire who declared independence; the Europeans arrived in the 15th century and by the middle of the 18th century, the French and the British were involved in a protracted struggle for military control over the South India. After the defeat of Tipu Sultan in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799 and the end of the Vellore Mutiny in 1806, the British consolidated their power over much of present-day South India with the exception of French Pondichéry; the British Empire took control of the region from the British East India Company in 1857. During the British colonial rule, the region was divided into the Madras Presidency, Hyderabad State, Travancore, Vizianagaram and a number of other minor princely states; the region played a major role in the Indian independence movement.
After the independence of India in 1947, the region was organised into four states: Madras State, Mysore State, Hyderabad State and Travancore-Cochin. The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 reorganised the states on linguistic lines resulting in the creation of the new states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; as a result of this Act, Madras State retained its name and Kanyakumari district was added to it from the state of Travancore-Cochin. The state was subsequently renamed Tamil Nadu in 1968. Andhra Pradesh was created through the merger of Andhra State with the Telugu-speaking districts of the Hyderabad State in 1956. Kerala emerged from the merger of Malabar district and the Kasaragod taluk of South Canara districts of the Madras State with Travancore-Cochin. Mysore State was re-organised with the addition of districts of Bellary and South Canara and the Kollegal taluk of Coimbatore district from the Madras State, the districts of Belgaum, North Canara and Dharwad from the Bombay State, the
Sanskrit
Sanskrit is a language of ancient India with a history going back about 3,500 years. It is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism and the predominant language of most works of Hindu philosophy as well as some of the principal texts of Buddhism and Jainism. Sanskrit, in its variants and numerous dialects, was the lingua franca of ancient and medieval India. In the early 1st millennium CE, along with Buddhism and Hinduism, Sanskrit migrated to Southeast Asia, parts of East Asia and Central Asia, emerging as a language of high culture and of local ruling elites in these regions. Sanskrit is an Old Indo-Aryan language; as one of the oldest documented members of the Indo-European family of languages, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. It is related to Greek and Latin, as well as Hittite, Old Avestan and many other extinct languages with historical significance to Europe, West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, it traces its linguistic ancestry to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, Proto-Indo-Iranian and the Proto-Indo-European languages.
Sanskrit is traceable to the 2nd millennium BCE in a form known as the Vedic Sanskrit, with the Rigveda as the earliest known composition. A more refined and standardized grammatical form called the Classical Sanskrit emerged in mid-1st millennium BCE with the Aṣṭādhyāyī treatise of Pāṇini. Sanskrit, though not Classical Sanskrit, is the root language of many Prakrit languages. Examples include numerous modern daughter Northern Indian subcontinental languages such as Hindi, Bengali and Nepali; the body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, drama, scientific and other texts. In the ancient era, Sanskrit compositions were orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity and fidelity; the earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st-century BCE, such as the few discovered in Ayodhya and Ghosundi-Hathibada. Sanskrit texts dated to the 1st millennium CE were written in the Brahmi script, the Nāgarī script, the historic South Indian scripts and their derivative scripts.
Sanskrit is one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India. It continues to be used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hinduism and some Buddhist practices such as hymns and chants; the Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sam and krta-. It connotes a work, "well prepared and perfect, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal qualities, rather than semantic. Sound and oral transmission were valued quality in ancient India, its sages refined the alphabet, the structure of words and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold", states Biderman, as an integral language they called Sanskrit. From late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic and religious literature" in India; the sound was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself, the "mysterious magnum" of the Hindu thought.
The search for perfection in thought and of salvation was one of the dimensions of sacred sound, the common thread to weave all ideas and inspirations became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as a language competed with numerous less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages; the term prakrta means "original, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth. The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in the Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patanjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and leads to the problems of interpretation and misunderstanding; the purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Dandin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit but involve "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar".
Dandin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view is found in the writing of the author of the ancient Natyasastra text; the early Jain scholar Namisadhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisadhu stated that the Prakrit language was the purvam and they came to women and children, that Sanskrit was a refinement of the Prakrit through a "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, it is one of the three ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as the Proto-Indo-European language: Vedic Sanskrit. Mycenaean Greek and Ancient Greek. Mycenaean Greek is the older recorded form of Greek, but the limited material that has survived has a ambiguous writing system. More important to Indo-European studies is Ancient Greek, documented extensively beginning with the two Homeric poems. Hittite.
This is the earliest-recorded of all Indo-European languages, distinguishable into Old Hittite, Middle Hittite and Neo-Hittite. I
M. N. Venkatachaliah
Manepalli Narayana Rao Venkatachaliah was the 25th Chief Justice of India. He served as Chief Justice from 1993 to 1994, he serves as the Chancellor of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, a Modern Gurukula, a place where the teacher-student interaction occurs in the backdrop of the process of Integral Education that includes the five dimensions of: Intellectual, Physical and Devotional. and on the Advisory Board of Foundation for Restoration of National Values, a society established in 2008 that strives to restore National and Cultural Values of India. He earned not only Bachelor in Science but Bachelor in Law from the University of Mysore, he started practicing law in 1951. He was appointed Permanent Judge of the High Court of Karnataka on 6 November 1975, he was elevated as Judge of the Supreme Court of India on 5 October 1987. He became the 25th Chief Justice of India on 12 February 1993 and subsequently retired on 24 October 1994. Post retirement, he has continued to work on anti-corruption and human rights issues, including support for the launch of the Initiatives of Change Centre for Governance in 2003.
He served as the Chairman of National Human Rights Commission from 1996-1998 and in 2000 he headed National Commission to review the working of the Constitution. He is serving as the chancellor of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Prasanthi Nilayam Padma Vibhushan - India's Second Highest Civilian Honour from the President of India in 2004. Doctor of Letters - Pondicherry University Doctor of Laws - Manipal University Honorary Doctorate from Rani Channamma University, Belagavi Bio details, Supreme Court of India
Mumbai
Mumbai is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. As of 2011 it is the most populous city in India with an estimated city proper population of 12.4 million. The larger Mumbai Metropolitan Region is the second most populous metropolitan area in India, with a population of 21.3 million as of 2016. Mumbai has a deep natural harbour. In 2008, Mumbai was named an alpha world city, it is the wealthiest city in India, has the highest number of millionaires and billionaires among all cities in India. Mumbai is home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Elephanta Caves, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the city's distinctive ensemble of Victorian and Art Deco buildings; the seven islands that constitute Mumbai were home to communities of Koli people, who originated in Gujarat in prehistoric times. For centuries, the islands were under the control of successive indigenous empires before being ceded to the Portuguese Empire and subsequently to the East India Company when in 1661 Charles II of England married Catherine of Braganza and as part of her dowry Charles received the ports of Tangier and Seven Islands of Bombay.
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 major roads and railways, the reclamation project, completed in 1845, transformed Bombay into a major seaport on the Arabian Sea. Bombay in the 19th century was characterised by educational development. During the early 20th century it became a strong base for the Indian independence movement. Upon India's 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 and entertainment capital of India, it is one of the world's top ten centres of commerce in terms of global financial flow, generating 6.16% of India's GDP and accounting for 25% of industrial output, 70% of maritime trade in India, 70% of capital transactions to India's economy. The city houses important financial institutions such as the Reserve Bank of India, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the National Stock Exchange of India, the SEBI and the corporate headquarters of numerous Indian companies and multinational corporations.
It is home to some of India's premier scientific and nuclear institutes like Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Nuclear Power Corporation of India, Indian Rare Earths, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Atomic Energy Commission of India, the Department of Atomic Energy. The city houses India's Hindi and Marathi cinema industries. Mumbai's 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 name Mumbai is derived from Mumbā or Mahā-Ambā—the name of the patron goddess Mumbadevi of the native Koli community— and ā'ī meaning "mother" in the Marathi language, the mother tongue of the Koli people and the official language of Maharashtra. The Koli people originated in Kathiawad and Central Gujarat, according to some sources they brought their goddess Mumba with them from Kathiawad, where she is still worshipped. However, other sources disagree.
The oldest known names for the city are Galajunkja. In 1508, Portuguese writer Gaspar Correia used the name "Bombaim" in his Lendas da Índia; this name originated as the Galician-Portuguese phrase bom baim, meaning "good little bay", Bombaim is still used in Portuguese. 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, Bombain, Monbaym, Mombaym, Bombaiim, Boon Bay, Bon Bahia. After the English gained possession of the city in the 17th century, the Portuguese name was anglicised as Bombay. Ali Muhammad Khan, imperial dewan or revenue minister of the Gujarat province, in the Mirat-i Ahmedi referred to the city as Manbai; the French traveller Louis Rousselet who visited in 1863 and 1868 tells us in his book L’Inde des Rajahs: "Etymologists have wrongly derived this name from the Portuguese Bôa Bahia, or, not knowing that the tutelar goddess of this island has been, from remote antiquity, Bomba, or Mamba Dévi, that she still... possesses a temple".
By the late 20th century, the city was referred to as Mumbai or Mambai in Marathi, Gujarati and Sindhi, as Bambai in Hindi. The Government of India changed the English name to Mumbai in November 1995; this came at the insistence of the Marathi nationalist Shiv Sena party, which had just won the Maharashtra state elections, mirrored similar name changes across the country and in Maharashtra. According to Slate magazine, "they argued that'Bombay' was a corrupted English version of'Mumbai' and an unwanted legacy of British colonial rule." Slate said "The push to rename Bombay was part of a larger movement to strengthen Marathi identity in the Maharashtra region." While the city is still referred to as Bombay by some of its residents and by Indians from other regions, mention of the ci
