Indian Railway

By the word run a train we mean a vehicle with motive power running on metal rails.

" The Stockholm and Darlington Railway" (1825) is recognised as  the starting of railway age, because they were the first "Railway" to use a steam locomotive and iron rails to haul a load. It was a load of 38 carriages laden with passengers and goods ran between Stockton and Darlington. The railway line was actually commenced in 1821, but it took 4 years to complete construction.

Prior to this in 1801 Richard Trevithick made the steam carriage and in 1804 constructed a locomotive to haul a 10-ton load not on the rails but on the roads.

For other countries the list is as follows:

Now let us see about India.

       The core of the pressure for building railways in India came from London in 1840s. For a century thereafter the basic policies and ultimate management of the Indian Railways were issued from London. The British built railways in India in order to intermesh the economies of the two countries. The building of railways in India brought about unintended as well as hoped for consequences in economic, political and military front. The new railways tied the the different parts of India together more closely than ever before.

       Some mention should be made of the role of Indian businessmen played in the early years. There were Indian merchants , both in Calcutta and Bombay who took an interest in founding of the railways. The most prominent of these was a remarkable Bengali merchant Prince Dwarkanath Tagore , grandfather of Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore. Dwarkanath's firm Carr, Tagore & Company, is reported to have offered in 1844, to raise one-third of the capital required for a railway from Calcutta northwest to the coalfields above Burdwan. After Dwarkanath's premature death a few tears later the other Indian businessmen played only a passive role. The conception, promotion and launching of India's railways were all British. ( Daniel Thorner 1955)   


      The Railway Age dawned in India on 16th. April 1853, when the first train ran from Bombay to Thana, a distance of 21 miles(33.81 Km.) For some years before that the idea of building railways in India had taken concrete shape with the Court of Directors of the East India Company in London. The East India Company had obtained a foothold in India as a trading company, but gradually lost most of its privileges it had enjoyed as an instrument of commerce. It had , however been made responsible for the governance of India under the supervision of a Court of Directors in London. The final authority lay , of course , with the British Cabinet, who acted on the advice of its special Board of \control for Indian Affairs. There was a Governor General at Fort William in Calcutta, having superintending authority over the administration of India.
       The first proposals for construction of railways in India were presented in 1844 to East India Company in London by, (a) East Indian Railway Company headed by R.McDonald Stephenson, and (b) Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company.

       George Stephenson the great British Locomotive inventor was one the first Directors of GIPR and his son Robert Stephenson was appointed as the consulting engineer based at London.

        Both E.I.R. and G.I.P.R were incorporated in England for the purpose of constructing railway lines in Calcutta and Bombay presidencies respectively. Though GIPR company was formed in 1844. George Stephenson could not see his Locomotives run on Indian soil as he died in 1848.

       Lord Hardinge was the Governor General of India at this point of time. He considered the proposals from political, military and commercial point of view and thought that Court Of Directors of East India Company should liberally give assistance to private capitalists, willing to make railways in India , without waiting for proof that the construction of railways in India should yield reasonable profit. The Court of Directors in their suggestion that the first attempt should be made on a limited scale due to some difficulties, deliberated as under,

1. Periodical rains and inundations;
2. The continued action of violent winds, and influence of a vertical
     sun;
3. The ravages of insects and vermin upon timber and earth work;
4. The destructive effect of spontaneous vegetation of Underwood
     upon earth and brick  work;
5. The unenclosed and unprotected tracts of the country though which
     railroads would pass;
6. The difficulty and expenses of securing the services of competent
     and trustworthy engineers. 

How do you feel about these apprehensions about 150 years ago ?

The development of railways in India started on all sides after successful initial projects in the west and the east.


West : On 16th April, 1853 the first railway on Indian sub-continent ran over a stretch of 21 miles from Bombay to Thane . The idea of a railway to connect Bombay with Thane, Kalyan and with the Thal and Bhore Ghats inclineFirst train run in Bombay first occurred to Mr. George Clark, the Chief Engineer of the Bombay Government, during a visit to Bhandup in 1843.The first Indian train steamed off from Bombay(Bori Bunder) to Thane  on 16th. April 1853, at 3:30 P.M. "amidst the loud applause of a vast multitude and to the salute of 21 guns." The train consisting of 14 carriages was hauled by three locomotives named Sultan, Sindh and Sahib with 400 VVIPs The formal inauguration ceremony was performed on 16th April 1853, when 14 railway carriages carrying about 400 guests left Bori Bunder at 3.35 PM.

     In the East :

       The Survey from Calcutta to Delhi was carried out by Mr. Stephenson during 1845-46. The construction of railway line from Howrah to Raniganj was sanctioned only after 3 years. But by the end of 1853 61 kms. of line was ready upto Pandooah. Two historical incidents denied  EIR , the first position in history of railways in India.. The Locomotive Engine and the carriages for both the  trains of Bombay and Howrah were despatched from England almost at the same time, but the ship carrying the loco for E.I.R. (HMS Goodwin) was misdirected to Australia and the other carrying the carriages for Howrah  sank  at Sandheads. Otherwise Howrah would have had the legacy of running the first train in India. The Locomotive Engine and the carriages for both the  trains of Bombay and Howrah were despatched from England almost at the same time, but the ship carrying the loco for E.I.R. (HMS Goodwin) was misdirected to Australia and carriages for Howrah  sank  at Sandheads.  The other problem faced was that the line was aligned through Chandernagore (Chandannagar) which was a French territory at that time. The settlement of this dispute with french rulers of Chandernagore also took considerable time. The Locomotive reached Calcutta via Australia and a trial run was made on 28th. June 1854. The coaches for the first train was however manufactured by two Calcutta based companies Steward & Company and Seton & Company. Otherwise Howrah would have had the legacy of running the first train in India. 

           The first passenger train steamed out of Howrah station destined for Hooghly, (click) a distance of 24 miles, on 15th August, 1854. Thus the first section of the East Indian Railway was opened to public traffic, inaugurating the beginning of railway transport on the Eastern side of the sub-continent. 

          From 15th August 1854, the company ran regular services, morning and evening, between Howrah and Hugli with stops at Bally, Srerampore and Chandannagar. The fare ranged from Rs.3 by first class to 7 annas by third class. The main booking office was on the Calcutta bank, at the Armenian Ghat, and the fare covered the ferry to the station. At the Howrah end, the station consisted of a tin shed and a single line flanked by narrow platforms, somewhat to the south of the present station building constructed between 1901 and 1906.

       In the South the first line was opened on Ist July, 1856 by the Madras Railway Company. It ran between Veyasarpandy and Walajah Road (Arcot), a distance of 63 miles. the first line was opened on Ist July, 1856 by the Madras Railway Company. It ran between Veyasarpandy and Walajah Road (Arcot), a distance of 63 miles.

      In the North a length of 119 miles of line was laid from Allahabad to Kanpur on 3rd March 1859. The first section from Hathras Road to Mathura Cantonment was opened to traffic on 19th October, 1875.

         The first locomotive built in India : The F-734 built in 1895 by the Ajmer workshop of the Rajputana Malwa Railway. Earlier some locomotives were assembled using spares supplied with fully assembled locomotives which were imported. This locomotive with outside connecting and side rods was used on Rajputana Malwa & Bombay Baroda & Central India Railway systems.

          These were the small beginnings which is due course developed into a network of railway lines all over the country. By 1880 the Indian Railway system had a route mileage of about 9000 miles.
( Source : Old Eastern Railway Magazines of 1953)

Here are some of the many commemorative postage issued in India for different occasions of Indian Railways.

History Of Sachin

 There are two kinds of batsmen in the world. One, Sachin Tendulkar. Two, all other batsmen. - Andy Flower

If one were to ask what is Indian Cricket Team’s most prized possession, the answer would be unanimous – Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. But he is not just Indian team’s most prized possession. He’s also Cricket's most prized possession.
 And now, with the completion of his 100th international ton, he has gifted the world of cricket, and cricket lovers, a moment to cherish for an entire lifetime. It will be impossible to see any other cricketer achieve such a feat ever. This is exactly what separates Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar from other 'cricketers'.

The man has been playing astounding cricket for the last two decades and is still nothing short of a blitzkrieg! He refuses to age or get less aggressive with time. Still a bowler’s worst nightmare (bowlers like Shane Warne and Glen McGrath stand in testimony to this); Sachin is also known for his sportsmanship and gentlemanliness.

He has emerged as a source of inspiration to crores of Indians exhorting them to rise above mediocrity and can single-handedly elevate the mood of the nation.

Can Sachin Tendulkar Walk on Water?

Not difficult to make his fans believe that Sachin can walk on water who might also probably believe that he has X-Ray vision and can stop trains. The man has been elevated to a Godly status in India and his worshippers can be found almost everywhere.

 Born in Mumbai to Ramesh Tendulkar, a novelist and Rajni Tendulkar, who worked in the insurance sector Tendulkar was soon identified as a cricket prodigy. It didn’t take him much time to embark on his cricketing journey and he became a mentee of Ramakant Achrekar in his early years. There’s an interesting incident from his kid-years: When he was young, Tendulkar would practice for hours on end in the nets. If he became exhausted, Achrekar would put a one-Rupee-coin on the top of the stumps, and the bowler who dismissed Tendulkar would get the coin. If Tendulkar passed the whole session without getting dismissed, the coach would give him the coin. Young Sachin got thirteen Re 1 coins from his coach and he considers them his most prized possession.

Tendulkar started to make his presence felt as he touched teenage. He was being talked about in the Mumbai cricketing circles. Many started predicting that the boy would be the next big thing in cricket. There’s a legend which goes around that Sachin would make bowlers shed tears while he played for his school, as he would refuse to get out.

The world came to know about Sachin in 1989 when a 16-year old ‘genius-in-making’ put on his batting gloves for his first international test match.
Despite a humble start in his first two series (against Pakistan and New Zealand respectively) he hit first test ton against England in 1990 (119 not out) and then there was no looking back. The little genius now has a plethora of records in his kitty; some are the ones which other players can only dream of achieving.
As Lord Rama is to his devotees, Sachin is so to his fans. He’s taken to be an embodiment of righteousness in cricket. Known for his high personal integrity and honesty, every time he ‘walks’, it becomes ‘A Walk to Remember’.
Even though it took him 70 ODIs to get his first century in the limited-overs edition of the game, Sachin is just a hundred short from making a ‘century of the centuries’ in the International cricket (tests and ODIs combined). Sachin’s most memorable ODI inning (which is also the most memorable inning in the history of ODI cricket) came against South Africa.
 The master scored an unbeaten 200 on 147 off 147 balls and Indian went on to maul the Proteas by 153 runs. Sachin’s greatness touched new heights and so did his humility.

One can safely assume that Sachin is the greatest batsmen to have ever walked on this planet.


Over the course of time it has been Tendulkar's rare combination of mastery and bravado that has enchanted aficionados and crowds alike. One of the most striking aspects of the master is his hunger for more. He has achieved numerous milestones in his journey but every time he makes a record he starts focusing on reaching the next level.

The master batsman has had his share of rough form. Several injuries have dotted his career line. Critics committed the misdemeanour of wiritng him off. But he remained undeterred. Like a true gentleman he let his action speak louder than his words. The way he regains his form has gagged the critics on several occasions. One can only marvel how he continues to march on against all odds.
 Critics and media have tried hard to find skeletons in his cupboard only to fail miserably. Tendulkar is a man of impeccable integrity and would always be one. Few can match his off-the-field stature, let alone his on-the-field stature. A mere request from him on Twitter could generate Rs 1 crore for the ‘Crusade Against Cancer’ foundation he is associated with. For his fans (the number runs into millions and they don’t give a damn about the critics and the media), he’s a demi-god, a colossal figure capable of pulling of miracles.


Sachin is known to live a cagey life due to the cult following he has attained. He is known to put on disguises to move about on streets, drive his cars in the dead of the night for the fear of a crowd following him like mad and take his family to Iceland for holidaying. As Peter Roebuck observes, “The runs, the majesty, the thrills, do not capture his achievement. Reflect upon his circumstances and then marvel at his feat. He is a person whose entire adult life has been lived in the eye of a storm."
 There’s something singularly special in the master blaster. Beneath the helmet, under the disorderly curly hair, inside the skull, there’s something beyond our interpretation. There’s something which enables him to rise and shine above others and reach those territories of the sport that, forget us, even those fortunate enough to play on the same pitch as him cannot even fathom. The man is the embodiment of endurance and true grit.

We fail to fully decipher his recipe for success. We can’t figure out how a 37-year old cricketer stays at the top of the game for 20 years and continues to be a bowler's worst nightmare. All we know that he is a man who pulls off a jaw-dropping feat every now and then.

The team at MensXP extends its heartiest congratulations to Sachin.  (Entertainment, MensXP.com)

history of olympics

According to legend, the ancient Olympic Games were founded by Heracles (the Roman Hercules), a son of Zeus. Yet the first Olympic Games for which we still have written records were held in 776 BCE (though it is generally believed that the Games had been going on for many years already). At this Olympic Games, a naked runner, Coroebus (a cook from Elis), won the sole event at the Olympics, the stade - a run of approximately 192 meters (210 yards). This made Coroebus the very first Olympic champion in history.

The ancient Olympic Games grew and continued to be played every four years for nearly 1200 years. In 393 CE, the Roman emperor Theodosius I, a Christian, abolished the Games because of their pagan influences.




Pierre de Coubertin Proposes New Olympic Games
Approximately 1500 years later, a young Frenchmen named Pierre de Coubertin began their revival. Coubertin is now known as le Rénovateur. Coubertin was a French aristocrat born on January 1, 1863. He was only seven years old when France was overrun by the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Some believe that Coubertin attributed the defeat of France not to its military skills but rather to the French soldiers' lack of vigor.* After examining the education of the German, British, and American children, Coubertin decided that it was exercise, more specifically sports, that made a well-rounded and vigorous person.

Coubertin's attempt to get France interested in sports was not met with enthusiasm. Still, Coubertin persisted. In 1890, he organized and founded a sports organization, Union des Sociétés Francaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA). Two years later, Coubertin first pitched his idea to revive the Olympic Games. At a meeting of the Union des Sports Athlétiques in Paris on November 25, 1892, Coubertin stated,

    Let us export our oarsmen, our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the true Free Trade of the future; and the day it is introduced into Europe the cause of Peace will have received a new and strong ally. It inspires me to touch upon another step I now propose and in it I shall ask that the help you have given me hitherto you will extend again, so that together we may attempt to realise [sic], upon a basis suitable to the conditions of our modern life, the splendid and beneficent task of reviving the Olympic Games.**

His speech did not inspire action.
The Modern Olympic Games Are Founded

Though Coubertin was not the first to propose the revival of the Olympic Games, he was certainly the most well-connected and persistent of those to do so. Two years later, Coubertin organized a meeting with 79 delegates who represented nine countries. He gathered these delegates in an auditorium that was decorated by neoclassical murals and similar additional points of ambiance. At this meeting, Coubertin eloquently spoke of the revival of the Olympic Games. This time, Coubertin aroused interest.

The delegates at the conference voted unanimously for the Olympic Games. The delegates also decided to have Coubertin construct an international committee to organize the Games. This committee became the International Olympic Committee (IOC; Comité Internationale Olympique) and Demetrious Vikelas from Greece was selected to be its first president. Athens was chosen as the location for the revival of the Olympic Games and the planning was begun.

* Allen Guttmann, The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992) 8.
** Pierre de Coubertin as quoted in "Olympic Games," Britannica.com (Retrieved August 10, 2000 from the World Wide Web. http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/2/0,5716,115022+1+108519,00.html).

Bibliography

Durant, John. Highlights of the Olympics: From Ancient Times to the Present. New York: Hastings House Publishers, 1973.

Guttmann, Allen. The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Henry, Bill. An Approved History of the Olympic Games. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1948.

Messinesi, Xenophon L. A Branch of Wild Olive. New York: Exposition Press, 1973.

"Olympic Games." Britannica.com. Retrieved August 10, 2000 from the World Wide Web. http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/2/0,5716,115022+1+108519,00.html

Pitt, Leonard and Dale Pitt. Los Angeles A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the City and Country. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997

History ofThe π

The History of π

In the long history of the number π, there have been many twists and turns, many inconsistencies that reflect the condition of the human race as a whole. Through each major period of world history and in each regional area, the state of intellectual thought, the state of mathematics, and hence the state of π, has been dictated by the same socio-economic and geographic forces as every other aspect of civilization. The following is a brief history, organized by period and region, of the development of our understanding of the number π.

In ancient times, π was discovered independently by the first civilizations to begin agriculture. Their new sedentary life style first freed up time for mathematical pondering, and the need for permanent shelter necessitated the development of basic engineering skills, which in many instances required a knowledge of the relationship between the square and the circle (usually satisfied by finding a reasonable approximation of π). Although there are no surviving records of individual mathematicians from this period, historians today know the values used by some ancient cultures. Here is a sampling of some cultures and the values that they used: Babylonians - 3 1/8, Egyptians - (16/9)^2, Chinese - 3, Hebrews - 3 (implied in the Bible, I Kings vii, 23).

The first record of an individual mathematician taking on the problem of π (often called "squaring the circle," and involving the search for a way to cleanly relate either the area or the circumference of a circle to that of a square) occurred in ancient Greece in the 400's B.C. (this attempt was made by Anaxagoras). Based on this fact, it is not surprising that the Greek culture was the first to truly delve into the possibilities of abstract mathematics. The part of the Greek culture centered in Athens made great leaps in the area of geometry, the first branch of mathematics to be thoroughly explored. Antiphon, an Athenian philosopher, first stated the principle of exhaustion (click on Antiphon for more info). Hippias of Elis created a curve called the quadratrix, which actually allowed the theoretical squaring of the circle, though it was not practical.

In the late Greek period (300's-200's B.C.), after Alexander the Great had spread Greek culture from the western borders of India to the Nile Valley of Egypt, Alexandria, Egypt became the intellectual center of the world. Among the many scholars who worked at the University there, by far the most influential to the history of π was Euclid. Through the publishing of Elements, he provided countless future mathematicians with the tools with which to attack the π problem. The other great thinker of this time, Archimedes, studied in Alexandria but lived his life on the island of Sicily. It was Archimedes who approximated his value of π to about 22/7, which is still a common value today.

Archimedes was killed in 212 B.C. in the Roman conquest of Syracuse. In the years after his death, the Roman Empire gradually gained control of the known world. Despite their other achievements, the Romans are not known for their mathematical achievements. The dark period after the fall of Rome was even worse for π. Little new was discovered about π until well into the decline of the Middle Ages, more than a thousand years after Archimedes' death. (For an example of at least one mediaeval mathematician, see Fibonacci.)


While π activity stagnated in Europe, the situation in other parts of the world was quite different. The Mayan civilization, situated on the Yucatan Peninsula in Central America, was quite advanced for its time. The Mayans were top-notch astronomers, developing a very accurate calendar. In order to do this, it would have been necessary for them to have a fairly good value for π. Though no one knows for sure (nearly all Mayan literature was burned during the Spanish conquest of Mexico), most historians agree that the Mayan value was indeed more accurate than that of the Europeans. The Chinese in the 5th century calculated π to an accuracy not surpassed by Europe until the 1500's. The Chinese, as well as the Hindus, arrived at π in roughly the same method as the Europeans until well into the Renaissance, when Europe finally began to pull ahead.

During the Renaissance period, π activity in Europe began to finally get moving again. Two factors fueled this acceleration: the increasing importance of mathematics for use in navigation, and the infiltration of Arabic numerals, including the zero (indirectly introduced from India) and decimal notation (yes, the great mathematicians of antiquity made all of their discoveries without our standard digits of 0-9!). Leonardo Da Vinci and Nicolas Copernicus made minimal contributions to the π endeavor, but François Viète actually made significant improvements to Archimedes' methods. The efforts of Snellius, Gregory, and John Machin eventually culminated in algebraic formulas for π that allowed rapid calculation, leading to ever more accurate values of π during this period.

In the 1700's the invention of calculus by Sir Isaac Newton and Leibniz rapidly accelerated the calculation and theorization of π. Using advanced mathematics, Leonhard Euler found a formula for π that is the fastest to date. In the late 1700's Lambert (Swiss) and Legendre (French) independently proved that π is irrational. Although Legendre predicted that π is also transcendental, this was not proven until 1882 when Lindemann published a thirteen-page paper proving the validity of Legendre's statement. Also in the 18th century, George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, discovered an experimental method for calculating π. Pierre Simon Laplace, one of the founders of probability theory, followed up on this in the next century. Click here to learn more about Buffon's and Laplace's method.

Starting in 1949 with the ENIAC computer, digital systems have been calculating π to incredible accuracy throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Whereas ENIAC was able to calculate 2,037 digits, the record as of the date of this article is 206,158,430,000 digits, calculated by researchers at the University of Tokyo. It is highly probable that this record will be broken, and there is little chance that the search for ever more accurate values of π will ever come to an end.

History Of Mathematics

Every culture on earth has developed some mathematics. In some cases, this mathematics has spread from one culture to another. Now there is one predominant international mathematics, and this mathematics has quite a history. It has roots in ancient Egypt and Babylonia, then grew rapidly in ancient Greece. Mathematics written in ancient Greek was translated into Arabic. About the same time some mathematics of India was translated into Arabic. Later some of this mathematics was translated into Latin and became the mathematics of Western Europe. Over a period of several hundred years, it became the mathematics of the world.
There are other places in the world that developed significant mathematics, such as China, southern India, and Japan, and they are interesting to study, but the mathematics of the other regions have not had much influence on current international mathematics. There is, of course, much mathematics being done these and other regions, but it is not the traditional math of the regions, but international mathematics.

By far, the most significant development in mathematics was giving it firm logical foundations. This took place in ancient Greece in the centuries preceding Euclid. See Euclid's Elements. Logical foundations give mathematics more than just certainty-they are a tool to investigate the unknown.

By the 20th century the edge of that unknown had receded to where only a few could see. One was David Hilbert, a leading mathematician of the turn of the century. In 1900 he addressed the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris, and described 23 important mathematical problems.

Mathematics continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. There is no end in sight, and the application of mathematics to science becomes greater all the time.

History Of Surat

Surat (Gujarati: સુરત, Hindi: सूरत) formerly known as Suryapur, is the commercial capital city of the Indian state of Gujarat and also Second largest commercial hub of western India after Mumbai. The city proper is the one of the most populous cities in the world. Surat is the administrative capital of Surat district and Surat Metropolitan Region. Surat is India’s eighth largest metropolitan city. Surat is India’s cleanest Mertropolitan Region

The city is situated on the left bank of the Tapti River, 14 miles from its mouth. The Population of Surat with its twin city Navsari is above 6.2 million as of 2010. A moat divides the older parts of the city, with its narrow streets and handsome houses, and the newer suburbs. The city is largely recognized for its textile and diamond businesses. It is also known as the diamond capital of the world and the textile capital of India. 92% of the world’s diamonds are cut and polished in Surat. Surat is also the Third cleanest city in India after Chandigarh and Mysore. Surat was once the largest city in India. It has one of the highest GDP growth rates in India at 11.5% as of 2008. Surat was the primary port of India during the Mughal period, a distinction it lost to Bombay during the British Raj.

History
Surat is mentioned in the Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata when Lord Krishna stopped there en route from Mathura to Dwarka. According to other later Sanskrit records, the area was ruled by the Western Chālukyas in 610 CE, and continued to be ruled by Hindu kings until it was captured by one of the generals of Quṭbuddīn Aibak. The Parsis started to settle there in the 12th century, and added greatly to its prosperity. In the early centuries during the reign of Rishika Lekhadia, the port of Surat was used as the gateway to Mecca for pilgrims of the Hajj from India’s interior regions. Both the Makkai Pool and the Mughal Sarai guest house for hajjis (pilgrims) are indicators of this historical significance.

Local traditions state that the city was founded in the last years of the fifteenth century by a Brahman named Gopi, who called it Suryapūr (City of the Sun). In 1512 and 1530 Surat was burned and ravaged by the Portuguese Empire who were trying to maintain influence in the area. In 1513, the Portuguese traveler, Duarte Barbosa, described Surat as an important seaport, frequented by many ships from Malabar and various parts of the world. By 1520, the name of the city was Surat.

Surat eclipsed Khambhat as the major port of western India, when Khambhat’s harbour began to silt up by the end of fifteenth century. During the reigns of the Mughal emperor Akbar, Jahāngīr and Shāh Jahān, Surat rose to become a chief commercial city of India and an imperial mint was established there. As the major port on the west coast of India, Surat also served as the port for the Hajj to Mecca. At the end of the 16th century, the Portuguese were undisputed masters of the Surat sea trade. There still is a picturesque fortress on the banks of the river built in 1540.

In 1608, ships from the British East India Company started docking in Surat, using it as a trade and transit point. In 1613, the British Captain Best, followed by Captain Downton, overcame Portuguese naval supremacy and obtained an imperial firman establishing a British factory at Surat following the Battle of Swally. The city was made the seat of a presidency under the British East India Company after the success of the embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the court of emperor Jehangir. The Dutch also founded a factory.

At its zenith, Surat was popularly viewed as the city of Kubera, the God of Wealth. In 1664 the Maratha King Shivaji attacked Surat, a key Mughal power centre, and a wealthy port town which generated a million rupees in taxes. (see- Battle of Surat). When Shivaji arrived in Surat, he demanded tribute from the Mughal commander of the army stationed for port security. The tribute was refused and instead of battling the Marathas, the Mughal commander(Stationed at the Surat fort) sent an emissary to assassinate Shivaji, but in vain. Shivaji conquered the city and forces under his command exacted their revenge. Shivaji’s army sacked Surat for nearly 3 weeks, looting both the Mughal and Portuguese trading centers. Men’s were killed but the poor were spared.

The prosperity of Surat received a fatal blow when Bombay was ceded to the British as part of the dowry for Catherine of Braganza’s wedding to Charles II in 1662. Shortly afterwards, in 1668, the British East India company established a factory in Bombay (Mumbai) and Surat began its relative decline concurrent with the rise of British interests in Bombay.

Surat was sacked again by Shivaji in 1670. By 1687, the British East India Company had moved the presidency to Bombay. At its height, Surat’s population reached an estimated 800,000, but by the middle of the 19th century the number had fallen to 80,000. The British took control of Surat again in 1759, and assumed all government powers of the city in 1800.

The city and the surrounding district remained comparatively tranquil during British rule. Even during the Revolt of 1857 (also known as the first struggle for India’s independence), peace was not disturbed, owing to the largely mercantile interests of the local population.In the 19th century the Bawamia family was the wealthiest and most powerful family in the city of Surat, they were also heavily involved in the development of the city by focusing on maximizing exports to increase revenue and hence increase savings which led to investment in the diamond industry.

A fire and a flood in 1837 destroyed many of buildings of Surat. Among the interesting monuments that survive that destruction are the tombs of English and Dutch merchants and their families, dating to the 17th century, including those of the Oxenden brothers.

By the early 20th century, the population had slowly climbed to 119,306 and Surat was a center of trade and manufacturing, although some of its former industries, such as shipbuilding, were extinct. There were cotton mills, factories for ginning and pressing cotton, rice-cleaning mills and paper mills. Fine cotton goods were woven on hand-looms, and there were special manufactures of silk brocade and gold embroidery (known as Jari). The chief trades were organized in guilds. Manufacturing and trading brought an eclectic mix of ethnicity to the city, making Surat’s culture unique.

In 1992, violent riots took place between Hindus and Muslims, the first and worst of their kind in the modern history of Surat. In 1994, a combination of heavy rains and blocked drains led to flooding of the city. A number of dead street animals and public waste were not removed in time and a plague epidemic spread through the city, which caused a number of countries to impose travel and trade sanctions. The municipal commissioner during that time, S. R. Rao and the people of Surat worked hard in the late 1990s to clean the city.

Old English & Dutch Cemetery
The structure of the Old English and Old Dutch cemeteries in Surat is dominated by the largest monuments of Europeans in all over India. These graves are also some of the oldest tombs which have survived from the earliest times of British and Dutch activities at Surat.

The English traders settled in Surat in 1608 followed by the Dutch in 1617. French and also Swedes – even for just a short period – commenced trading-enterprises here. However, it seems that there are no re-mainders of their burial culture left today. Along with the Dutch also Armenian traders left a quite big cemetery in Surat. Both nations share the same burial ground only separated by a wall.

History Of Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad or Ahmadabad is the largest city in state of Gujarat (there are 28 states, Gujarat is the westernmost one)and the sixth largest city in India has
a population of over 3,7 million people. The city is also sometimes called Karnavati , an older name and as Amdavad in colloquial Gujarati .

Ahmedabad is the administrative center of Ahmedabad District , and was the former capital of Gujarat State from 1960 to 1970 , when Gandhinagar replaced it.

The city was founded in the 15th century by Sultan Ahmed Shah on the Sabarmati river , and served as capital of the Sultanate of Gujarat. The historic center of Ahmedabad is presently a thriving business district.

Ahmedabad is mainly divided in two parts, the old city, and new city. The old city has developed rather haphazardly, and most of the roads are narrow and crowded during business hours. The new city has well-structured, wide roads. A wide variety of shops and businesses exist in the city.

In addition to its role as a commercial center, Ahmedabad is also an important industrial center, with chemical and textile industries. Ahmedabad is often described as the Manchester of the East, because of its once-booming textile industry. Ahmedabad is a very beautiful city.


History
The History of Ahmedabad begins in the eleventh century with the Solanki King Karandev I, ruler of Anhilwara (modern Patan). He waged a war against the Bhil King Ashapall or Ashaval, and after his victory established a city called Karnavati on the banks of the Sabarmati at site of modern Ahmedabad. Solanki rule lasted until the thirteenth century, when Gujarat came under the control of the Vaghela dynasty of Dwarka. Gujarat was conquered by the Sultanate of Delhi at the end of the thirteenth century.

In 1411 , the rule of the Muzaffarid dynasty was established in Gujarat. According to tradition, Sultan Ahmed Shah, while camping on the banks of the River Sabarmati, saw a hare chasing a dog. Impressed by this act of bravery, the Sultan, who had been looking for a place to build his new capital, decided to locate the capital here and called it Ahmedabad.

In 1487, Mahmud Begada, the grandson of Ahmed Shah, fortified the city with an outer wall 10 km (6 miles) in circumference and consisting of twelve gates, 189 bastions and over 6,000 battlements. Ahmedabad was ruled by the Muzaffarid dynasty until 1573 when Muzaffar II was the Sultan of Ahmedabad. Gujarat was then conquered by the Mughal emperor Akbar in 1573. During the Mughal reign, Ahmedabad became one of the Empire's thriving centres of trade, mainly in textiles, which were exported to as far as Europe. The Mughal ruler Shahjahan spent the prime of his life in the city, sponsoring the construction of the Moti Shahi Mahal in Shahibaug. The armies of the Maratha generals Raghunath Rao and Damaji Gaekwad captured the city and ended Mughal rule in Ahmedabad. A famine in 1630 and the constant conflicts between the Peshwa and the Gaekwad armies virtually destroyed many parts of the city, causing its population to flee. The British East India Company took over the city in 1818 as a part of the conquest of India. A military cantonment was established in 1824 and a municipal government in 1858. In 1864, a railway link between Ahmedabad and Mumbai (then Bombay) was established by the Bombay, Baroda, and Central India Railway (BB&CI), making Ahmedabad an important junction in the traffic and trade between northern and southern India. Large numbers of people migrated from rural areas to work in textile mills, establishing a robust industry.

The Indian independence movement developed strong roots in the city when, in 1915, Mahatma Gandhi established two ashrams — the Kochrab Ashram near Paldi in 1915 and the Satyagraha Ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati in 1917 — that would become centres of intense nationalist activities. During the mass protests against the Rowlatt Act in 1919, textile workers burned down 51 government buildings across the city in protest at a British attempt to extend wartime regulations after the First World War. In the 1920s, textile workers and teachers went on strike, demanding civil rights and better pay and working conditions. In 1930, Gandhi initiated the Salt Satyagraha from Ahmedabad by embarking from his ashram on the famous Dandi Salt March. The city administration and economic institutions were rendered functionless by the large masses of people who took to the streets in peaceful protests in the early 1930s, and again in 1942 during the Quit India movement. Following independence and the partition of India in 1947, the city was scarred by intense communal violence that broke out between Hindus and Muslims.

Ahmedabad became the capital of the new state of Gujarat after the bifurcation of the State of Bombay on 1 May 1960. During that period, a large number of educational and research institutions were founded in the city, making it a major centre of higher education, science and technology. Ahmedabad's economic base was diversified with the establishment of heavy and chemical industries in its vicinity around the same period. But the growth in the next two decades was punctuated by political events in and around the city. In February 1974, Ahmedabad occupied the centre stage in national politics with the launch of the Nav Nirman agitation — a protest against a 20% hike in the hostel food fees at the L.D. College of Engineering that snowballed into a mass agitation to remove Chimanbhai Patel, then-chief minister of Gujarat, on charges of corruption. In the 1980s, a reservation policy was introduced in the country, which led to anti-reservation protests in 1981 and 1985. The protests witnessed violent clashes between people belonging to various castes.

On 26 January 2001 a devastating earthquake struck the city, centred near Bhuj, measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale. As many as 50 multistory buildings collapsed, killing 752 people and devastating the city's infrastructure.

In recent years, the effects of globalisation and the liberalisation of the Indian economy has energised the city's economy. The city has witnessed the establishment of scientific and service industries, the expansion of the information technology sector, and significant improvements in transportation and communications. Ahmedabad's population is growing, which has resulted in a construction and housing boom. However, this has challenged the city's infrastructure and power supply.