Calcutta (English: Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta)

Calcutta is the most populous and largest city in the Republic of India and a major port in India. It is located on the left bank of the Hooghly River in the Ganges Delta, with a metropolitan area of ??1,300 square kilometers. In the lower latitude Indian tropics, the climate is hot all year round, with an annual rainfall of more than 1,000 millimeters. Green trees and flowers bloom all year round.

The city of Kolkata only has a history of 200-300 years from its emergence and prosperity until today. But due to the ancient Indian civilization, numerous cultural relics and historic sites, peculiar religious customs, unique folk art, etc., it deeply attracts tourists from all over the world.

There are many places of interest and entertainment venues around the Maidan area of ??Kolkata, which is the most attractive area. The famous Fort William is located in the north-central part, and the Garden of Eden at the northern end has the oldest cricket ground in the world; at the southwest end there is the zoo and the best racecourse in the East; to the east of the racecourse are the Victoria Memorial Hall and St. Paul's Cathedral. The Victoria Memorial Hall was built in the early part of this century. It is a majestic Renaissance-style building. On the high dome stands the Statue of the Goddess of Victory. There are also many statues of important figures in the British Empire's colonization of India, such as Clive and Watts. Len Hastings et al. The museum displays many paintings showing major events in the Victorian era, as well as the Queen's edicts and souvenirs.

At the corner of Chorinji Road and Sood Street, there is the Indian Museum, the oldest museum in India. Its scale is second to none in the East. The museum is divided into 6 departments including archeology, art, and ethnography, and has very rich exhibits. For example, there are reproductions of sculptures, murals, and reliefs in the Balut, Gandhara, and Gupta showrooms, famous paintings from Persia and India, and important cultural relics such as ivory, lacquerware, and ceramics.

The Hooghly River flowing through Kolkata is a tributary of the Ganges. Devout Hindus regard the Ganges as a holy river and believe that the Ganges water can wash away the sins of the soul, so bathing is an important religious ritual that must be performed every day. . Every morning, groups of Hindus come to the Hooghly River and smear themselves with river mud. They believe that the mud from the holy river is also sacred. It is said that river mud can also cure diseases, especially stomach problems. After praying, wash your whole body with clean water. After bathing, they believed that sins were washed away and body and soul were purified.

Cows are regarded as sacred objects in India and are worshiped by people. In Calcutta, you can often see those sacred cows wandering the streets, slowly moving among vehicles and people, regardless of regulations, whether they are speeding cars, motorcycles, buses, or trams. These sacred cows must be kept at a distance. They have long been accustomed to the sound of vehicle horns and often urinate all over the ground. Faithful Hindus don’t even use cowhide shoes, bags and other cowhide products.

In the streets of Kolkata, inside and outside parks, and beside temples, you can often see old people from the countryside playing flutes. Along with the beautiful music, cobras in bamboo baskets sway with full skin. Twist and dance, this is the ancient folk art of India - snake charmer. Snake charming is a profession passed down from generation to generation, and it is recorded that it was popular as early as the 3rd century AD. People watching snake charmers often crowd around the snake charmers and the streets are extremely crowded.

Calcutta is also the birthplace of Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian poet, famous writer and social activist. Tagore was a friend of the Chinese people. He visited China in 1924 and forged a profound friendship with the Chinese people. When Chinese people come to Calcutta, they all want to pay homage to his former residence.

Calcutta is one of the economic, transportation and cultural centers of India. There is the world's largest jute processing industrial zone here. The main industries include cotton and silk textiles, steel, military industry, machinery, vehicles, motors, etc. Kolkata is an important international airport in South Asia and the largest port on the east coast of India. Most of the jute, tea, minerals and other products abundant in the Ganges River Basin are exported from here, and the cargo throughput accounts for about 1/3 of the country's total.

Countless temples, palaces, castles, and pagodas make Kolkata a veritable "history museum" that explores ancient and glorious art, religion, and philosophy, attracting a large number of foreign tourists every year Come visit and tour.

◆Place names

The name of Kolkata may come from the name of a village, Kalikata. There were originally three villages in that area before the British came: Kalikata Kata, Sudonuti and Gabindapur, Kalikata means the land of Goddess Kali, and there is a temple dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali outside the village. However, some people believe that the name of the city originates from kali (Bengali, meaning canal) and kata (Bengali, meaning lime), because its original settlement was located on the edge of a canal, and it burned shells and processed shells. Lime is famous. In 2001, the city's official English name was changed from "Calcutta" to "Kolkata" according to the local Bengali pronunciation. However, most people and organizations still prefer to use the old place name Calcutta; in Hindi it is Kalkatta.

◆History

An archaeological site discovered near Kolkata proves that there were people living here 2000 years ago.

The city's written history begins with the arrival of the British East India Company in 1690, which consolidated its trade in Bengal. Job Charnock, the company's administrator who chose to settle in Sutanuti after an invasion, is traditionally considered the city's founder (although more recently experts no longer agree that Charnock was the city's founder). the city’s official founder’s perspective). In 1699, the British completed construction of Old Fort William and used it as a trading post and regional base. Calcutta was declared a presiding city and later became the headquarters of Bengal Presidency. In 1756, facing frequent conflicts with French forces, the British began to upgrade their fortifications. Bengal Administrator Siraj Ud Daura's protests against such a militarized move were ignored, so he attacked and captured Fort William in what became known as the Black Hole Incident. A company of Indian and British soldiers led by Robert Clive recaptured the city the following year. In 1772, Calcutta was designated as the capital of British India. During this period the swamps around the city were drained and the government district was built along the banks of the Hooghly River. Governor Richard Wellesley was largely responsible for the city's growth between 1797–1805. Kolkata is described as the "City of Palaces" due to its spectacular palace architecture.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Calcutta was divided into two distinct areas - a British area and an Indian area, called "Black Town". Even then, the poverty of the “black towns” was appalling. From the 1850s onwards, the city experienced rapid industrial growth, particularly the textile and jute industries; the British government also made large-scale investments in infrastructure such as railways and telegraphs. The fusion of British and Indian cultures also created a new Babu class in the cities—the earliest middle class in India and Asia, whose members were often professionals, newspaper-reading, Anglophile, and belonging to upper-caste Hindu groups. Throughout the 19th century, a socio-cultural change known as the Bengal Renaissance brought about general progress in society. In 1883, the Indian National Association, India's first political organization in the 19th century, was established in Calcutta. Calcutta gradually became one of the centers of the Indian independence movement. The partition of Bengal in 1905 triggered widespread popular unrest and a boycott of British goods. As a result of these activities, and because of the administrative inconveniences of Calcutta's location on India's eastern edge, the British moved the capital to New Delhi in 1911. During World War II, the city's port was twice bombed by the Japanese. Millions of people starved to death during the 1943 Bengal Famine as food reserves were used to supply the Allied forces. In 1946, demands for a separate Muslim state led to massive popular violence that killed more than 2,000 people. Partition of India brought severe violence and mass migration - Muslims left in droves for East Pakistan, while hundreds of thousands of Hindus fled into the city.

In the 1960s and 1970s, severe energy shortages, strikes, and the violent Marxist-Maoist movement known as the Naxalite movement damaged much of the city's infrastructure, leading to severe economic stagnation. The outbreak of war between India and Pakistan in 1971 led to the influx of thousands of refugees into Calcutta, overstretching the city's urban facilities. In the mid-1980s, Mumbai replaced Kolkata as India's most populous city. Kolkata is a strong base for Indian communism. The Left Front controlled by the Communist Party of India (M) has been in power in West Bengal for 30 consecutive years and is the longest-ruling democratically elected government in the world. Communist Party government. In the mid-1990s, after the Indian central government began economic reforms, the city began to move towards economic recovery. Since 2000, information technology (IT) has revived the city's stagnant economy. The city has also experienced growth in the manufacturing sector.

◆Geography

Calcutta is located in the Ganges Delta in eastern India, at 22°33' north latitude and 88°20' east longitude, with an altitude ranging from 1.5 to 9 meters. The city stretches along the banks of the Hooghly River in a north-south direction. Many parts of the city were originally large wetlands, and it took decades to transform them into places suitable for citizens to live. The Sundarbans National Park separates the city from the Bay of Bengal, 154 kilometers to the south.

As in much of the Indus-Gangetic Plain, the predominant soil type here is alluvial soil. The foundation of the city is composed of 4 layers of sediment: clay, silt, various sands of different thicknesses, and gravel. The sediments are sandwiched between two layers of silt, the lower layer being between 250 and 650 meters deep, and the upper layer being between 10 and 40 meters thick. According to Bureau of Indian Standards documents, the city is classified as a Category III seismic zone among the four seismic scale zones. According to the United Nations Development Program report, the city is classified as "high risk of damage" in the storm and cyclone zoning.

◆Climate

Kolkata has a tropical climate. The annual average temperature is 26.8 degrees Celsius, and the monthly average temperature ranges from 19 °C to 30 °C. Summers are hot and humid, with maximum temperatures often exceeding 40°C from May to July. Winter lasts only 2 and a half months, and in December and January, temperatures can drop to 12 °C – 14 °C.

The highest recorded temperature is 43 °C and the lowest temperature is 5 °C. In early summer, thunderstorms accompanied by strong winds often hit the city intermittently, which is very helpful in alleviating the humidity and heat. Such thunderstorms are locally called Kal baisakhi (north-west wind).

The southeast monsoon brings more than half of the city’s annual rainfall, 1,582 mm, from June to September. The maximum rainfall occurs during the monsoon in August (306 mm). The city has 2,528 hours of sunshine each year, with the maximum sunshine hours occurring in March each year. Pollution is a major problem in Kolkata, with suspended particulate matter (SPM) levels higher than other major cities in India, regularly causing smog.

◆Urban Structure

The city of Kolkata, managed by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), covers an area of ??185 km2. The Kolkata Metropolitan Area continues to expand. By 2006, its area had reached 1,750 km2, including 72 cities and 527 villages and towns. The suburbs of Kolkata Metropolitan Region incorporate parts of North 24, South 24, Howrah, Hooghly and Nadia districts.

The east-west scale of the urban area is very narrow, roughly extending from the Hooghly River in the west to the Metropolitan Eastern Bypass in the east, with a span of only 5–6 kilometers. The city extending north to south can be roughly divided into North District, Central District and South District. The North District is the oldest part of the city, with 19th-century buildings and narrow side streets. The atmosphere of the area is reminiscent of old Kolkata. The Southern District was mainly built after independence and was the residence of the elite. The Salt Lake area in northeast Kolkata is a planned part of the city. A new town was planned and developed on the northeastern edge of the city.

The Central District has the central business district surrounding the B. B. D. Bagh area. Writers Building, Calcutta General Post Office, Calcutta High Court, and several other government and private offices are located here. Parque Matan is a huge open space in the heart of the city, where several sporting events and public gatherings are held. Several companies have established offices in the area south of Park Street, which has become a second central business district.

◆Economy

Calcutta is a major commercial and financial center in eastern and northeastern India and is home to the Calcutta Stock Exchange - the second largest exchange in India. It is also an important commercial and military port and is the only city in the region with an international airport. Kolkata was once the capital and number one city of India. After India's independence, due to the unstable political situation (located on the border of hostile countries) and the trade union movement supported by left-wing parties, it caused a massive flight of funds and began to experience a long-term economic recession. From the 1960s to the mid-1990s, many large factories closed or shrank, and business moved elsewhere. A lack of funds and resources, coupled with insufficient international demand for the city's traditional industries such as jute, added to the city's economic depression. In the 1990s, with the election of reformer Budadev Bhattacharjee as the chief minister of West Bengal, Kolkata's economy began a process of liberalization, bringing opportunities for the city's development.

For a long time, more than 40% of the workforce in Kolkata has been employed in the informal economy. The city has a large unskilled and semi-skilled labor force. At the same time, as the capital of West Bengal, state and federal government employees also account for a large proportion of the city's workforce. Kolkata's economic renaissance is largely due to the IT industry, with the IT sector's annual growth rate reaching 70% - 2 times the national average.

In recent years, there has been a wave of investment in new residential projects in the city. Kolkata has many factories run by big companies producing products ranging from electronics to jute. Some famous companies have set up their headquarters in Kolkata, such as ITC, Bata Shoes, Birla Corporation, Coal India, Concord Bank of India, UCO Bank and Allahabad Bank, etc. After 2000, the Indian government adopted the "Look East" policy, opening the Nathu La Pass between Sikkim and China for border trade, and opening up Southeast Asian countries to enter the Indian market and invest, which gave Kolkata a favorable position.

◆Politics

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) was established in 1876 and is responsible for the municipal administration and infrastructure of Kolkata. The city is divided into 15 boroughs and 141 wards, and each ward elects a councilor to the municipal government. Each district has a committee composed of councilors elected from the respective ward. Municipal authorities, through district committees, maintain public schools, hospitals and markets, and are involved in urban planning and road maintenance. The municipality is the highest institution and performs various functions through the mayor-council government, which consists of a mayor, a deputy mayor and 10 councilors. The mayor has overall responsibility for the functions of the municipality and serves a five-year term. Currently, the Left Front dominated by the Communist Party of India (M) is in power in the municipal authorities.

The Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) is an auxiliary agency responsible for the planning and development of the entire Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA).

As the capital of West Bengal, Kolkata houses the state Legislative Assembly, Writers Building (Government Building) and the Calcutta High Court. The Kolkata Police is commanded by a security officer and has 5 police districts and 48 police stations.

The city has 3 seats in India's Lok Sabha and 21 seats in the state legislative assembly.

◆Public affairs and media

The Kolkata Municipal Authority is responsible for supplying drinking water to the city. The water source comes from the Hooghly River and is purified at the water pumping station in North 24 District. Almost all of Kolkata's 2,500 tons of garbage every day is transported to a dump in Deharpa, east of the city, which encourages the recycling of waste and sewage. Parts of the city still lack sewage facilities and wastewater is still treated mainly through unhygienic methods. The private Calcutta Electricity Supply Company (CESC) supplies electricity to the urban area, while the West Bengal Electricity Board supplies electricity to suburban areas. Until the late 1990s, power outages were common in the city; however, the situation has improved. The city has 20 fire brigades, which put out an average of 7,500 fires every year.

The public sector BSNL and private companies such as Hatch, Airport Hotels, Reliance Telecom and Tata Telecom are the major landline and mobile phone service providers in the city. Mobile phones are widely used in the city, and GSM and CDMA services are available. The broadband network business is growing steadily, with BSNL, Tata Telecom, Airport Hotels and Reliance being the major service providers.

In Kolkata, several Bengali newspapers and English newspapers like The Times of India and The Statesman enjoy huge sales. As the largest commercial city in eastern India, many financial dailies in Kolkata have their own stable readership. There are also newspapers in Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu, Punjabi and Chinese for minorities. There are 8 local FM stations in Kolkata. The public Freeman Television provides two free-to-air terrestrial stations, while four "Multiple System Operators" (MSOs) provide Bengali, Hindi, and English programs through cable TV.

◆Transportation

Public transportation consists of the Kolkata Suburban Railway and the Kolkata Metro, as well as trams and buses. The suburban rail network extends to the outer suburbs. The Kolkata Metro, operated by the Indian Railways, is India's oldest metro system. It is parallel to the Hooghly River and runs through the city in a north-south direction with a length of 16.45 kilometers. Buses and automobiles are the preferred mode of transportation, and both government and private parties are involved in the operation. Kolkata is the only city in India to retain trams, operated by the Calcutta Tramway Company. The slow-moving trams are restricted to specific areas of the city. Luxurious air-conditioned cars have recently been introduced and run daily on the route connecting the city to the Chandra Bose International Airport.

The rental motor vehicles are yellow taxis, while the auto-rickshaws travel on prescribed routes. Almost all taxis in Kolkata are Ambassador brand, while Tata and Fiat are common in other big cities. In some areas of the city, rickshaws are also used for short-distance transportation. The number of private vehicles in the city is smaller compared to other major cities. However, the number of registered vehicles in the city has grown steadily; data from 2002 showed that it had increased by 44% in seven years. Kolkata is extremely densely populated, with road space occupying only 6% of the city, which is lower than Delhi (23%) and Mumbai (17%), thus posing serious traffic problems.

The Kolkata Metro and many new roads and flyovers have alleviated the traffic problem to some extent.

There are 2 main long-distance railway stations in Kolkata: Howrah Station and Sirdar Station. The third station named Kolkata was put into use in early 2006. The city is the headquarters of 2 Indian Railways - Eastern Railway and South Eastern Railway.

The city's only airport, Chandra Bose International Airport, is located at Dum Dum in the north of the city and is used by both domestic and international flights. Kolkata is also a major river port in eastern India. The Kolkata Port Authority manages the docks in Kolkata and Haldia. Indian Shipping Lines operates passenger services to Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, as well as cargo services to and from various ports in India and abroad. There is also a ferry service connecting Kolkata with its twin city Howrah.

◆Demography

In 2001, the city of Kolkata had a population of 4,580,544, while the population of the metropolitan area reached 13,216,546. The sex ratio is 828 men per 1,000 men - higher than the national average. This is because many men come to Calcutta from rural areas to work and do not bring their families with them. Kolkata's literacy rate of 80.86% exceeds the national average (64.8%). The growth rate of the registered population in Kolkata Autonomous Region is 4.1%, which is the lowest among all cities in India with a population of more than one million.

Bengalis constitute the majority of the population in Calcutta. Important ethnic minorities include Chinese, Tamils, Marwaris, Anglo-Indians, Biharis, Armenians, Tibetans, and Maharashtras. Terras and Parsis. The major languages ??spoken in Kolkata are Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, English, Maithili and Bihar. According to the 2001 census, 77.68% of Kolkata's population is Hindu, 20.27% is Muslim, and 0.88% is Christian. The city's other minority populations practice Sikhism, Buddhism, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. About one-third of the city's 15 million people live in 2,011 registered and 3,500 unregistered (illegally occupied) slums.

In 2004, 10,757 criminal cases occurred in the Kolkata Police District, ranking 10th in the country. In 2004, the city's crime rate was 8.14 per 10,000 people, lower than the national average (16.88 per 10,000 people). There are more than 10,000 sex workers in Kolkata's Sunagachi area, making it one of the largest red-light districts in India.

◆Culture

Calcutta has long been known for its literary, artistic and revolutionary heritage. As the former capital of India, Kolkata is the birthplace of modern Indian literary and artistic thought. Kolkata tends to have a special appreciation for literature and art; and has a tradition of welcoming new talent, making it a "city of wild creativity".

The traditional forms of drama in Calcutta include jatra (a kind of folk drama), drama and group drama. The city is also known for its Bengali film industry (called Tollywood) as well as arthouse films. It has a long tradition of filmmaking, with many famous directors. The city is also known for its appreciation of Indian classical music. Rabindranath Tagore and many other literary figures left a rich and colorful literary tradition to the city.

One of the defining characteristics of Kolkata is its strong sense of community. Each para (neighborhood) has its own community club, with a party room and often a sports field. People tend to indulge in unhurried chats, and these chat sessions often take the form of free-style conversations that display intelligence. The city has a tradition of political graffiti, depicting everything from outrageous slurs to witty jokes and limericks, from caricatures to political propaganda.

Calcutta has many Gothic, Baroque, Romanesque, Oriental and Indo-Islamic buildings (including Mughal architecture). Kolkata is often called the "City of Palaces" because of its colonial architecture. Some of the main buildings from this period are well preserved, some of them declared "heritage buildings", while others are in varying degrees of decay. Established in 1814, the Indian Museum is the oldest museum in Asia and houses an extensive collection of nature and Indian art. The Victoria Memorial is one of Kolkata's major tourist attractions and houses a museum showcasing the city's history. The National Library of India is the best public library in India. Calcutta Academy of Fine Arts and other art galleries hold regular art exhibitions.

The Mardi Gras Festival is the most famous religious and social festival in Kolkata, celebrated for 5 days in October every year. Other famous festivals are Diwali, Iranian New Year (Baha'i), Holi, Christmas, Bengali New Year, Birth Day and Harvest Festival. As for cultural festivals, there are Calcutta Book Fair, Dover Lane Music Festival, Calcutta Film Festival and National Theater Festival.

The key points of Kolkata cooking are rice and fish curry (macher jhol), and sweet yogurt (mishti doi) as dessert. The repertoire of Bengali cooking is a fish dish, and Bengalis are particularly fond of Indian herring in various preparations. Street foods include beguni (fried eggplant slices), kati roll (rolled bread stuffed with vegetables or chicken), phuchka (fried crepe with tamarind and lentil seasoning), and Chinese cuisine is also very popular in Chinatown in the east of the city. welcome. Men usually choose western attire, while women prefer to wear traditional sarees.

◆Education

Schools in Kolkata are both established by the state government and private (many run by religious groups). The school primarily uses English or Bengali as the medium of instruction, with options also available in Hindi and Urdu. These schools are affiliated to the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) Board, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) or West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. Under the 12+3 scheme, after completing secondary education, students usually enter a two-year preparatory college or a senior secondary school affiliated to the West Bengal Higher Secondary Education Board. Students usually choose liberal arts, business or science subjects, but they can also choose vocational subjects. After completing the necessary studies, students can proceed to general or vocational colleges.

Calcutta has 9 universities; many colleges are associated with these 9 universities or other universities in other places. The University of Calcutta was established in 1857 and has more than 200 affiliated colleges. Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and Jadavpur University both have famous engineering colleges. Other important institutions are Precinct College and St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. Some of the nationally important institutions are Asian Literary Institute, Bose Institute, Indian Statistical Institute, Indian Institute of Management, Indian Institute of Agriculture, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, West Bengal University of Legislative Science, Institute of Marine Engineering and Indian Institute of Science Education (IISER).

◆Sports

Football is the most popular sport in the city and the city is also one of the major centers of football in India. Kolkata has top national clubs such as East Bengal FC and Mohammedan Sports Club. As elsewhere in India, cricket is very popular in the city and is played on the streets and in open spaces. Outdoor games such as cricket, football and badminton, as well as indoor games such as table tennis (carrom), are regularly held with intercity and inter-club competitions. There are several smaller football and cricket clubs and training facilities in the Matan Park area.

Sports stars from Kolkata include former Indian national cricket captain Saurav Gangoli and Olympic tennis bronze medalist Lynde Paes.

Kolkata is famous for its large sports venues. The Eden Gardens Stadium is one of only two 100,000-seat cricket stadiums in the world. Salt Lake Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium and the second largest football stadium in the world. The Netaji Indoor Stadium is an air-conditioned indoor stadium and the Kolkata Cricket and Football Club is the second oldest cricket club in the world. There are three 18-hole golf courses in Kolkata: Royal Calcutta Golf Club (founded in 1829, the world's first golf club outside Britain), Candle Oil Club and Fort William Club. The Royal Calcutta Turf Club (RCTC) regularly organizes horse racing and polo matches. Kolkata South Club is the venue for some national and international tennis tournaments. The Calcutta Rowing Club regularly organizes rowing competitions and also provides related training.

◆Celebrities

Calcutta has produced three Nobel Prize winners in its history:

△ Tagore: In 1913, Nobel Prize for Literature.

△Raman: 1930, Nobel Prize in Physics.

△Mother Teresa: 1979, Nobel Peace Prize.