Monday December 12, 2005
Sir, it not Bangalore anymore, its Bengaluru!
Yes, it happened again. Earlier, there were a few cities in India moving back to their pre-colonial names such as Bombay going to Mumbai, Madras going to Chennai, Trivandrum to Tiruvananthapuram, Cochin to Kochi, Calcutta to Kolkata, etc. Now its Bangalore turn going to Bengaluru (pronounced close to "Benglooru", not "Bengaaluru").
While the rationale behind this is something that will be debated for a long time, businesses and Govt, now need to get their official stationery, visiting cards, web sites, etc. changed to reflect the new name. A pain for businesses and a boon for stationery printing outfits, etc.
Internationally though, given the erstwhile nomenclature Bangalore's reach, it will take a while to getting used to the new name.
Posted at 08:34AM Dec 12, 2005 by Shreedhar Ganapathy in General | Comments[2]
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Posted by Chris Saul on December 12, 2005 at 10:47 PM PST #
Indeed. I have seen media interviews of literary and political luminaries where an opinion was sought and most compare this event with the change of name that Bombay went through and say that this will not matter. I think Bangalore's reach as a IT brand name is a lot larger than what Bombay had in those days as a financial capital (it continues to be one today ).
That apart, the name change does little to address real problems of the city i.e infrastructure, reliable power and water supply, planned expansions, etc. One can actually feel the impact of digital divide in Bangalore particularly strongly between the state government and the private enterprise. The state government there seems clueless about future infrastructure needs and the extent to which Bangalore is attracting attention.
Posted by Shreedhar on December 13, 2005 at 08:33 AM PST #