Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh (/ˈʊtər prəˈdɛʃ/, Hindi : उत्तर प्रदेश literally "Northern Province"), abbreviated as UP, is a state located in Northern India. It was created on 1 April 1937 as the United Provinces, and was renamed Uttar Pradesh in 1950. Lucknow is the capital city of Uttar Pradesh. Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Allahabad, Moradabad, Bareilly, Aligarh, Sonbhadra and Varanasi are known for their industrial importance in the state. On 9 November 2000, a new state, Uttarakhand, was carved out from the Himalayan hill region of Uttar Pradesh.

The state is bordered by Rajasthan to the west, Haryana and Delhi to the northwest, Uttarakhand and the country of Nepal to the north, Bihar to the east, Madhya Pradesh to the south and touches small areas of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to the south eastern corner. It covers 243,290 square kilometres (93,933 sq mi), equal to 6.88% of the total area of India, and is the fourth largest Indian state by area. With over 200 million inhabitants in 2011, it is the most populous state in the country as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. Hindi is the official and most widely spoken language in its 75 districts. Uttar Pradesh is the third largest Indian state by economy, with a GDP of ₹9763 billion (US$140 billion). Agriculture and service industries are the largest parts of the state's economy. The service sector comprises travel and tourism, hotel industry, real estate, insurance and financial consultancies.

Kanpur

Kanpur (/ˈkɑːnpʊər/  pronunciation ; formerly Cawnpore) is the largest city in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. It is the administrative headquarters of Kanpur Nagar district and Kanpur division.

Kanpur has an area of over 605 km² with an approximate population of 5.03 million inhabitants in its area. It is administratively divided into 6 zones and 110 wards with a ward population range of 19,000 to 30,000. It is the 75th largest city in the world.

The name is believed to have derived from Karnapur (meaning "town of Karna", one of the heroes of the Mahabharata). Another theory is that it came from the nearby town of Makanpur, earlier known as Khairabad, where the Sufi saint of the Madariya Sufi order, Badiuddin Zinda Shah Madar, settled.

History

In 1207, Raja Kanh Deo of the Kanhpuria clan established the village of Kanhpur, which later came to be known as Kanpur. The area that is now Kanpur was ruled by rulers of Kannauj, Harsha Vardhan, Mihir Bhoja, Jai Chand and early Muslim rulers through the Sur Dynasty. The first mention of Kanpur was made in 1579 during Sher Shah's regime.

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (commonly known as IIT Kanpur or IITK) is a public research college located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. It was declared to be Institute of National Importance by Government of India under IIT Act.

Established in 1959 as one of the first Indian Institutes of Technology, the institute was created with the assistance of a consortium of nine US research universities as part of the Kanpur Indo-American Programme (KIAP).

History

IIT Kanpur was established by an Act of Parliament in 1959. The institute was started in December 1959 in a room in the canteen building of the Harcourt Butler Technological Institute at Agricultural Gardens in Kanpur. In 1963, the institute moved to its present location, on the Grand Trunk Road near the village of Kalyanpur in Kanpur district.

During the first ten years of its existence, a consortium of nine US universities (namely M.I.T, University of California, Berkeley, California Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Carnegie Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Case Institute of Technology and Purdue University) helped set up IIT Kanpur's research laboratories and academic programmes under the Kanpur Indo-American Programme (KIAP). The first Director of the Institute was P. K. Kelkar (after whom the Central Library was renamed in 2002).

Kanpur Central railway station

Coordinates: 26°27′19″N 80°19′44″E / 26.455402°N 80.328925°E / 26.455402; 80.328925

Kanpur Central is one of five "Central" railway stations in India. It is a major intercity rail and commuter rail station in the city of Kanpur, and is situated on the Howrah - Delhi broad gauge route passing through Uttar Pradesh. It holds the record for the largest interlocking route system in the world. It is the busiest station of the North Central Railways recording traffic of more than 150,000 passengers, and more than 280 trains per day.

After determining the railway stations that need to be world-class, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee included Kanpur Central in her list. She included funding for this work in her "50 World-Class Railway Stations" budget. A phased revamping has begun.

Though the re-modelling of Kanpur Central Station began a long time ago, it is being done gradually in phases. At present, the re-modelling work is proceeding very slowly, but senior NCR officials are hopeful of keeping their promise of providing a new, improved look to Kanpur Central in the near future.

Indian Railways

Indian Railways (reporting mark IR) is an Indian state-owned enterprise, owned and operated by the Government of India through the Ministry of Railways. It is one of the world's largest railway networks comprising 115,000 km (71,000 mi) of track over a route of 65,808 km (40,891 mi) and 7,112 stations. In 2014-15, IR carried 8.397 billion passengers annually or more than 23 million passengers a day (roughly half of whom were suburban passengers) and 1058.81 million tons of freight in the year. In 2014–2015 Indian Railways had revenues of ₹1634.50 billion (US$24 billion) which consists of ₹1069.27 billion (US$16 billion) from freight and ₹402.80 billion (US$5.9 billion) from passengers tickets.

Railways were first introduced to India in the year 1853 from Mumbai to Thane. In 1951 the systems were nationalised as one unit, the Indian Railways, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. IR operates both long distance and suburban rail systems on a multi-gauge network of broad, metre and narrow gauges. It also owns locomotive and coach production facilities at several places in India and are assigned codes identifying their gauge, kind of power and type of operation. Its operations cover twenty nine states and seven union territories and also provides limited international services to Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.