Its time to update your maps of India for today’s Geo Quiz. A new state is set to be squeezed into the world’s second most populous nation. India is a country of 1.2 billion people.
It’s carved up into 28 states from Andhra Pradesh to West Bengal. Make that 29. The government says it will split the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, to create a new state. It will be called…well that’s where you come in.
35 million people will live in this mostly under-developed, drought-prone, and landlocked state. Its capital and biggest city is Hyderabad. The idea of a new state follows a 50 year campaign that has at times turned violent. It’s not a done deal. There are plenty of opponents to the government announced plan. But supporters of the move, danced in the city of Hyderabad after hearing the decision.
Don’t celebrate quite yet….you still have to come up with the name of what will be India’s newest state.
The name of a proposed new state in India is Telangana. Telangana would be the result of splitting the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Telangana, as the Indian government envisions it, will include the mega city of Hyderabad.
Supporters of the new state celebrated the news. They say Telangana will attract development and boost the local economy. But change almost always stirs opposition. Dozens of lawmakers in Andra Pradesh have resigned. There have been demonstrations and calls for strikes.
Even local cricket games have been disrupted. The opposition stems in part from India’s diverse population.
The World’s Rhitu Chatterjee says MANY groups in the country have been fighting for independent statehood:
“For example in the northeast you have the Gorkha land movement by people living in Darjeeling and neighboring Himalayan regions, and their opposition is that well we’ve been fighting for this for a long time and you should give us the same rights. On the other hand there are people around the country who also feel very strongly about not dividing India into smaller and smaller pieces who feel like if you accept one request you’ll have to go ahead and divide the whole country into pieces, so there are two arguments here against a new state called Telangana and it remains to be seen what ultimately happens.”
So keep an eye on this story. The government of India has called a meeting of interested parties on the matter of Telangana …for next week.
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