Mumbai

Mumbai- The Business Capital of India

• Mumbai, which was previously known as Bombay is a major metropolitan city of India. It is the state capital of Maharashtra. 
• Mumbai city is known as the business capital of India, it being the country's principal financial and communications centre. 
• The city has the largest and the busiest port handling India's foreign trade and a major International airport. 
• India's largest Stock Exchange which ranks as the third largest in the world, is situated in Mumbai. 
• Here, trading of stocks is carried out in billions of rupees everyday.

Description about Mumbai/Bombay cannot be complete without the mention of Bollywood, the biggest Indian film industry which churns out hundreds of Hindi block-busters every year.



Where is Mumbai?

• Mumbai (Bombay) lies on the western coast of India. 
• It is a group of seven islands in the Arabian Sea which lies off the northern Konkan coast on the west of Maharashtra state in India. 
• These seven islands which were once separated by creeks and channels were filled and bridged over the years by the inhabitants.

Mumbai History

• Present-day Mumbai was originally made up of seven isles. 
• Artefacts found near Kandivali in northern Mumbai indicate that these islands had been inhabited since the Stone Age. 
• In the 3rd century BCE, they were part of the Maurya empire, ruled by the Buddhist emperor Ashoka. 
• The Hindu rulers of the Silhara dynasty later governed the islands until 1343, when it was annexed by the kingdom of Gujarat. 
• Some of the oldest edifices of the archipelago-the Elephanta Caves and the Walkeshwar temple complex date to this era.

In 1534, the Portuguese appropriated the islands from Bahadur Shah of Gujarat. They were ceded to Charles II of England in 1661 as dowry or, more appropriately, wedding gifts of Catherine de Braganza. They in turn were leased to the British East India Company in 1668 for a sum of £10 per annum. The company found the deep harbour at Bombay eminently apposite, and the population rose from 10,000 in 1661 to 60,000 by 1675. In 1687, the East India Company transferred their headquarters from Surat to Bombay.

From 1817 the city was reshaped, with large civil engineering projects aimed at merging the islands into a single amalgamated mass. This project, the Hornby Vellard, was completed by 1845 and resulted in the area swelling to 438 km². Eight years later, in 1853, India's first railway line was established, connecting Bombay to Thana. During the American Civil War, (1861-1865) the city became the world's chief cotton market, resulting in a boom in the economy and subsequently in the city's stature. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 transformed Bombay into one of the largest Arabian Sea ports.

The city grew into a major urban centre over the next thirty years, owing to an improvement in the infrastructure and the construction of many of the city's institutions. The population of the city swelled to one million by 1906, making it the second largest in India, after Calcutta. It later became a major base for the Indian independence movement, with the Quit India Movement called by Mahatma Gandhi in 1942 being its most rubric event. After independence, the city incorporated parts of the island of Salsette, expanding to its present day limits in 1957. It became the capital of the new linguistic state of Maharashtra in 1960.

In the late 1970s Bombay witnessed a construction boom, with a significant increase in population owing to the influx of migrants. By 1986 it had overtaken Calcutta as the most populated Indian city. The city's secular fabric was torn in 1992, after large-scale Hindu-Muslim riots caused extensive losses to life and property. A few months later, on March 12, simultaneous bombings of the city's establishments by the underworld killed around three hundred. In 1995, the city was renamed Mumbai after the right wing Shiv Sena party came into power in Maharashtra, in keeping with their policy of renaming colonial institutions after historic local appellations.

Climate of Mumbai

Most of the year, Mumbai's climate is warm and humid. Between November and February, the skies are clear, and the temperature is cooler. From March the temperature becomes warm and humid till mid June, the beginning of monsoon. During monsoon there are torrential rains, sometimes causing the flooding of major roads and streets of Mumbai. The average rainfall which is brought by the south-west monsoon winds in Mumbai is 180 cms. Monsoon ends by the end of September. October is comparatively hot and humid.

Mumbai- A Melting Pot

The total population of Mumbai is about 10 millions. It is still growing. Mumbai provides umpteen opportunities to realize one's dreams. Hence, people from all over India, belonging to different cultures come here to realize their dreams. Mumbai has become the melting pot of all Indian cultures. This is the reason Mumbai has a truly cosmopolitan population bustling with activity. It's film industry "Bollywood" also draws a number of youths with tinsel dreams to Mumbai. Being a major financial center, People from all over the world come here for business opportunities. This has made Mumbai a major International city.