By Pallavi Sharma
Karnataka is one of the most prosperous states of India owing to its amenities in varied fields. The state has recorded tremendous success in the fields like education, literature, agriculture, industry and tourism. Asia’s Silicon Valley i.e. Bangalore is its capital. The thriving software industry of this city demands a separate position on the IT map of the globe. Karnataka is therefore sometimes called “The land of science and technology”.
Geography
Karnataka is located in the western half of the Deccan Plateau surrounded by Andhra Pradesh in the east, Maharashtra in the north and Tamil Nadu and Kerala to the south. Physiograpically, the state forms a part of two well defined macro regions of Indian Union; the Deccan Plateau and the Coastal plains and Islands.
History
The word Karnataka has been derived from two words i.e. karu and nadu meaning elevated land. Evidences from the pre-historic ages indicate that the culture of Karnataka had much in common with the civilization of Africa and is quite distinct from the pre-historic culture of North India.
The Ashoka`s rock edicts found at some places in the state have revealed that major parts of Northern Karnataka were under the Mauryas. Chandragupta Maurya, the great Indian emperor abdicated the throne and embraced Jainism at Shravanabelagola, a site in present Karnataka.
In the modern history, the great Tipu Sultan of Mysore evokes the feelings of patriotism in every human soul. The state of Karnataka, constituted as Mysore under the Sates Reorganization Act, 1956, brought together the Kannada-speaking community distributed in five states and consisted of the territories of the old states of Mysore and Coorg, the Bijapur Kanara district and Kollegal taluk of the Coimbatore district in Madras. Earlier known as Mysore; the state was renamed as Karnataka on November 1, 1973.
Demography
Area 1,92,000 sq. Km (eighth largest state in India)
Population (1981 Census)
52.73 million (eighth rank in India);
Urban Population: 28.5%
Sex ratio: 965 females per thousand males
Literacy rate: 66.60%
Political Map
The Indian state of Karnataka as it stands today did not exist during British era. Most of the areas of the present day Karnataka were under as many as 20 different administrative units with the princely state of Mysore, Nizam`s Hyderabad, the Bombay Presidency, the Madras Presidency and the territory of Kodagu being the most important ones. But on linguistic basis, a unification campaign for the state was carried out by several political leaders of the state; prominent among them was Aluru Venkata Rao.
With a long political movement that lasted more than two decades even after independence, the state of Mysore was renamed as Karnataka. The present day politics of the state dominated by Congress, Janata Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party.
The 2008 elections to the Karnataka Assembly, were brought on a year ahead of schedule by the collapse of the Janata Dal (Secular)-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government in November 2007. Despite pressures from some parties to postpone the elections ostensibly on the ground that delimitation could not be completed quickly enough, a determined Election Commission pushed ahead, completed the process and scheduled the polls for May in order that a new government would be in place before President`s Rule ends.
Under the delimitation exercise, the constituencies were redrawn in accordance with the 2001 census to ensure parity in voter numbers in each constituency, and to raise the number of reserved constituencies in proportion to the Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe population.
The distribution of the constituencies is as follows:
Total Assembly constituencies- 224
General constituencies- 173
Constituencies reserved for the SCs- 36
Constituencies reserved for the STs- 15
Economy
Karnataka’ economy largely depends on agriculture. A sizeable 71% population of the state is engaged in farming. The state is the largest producer of coffee, raw silk and sandalwood in the country and also adding considerably to the horticulture production of the country. The cottage and mineral based industries also add a good percentage of revenues to the state.
Karnataka has become one of the country’s global economic players owing to its various industries in the field of IT, electronics, biotechnology and other small and medium scale industries. The capital city Bangalore (now called Bengaluru) is the silicon valley of India. Most of the global IT companies have their branches in Bangalore. Bangalore, the IT capital of India accounts for approximately 38% of India`s software exports which amounted to revenues of about USD 9 billion in 2006. The software industry is expected to generate USD 20 billion by 2010.
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