Send Flowers to Bengalooru

The Bengalooru City Police (BCP) has six geographic zones, includes the Traffic Police, the City Armed Reserve, the Central Crime Branch and the City Crime Record Bureau and runs 86 police stations, including two all-women police stations. As capital of the state of Karnataka, Bengalooru houses important state government facilities such as the Karnataka High Court, the Vidhana Soudha (the home of the Karnataka state legislature) and Raj Bhavan (the residence of the Governor of Karnataka). Bengalooru contributes three members to the lower house of the Parliament of India, the Lok Sabha, and 28 members to the Karnataka State Assembly.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP, Greater Bengalooru Municipal Corporation) is in charge of the civic administration of the city. It was formed in 2007 by merging 100 wards of the erstwhile Bengalooru Mahanagara Palike, with seven neighbouring City Municipal Councils, one Town Municipal Council and 110 villages around Bengalooru. The BBMP is run by a city council composed of 250 members, including 198 corporators representing each of the wards of the city and 52 other elected representatives, consisting of members of Parliament and the state legislature. Elections to the council are held once every five years, with results being decided by popular vote. Members contesting elections to the council usually represent one or more of the state’s political parties. A mayor and deputy mayor are also elected from among the elected members of the council. Elections to the BBMP were held on 28 March 2010, after a gap of three and a half years since the expiry of the previous elected body’s term, and the Bharatiya Janata Party was voted into power – the first time it had ever won a civic poll in the city.
The city celebrates its oldest festival, “Karaga Shaktyotsava” or Bengalooru Karaga. Deepavali, the “Festival of Lights”, transcends demographic and religious lines and is an important festival, along with the nine nights of Navratri. Other traditional Indian festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi, Ugadi/Gudi Padwa, Sankranthi, Eid ul-Fitr, and Christmas are also celebrated.
The cosmopolitan nature of the city has resulted in the migration of people from other states to Bengalooru, which has in recent years given rise to tensions between immigrants and locals. Karnataka.com.
The first printing-press in Bengalooru was established in the year 1840. In 1859, Punjab Kesri became the first English bi-weekly newspaper to be published in Bengalooru and in 1860, Mysore Vrittanta Bodhini became the first Kannada newspaper to be circulated in Bengalooru. Currently, Vijaya Karnataka and The Times of India are the most widely circulated Kannada and English newspapers in Bengalooru respectively, closely followed by the Prajavani and Deccan Herald both owned by the Printers (Mysore) Limited – the largest print media house in Karnataka.
The growth of IT has presented the city with unique challenges. Ideological clashes sometimes occur between the city’s IT moguls, who demand an improvement in the city’s infrastructure, and the state government, whose electoral base is primarily the people in rural Karnataka. The encouragement of high-tech industry in Bengalooru, for example, has not favoured local employment development, but has, instead, increased land values and forced out small enterprise. The state has also resisted the massive investments required to reverse the rapid decline in intra-city transport which has already begun to drive new and expanding businesses to other centres across India. Bengaluru is a hub for biotechnology related industry in India and in the year 2005, around 47% of the 265 biotechnology companies in India were located here; including Biocon, India’s largest biotechnology company.
The headquarters of several public sector undertakings such as Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) and HMT (formerly Hindustan Machine Tools) are located in Bengalooru. In June 1972 the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was established under the Department of Space and headquartered in the city.
The Indian Premier League franchise Bengalooru Royal Challengers, the Premier Hockey League franchise Bengalooru Hi-fliers, and the Karnataka Premier League franchisees Bengalooru Brigadiers and Provident Bengalooru are based in the city. India’s Davis Cup team members, Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna also reside in Bengalooru. The city hosts the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Bengalooru Open tournament annually. Beginning September 2008, Bengalooru has also been hosting the Kingfisher Airlines Tennis Open ATP tournament annually. Bengalooru is also home to the Bengalooru Rugby Football Club (B.R.F.C)
The Karnataka High Court is the supreme judicial body in Karnataka and is located in Bengalooru, housed in the historic Atthara Kacheri.
The name “Bengalooru” represents an anglicised version of the Kannada language name, “Benga?uru” ( listen). The earliest reference to the name “Bengaluru” was found in a ninth century Western Ganga Dynasty stone inscription on a “vira gallu” (????????) (literally, “hero stone”, a rock edict extolling the virtues of a warrior). In this inscription found in Begur, “Bengaluru” is referred to as a place in which a battle was fought in 890 CE. It states that the place was part of the Ganga Kingdom until 1004 and was known as “Bengaval-uru”, the “City of Guards” in Halegannada (Old Kannada). An apocryphal, though popular, anecdote recounts that the 11th century Hoysala king Veera Ballala II, while on a hunting expedition, lost his way in the forest. Tired and hungry, he came across a poor old woman who served him boiled beans. The grateful king named the place “benda-kaal-uru” (literally, “town of boiled beans”), which eventually evolved into “Bengaluru”.
The region of modern day Bengalooru was part of several successive South Indian kingdoms. After centuries of the rule of the Western Gangas, the region was captured by the Cholas in 1024. In 1116 the Hoysala Empire overthrew the Cholas and extended its rule over the region. Modern Bengalooru had its beginning in 1537 by a vassal of the Vijayanagara Empire, Kempé Gowda I, who built a mud-brick fort at the site that would become the central part of modern Bengalooru. Kempé Gowda referred to the new town as his “gandubhumi” or “Land of Heroes”.
The topology of Bengalooru is flat except for a central ridge running NNE-SSW. The highest point is Vidyaranyapura Doddabettahalli, which is 962 m (3,156 ft) and lies on this ridge. No major rivers run through the city, though the Arkavathi and South Pennar cross paths at the Nandi Hills, 60 km (37 mi.) to the north. River Vrishabhavathi, a minor tributary of the Arkavathi, arises within the city at Basavanagudi and flows through the city. The rivers Arkavathi and Vrishabhavathi together carry much of Bengalooru’s sewage. A sewerage system, constructed in 1922, covers 215 km² (133 mi²) of the city and connects with five sewage treatment centres located in the periphery of Bengalooru.
The Vikasa Soudha, situated adjacent to the Vidhana Soudha, houses many state ministries.
There are currently 1,000 vehicles being registered daily in Bengalooru RTOs. The total number of vehicles as on date are 38.8 lakh vehicles, with a road length of 11,000 km.
Three-wheeled, green and black auto-rickshaws, referred to as autos, are a popular form of transport. They are metered and can accommodate up to three passengers. Taxis, commonly called City Taxis, are usually available only on call. Taxis are metered and are generally more expensive than auto-rickshaws.
Until the early 19th century, education in Bengalooru was mainly run by religious leaders and restricted to students of that religion. The western system of education was introduced during the rule of Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar, when two schools were established in Bengalooru. Subsequently, Wesleyan Mission established a school in 1851 and the Bengalooru High School which was started by the Government in 1858.
Vegetation in the city is primarily in the form of large deciduous canopy and minority coconut trees. Though Bengalooru has been classified as a part of the seismic zone II (a stable zone), it has experienced quakes of magnitude as high as 4.5.
With an estimated population of 8.5 million in 2011, Bengalooru is the third most populous city in India and the 18th most populous city in the world. Bengalooru was the fastest-growing Indian metropolis after New Delhi between 1991 and 2001, with a growth rate of 38% during the decade. Residents of Bengalooru are referred to as Bengalooruans in English and Bengaloorinavaru in Kannada.
Within the fort, the town was divided into smaller divisions—each called a “pete” (IPA: ). The town had two main streets—Chikkapeté Street, which ran east-west, and Doddapeté Street, which ran north-south. Their intersection formed the Doddapeté Square—the heart of Bengalooru. Kempé Gowda’s successor, Kempé Gowda II, built four towers that marked Bengalooru’s boundary. During the Vijayanagara rule, many Saints and Poets referred to Bengalooru as “Devarayanagara” and “Kalyanapura” or “Kalyanapuri” (“Auspicious City”).