Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi is ranked as Asia’s fourth-best institute in science and technology in the year 1999.
Indira Gandhi International Airport, situated to the southwest of Delhi, is the main gateway for the city’s domestic and international civilian air traffic. It is a private airport, maintained by the GMR Group. In 2006–07, the airport was used by more than 23 million passengers, making it one of the busiest airports in South Asia. Terminal 3, which cost 96.8 billion (US$1.8 billion) to construct between 2007 and 2010,handles an additional 37 million passengers annually.
Lightning strikes near India Gate, New Delhi. Delhi receives much of its rainfall during the monsoon season which lasts from July to September
Lotus Temple, is a Bahá’í House of Worship completed in 1986. Notable for its flowerlike shape, it serves as the Mother Temple of the Indian subcontinent and has become a prominent attraction in the city. The Lotus Temple has won numerous architectural awards and been featured in hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. Like all other Bahá’í Houses of Worship, is open to all regardless of religion, or any other distinction, as emphasized in Bahá’í texts. The Bahá’í laws emphasize that the spirit of the House of Worship be that it is a gathering place where people of all religions may worship God without denominational restrictions. The Bahá’í laws also stipulate that only the holy scriptures of the Bahá’í Faith and other religions can be read or chanted inside in any language; while readings and prayers can be set to music by choirs, no musical instruments can be played inside. Furthermore no sermons can be delivered, and there can be no ritualistic ceremonies practiced.
Print journalism remains a popular news medium in Delhi. The city’s newspapers include Navbharat Times, Hindustan Dainik, Punjab Kesari, Pavitra Bharat, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar and Dainik Desbandhu. Amongst the English language newspapers, The Hindustan Times, with a daily circulation of over a million copies, is the single largest daily. Other major English newspapers include Times of India, The Hindu, Indian Express, Business Standard, The Pioneer and The Asian Age. Regional dailies include Malayala Manorama and Delhi Uptodate (weekly), Eenadu, Vaartha, Sakshi and Andhra Jyothy.
Private schools in Delhi – which use either English or Hindi as the language of instruction – are affiliated to one of three administering bodies, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), the Central Board for Secondary Education (NCERT(CBSE)) or the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). In 2004–05, approximately 15.29 lakh (1.529 million) students were enrolled in primary schools, 8.22 lakh (0.822 million) in middle schools and 6.69 lakh (0.669 million) in secondary schools across Delhi. Female students represented 49% of the total enrolment. The same year, the Delhi government spent between 1.58% and 1.95% of its gross state domestic product on education.
Radio is a less popular mass medium in Delhi, although FM radio has gained popularity since the inauguration of several new stations in 2006. A number of state-owned and private radio stations broadcast from Delhi.
Religious festivals include Diwali (the festival of lights), Mahavir Jayanti, Guru Nanak’s Birthday, Durga Puja, Holi, Lohri, Chauth, Krishna Janmastami, Maha Shivratri, Eid ul-Fitr, Moharram and Buddha Jayanti. The Qutub Festival is a cultural event during which performances of musicians and dancers from all over India are showcased at night, with the Qutub Minar as a backdrop. Other events such as Kite Flying Festival, International Mango Festival and Vasant Panchami (the Spring Festival) are held every year in Delhi. The Auto Expo, Asia’s largest auto show, is held in Delhi biennially. The World Book Fair, held biannually at the Pragati Maidan, is the second largest exhibition of books in the world. Delhi is often regarded as the “Book Capital” of India because of high readership.
Schools and higher educational institutions in Delhi are administered either by the Directorate of Education, the NCT government or private organisations. In 2006, Delhi had 165 colleges, five medical colleges and eight engineering colleges, seven major universities and nine deemed universities. Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and National Law University are the only state universities, Indira Gandhi National Open University is for distance education and the rest are central universities. As of 2008, about 16% of all Delhi residents possessed at least a college graduate degree.
Temperatures in Delhi range from -2.2 to 48.5 °C (28 to 119.3 °F). The annual mean temperature is 25 °C (77 °F); monthly mean temperatures range from 13 to 32 °C (55 to 90 °F). The highest temperature recorded in July was 45 °C (113 °F) in 1931. The average annual rainfall is approximately 714 mm (28.1 in), most of which falls during the monsoon in July and August. The average date of the advent of monsoon winds in Delhi is 29 June.
The 2010 Commonwealth Games, which ran from 3 to 14 October 2010, was one of the largest sports event held in India. The opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games was held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the main stadium of the event, in New Delhi at 7:00 pm Indian Standard Time on 3 October 2010. The ceremony featured over 8,000 performers and lasted for two and a half hours. It is estimated that 3.5 billion (US$64 million) were spent to produce the ceremony. Events took place at 12 competition venues. 20 training venues were used in the Games, including seven venues within Delhi University. The rugby stadium in Delhi University North Campus hosted rugby games for Commonwealth Games. The mess left behind after the Commonwealth Games prompted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to replace Sports and Youth Affairs minister Manohar Singh Gill with Ajay Maken in the 19 January 2011 Cabinet reshuffle.
The Akshardham temple, third largest Hindu temple complex in the world. Hinduism is the predominant faith in Delhi.
The area around Delhi was probably inhabited before the second millennium BC, and there is evidence of continuous inhabitation since at least the 6th century BC. The city is believed to be the site of Indraprastha, the legendary capital of the Pandavas in the Indian epic Mahabharata. The earliest architectural relics date back to the Maurya period (c. 300 BC); in 1966, an inscription of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka (273–236 BC) was discovered near Srinivaspuri. Remains of eight major cities have been discovered in Delhi. The first five cities were in the southern part of present-day Delhi. Anang Pal of the Tomara dynasty founded the city of Lal Kot in AD 736. The Chauhans conquered Lal Kot in 1180 and renamed it Qila Rai Pithora.
The Auto Expo is held biennially at Pragati Maidan and showcases the technological prowess of the Indian automobile industry
The Chauhan king Prithviraj III was defeated in 1192 by the Afghan invader Muhammad Ghori who made a concerted effort to conquer northern India. By 1200, Hindu resistance had begun to crumble. Muslim dominance in India was to last for the next six centuries. On the death of Muhammad in 1206, the Turkic slave-general, Qutb-ud-din Aibak, broke away from the Ghurid Dynasty and became the first Sultan of Delhi. He began construction of the Qutb Minar and Quwwat-al-Islam (might of Islam) mosque, the earliest extant mosque in India. Qutb-ud-din faced widespread Hindu rebellions and it was his successor, Iltutmish (1211–36), who consolidated the Muslim conquest of northern India.
The city’s electricity consumption is about 1,265 kWh per capita, but actual demand is higher. In Delhi power distribution is managed by Tata Power Distribution and BSES Rajdhani since 2002. The Delhi Fire Service runs 43 fire stations that attend about 15,000 fire and rescue calls per year. The state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and private enterprises Vodafone, Airtel, Idea cellular, Reliance Infocomm, Aircel and Tata Indicom provide telephone and cell phone service to the city. Cellular coverage is available in GSM, CDMA and 3G.
The Constitution (Sixty-ninth Amendment) Act, 1991 declared the Union Territory of Delhi to be formally known as the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The Act gave Delhi its own legislative assembly along Civil lines, though with limited powers. In December 2001, the Parliament of India building in New Delhi was attacked by armed militants, killing six security personnel. India suspected Pakistan-based militant groups were behind the attack, which caused a major diplomatic crisis between the two countries. There were further terrorist attacks in Delhi in October 2005 and September 2008, resulting in the deaths of 62 and 30 civilians respectively.
The Delhi Flying Club, established in 1928 with two de Havilland Moth aircraft named Delhi and Roshanara, was based at Safdarjung Airport which started operations in 1929, when it was the Delhi’s only airport and the second in India. The airport functioned until 2001, however in January 2002 the government closed the airport for flying activities because of security concerns following the New York attacks in September 2001. Since then, the club only carries out aircraft maintenance courses, and is used for helicopter rides to Indira Gandhi International Airport for VIP including the president and the prime minister.
The Delhi metropolitan area lies within the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT), which has five local municipal corporations; North Delhi Municipal Corporation, South Delhi Municipal Corporation, East Delhi Municipal Corporation, NDMC and DCB. The former MCD was divided into three smaller Municipal Corporations – North Delhi, South Delhi and East Delhi. According to the 2011 census, MCD is among the largest municipal bodies in the world, providing civic services to about 11 million people.
The Delhi Transport Corporation operates the world’s largest fleet of compressed natural gas buses, totaling 9,000.
The fast living habits of Delhi’s people has motivated the growth of street food outlets.:41 A trend of dining at local dhabas is popular among the residents. High profile restaurants have gained popularity in recent years, among the popular restaurants are the Karim Hotel, the Punjab Grill and Bukhara. The Gali Paranthe Wali (the street of fried bread) is a street in Chandni Chowk particularly for food eateries since the 1870s, almost the entire street is occupied by fast food stalls or street vendors who regularly. It has become almost a tradition that almost every prime minister of India has visited the street to eat paratha at least once, and other Indian cuisines are available here.:40–50
The Indian National Congress formed all the governments in Delhi until the 1990s, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Madan Lal Khurana, came to power. Since 1998 however, the Congress has retained power in Delhi, with the current Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in her 3rd term. The city’s transport services are run by the Delhi government and the police are directly controlled by the Central Government.
The Indira Gandhi International Airport is the busiest airport in South Asia . Shown here is Terminal 1D of the airport.
The iron pillar of Delhi, is said to have been fashioned at the time of Chandragupta Vikramaditya (375–413) of the Gupta Empire.
The National Capital Territory of Delhi covers an area of 1,484 km2 (573 sq mi), of which 783 km2 (302 sq mi) is designated rural, and 700 km2 (270 sq mi) urban. Delhi has a length of 51.9 km (32 mi) and a width of 48.48 km (30 mi). Delhi has the third highest quantity of trees among Indian cities. Delhi was one of the ten most polluted cities in the world during the 1990s, with 70% of the polluting emissions produced by vehicles. In 1996 the Centre for Science and Environment started a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court of India that ordered the conversion of Delhi’s fleet of buses and taxis to run on Compressed Natural Gas and banned the use of leaded petrol in 1998. In 2003, Delhi won the United States Department of Energy’s first ‘Clean Cities International Partner of the Year’ award for its “bold efforts to curb air pollution and support alternative fuel initiatives”.
The National Capital Territory of Delhi has its own Legislative Assembly, Lieutenant Governor, council of ministers and Chief Minister. Members of the legislative assembly are directly elected from territorial constituencies in the NCT. The legislative assembly was abolished in1956, after which direct federal control was implemented until it was re-established in 1993. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) handles civic administration for the city as part of the Panchayati Raj Act. The Government of India and the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi jointly administer New Delhi, where both bodies are located. The Parliament of India, the Rashtrapati Bhavan (Presidential Palace), Cabinet Secretariat and the Supreme Court of India are located in municipal district of New Delhi. There are 70 assembly constituencies and seven Lok Sabha (Indian parliament’s lower house) constituencies in Delhi.
The people of Delhi are referred to as Dilliwallahs or Delhiites. The city is referenced in various idioms of the Northern Indo-Aryan languages. Examples include:
There are a number of legends associated with the origin of the name Delhi. One is that it is derived from Dhillu or Dilu, a king of Mauryan dynasty who built a city at this location in 50 BC and named it after himself. Another legend holds that the name of the city is based on the Hindi/Prakrit word dhili (loose) and that it was used by the Tomaras to refer to the city because the Iron Pillar of Delhi had a weak foundation and had to be moved. The coins in circulation in the region under the Tomaras were called dehliwal. According to the Bhavishya Purana, King Prithviraj Chauhan, of Indraprastha built a new fort in the modern-day Purana Qila area for the convenience of all four castes in his kingdom. He ordered the construction of a gateway to the fort and later named the fort dehali. Some historians believe that the name is derived from Dilli, a corruption of dehleez or dehali—both terms meaning ‘threshold’ or ‘gateway’— and symbolic of the city as a gateway to the Gangetic Plain. Another theory suggests that the city’s original name was Dhillika.
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