By IANS
Bangalore : India’s IT hub will soon get a new spelling to match the way it is pronounced in Kannada, the language of Karnataka. It will be spelled as ‘Bengaluru’.
The new spelling will come into effect once the central home ministry clears it, according to the state’s Kannada and Culture Minister H.S. Mahadeva Prasad.
Along with Bangalore, 12 other cities and towns in Karnataka will have new spellings. Mysore, famous for the Dasara festival will become ‘Mysuru’ and the western coastal town of Mangalore will be spelled as ‘Mangaluru’.
Changing the name of a place or its spelling has to be cleared by several central ministries and departments such as the survey of India, science and technology, posts and telegraphs and the railways. All of them have given their nod, Prasad told reporters here Friday.
“The railways were the last to clear it, their approval came Thursday and now only a formal clearance from the home ministry remains,” the minister said adding that he expected it to come within a week.
The other important places to have their spelling changes are Chikmagalur and Bellary, both associated with the Nehru-Gandhi family as safe electoral constituencies.
Chikmagalur will be ‘Chikkamagaluru’. The coffee-plantation rich Chikmagalur drew international attention as late prime minister Indira Gandhi sought re-election to the Lok Sabha from there in 1978 after she lost power in the post-emergency general elections in 1977.
Bellary, from where Congress president Sonia Gandhi contested in the 2004 elections, will be spelt as ‘Ballary’.
The border district of Belgaum, over parts of which neighbouring Maharashtra stakes claim, will become ‘Belagavi’.
The proposal to change Bangalore’s name was mooted in 2005. Following this, the demand for changing the names of several other places also started and the other towns and districts were added to the list.