Bay of Bengal

The Bay of Bengal, the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Roughly triangular in shape, it is bordered mostly by India and Sri Lanka to the west, Bangladesh to the north, and Myanmar (Burma) and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the east.

The Bay of Bengal occupies an area of 2,172,000 square kilometres (839,000 sq mi). A number of large rivers – the Ganges and its tributaries such as the Padma and Hooghly, the Brahmaputra and its tributaries such as the Jamuna and Meghna, other rivers such as the Irrawaddy River, Godavari, Mahanadi, Krishna and Kaveri flow into the Bay of Bengal. Among the important ports are Chennai, Chittagong, Kolkata, Mongla, Paradip, Tuticorin, Visakhapatnam and Yangon.

Extent

The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bay of Bengal as follows:

Etymology

In ancient Hindu scriptures, this water body is referred to as 'Mahodadhi' (Sanskrit: महोदधि, lit. great water receptacle) while it appears as Sinus Gangeticus or Gangeticus Sinus, meaning "Gulf of the Ganges", in ancient maps.

Mazhavil Manorama

Mazhavil Manorama is a Malayalam general entertainment television channel from the Malayala Manorama group, the publisher of the widely circulated Malayalam Manorama daily, and Malayalam women's magazine Vanitha. Mazhavil Manorama is headquartered at Aroor, Alappuzha, near Kochi, Kerala.

The channel has been on air since 06:30 pm on 31 October 2011. The Malayalam Manorama group is already into TV media through their Malayalam news channel, Manorama News. Through the launch of Mazhavil Manorama, the group has widened its media business portfolio.

Mazhavil Manorama will be the second regional Malayalam channel to be launched in full high definition, after Asianet HD. It has been aired since 13 August 2015 as Mazhavil Manorama HD.

Programmes

Mazhavil Manorama has various entertainment programmes in its portfolio including television dramas, music reality shows, and Malayalam movies. The channel also telecasts popular shows like Katha Ithu Vare, hosted by Poornima Indrajith, a talk show with celebrities; Samadooram, presented by Sreekandan Nairdna; and popular comedy show Marimayam, which conveys a real picture of public offices in Kerala. The channel also broadcasts reality shows like Veruthe Alla Bharya, a family based reality show hosted by Swetha Menon; Indian Voice, a musical reality show; and Comedy Festival, a reality competition among comedians for a title.

Bengal

Bengal /bɛŋˈɡɔːl/ (Bengali: বাংলা  Bangla  /baŋla/ or বঙ্গ Bônggo /bɔŋɡo/) is a geographical and ethno-linguistic region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, at the apex of the Bay of Bengal and dominated by the fertile Ganges delta. The Bengal region was politically divided in the 1947 Partition of India based on religion: predominantly Hindu West Bengal became a province (now a state) of India, while predominantly Muslim East Bengal became a province of Pakistan and later gained independence as Bangladesh. Some regions of the historical kingdoms of Bengal are now part of Nepal and the neighbouring Indian states of Assam, Tripura, Bihar, Meghalaya, Manipur, Jharkhand, and Odisha. The Bengali people (বাঙালি Bangali), who speak the Bengali language (বাংলা Bangla), which is Indo-Aryan, natively inhabit the region, alongside dozens of indigenous ethnic groups who speak minority languages of the Tibeto-Burman, Austroasiatic, and Dravidian families.

Bengal is one of the most densely populated regions on Earth, with an estimated population of 250 million people and a population density exceeding 900 people per square kilometre. Most of the Bengal region lies in the low-lying Ganges Delta, the world's largest river delta. In the southern part of the delta lies the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest and home of the Bengal tiger. In the coastal southeast lies Cox's Bazar, the world's longest beach with a length of more than 100 km (62 mi). While most of the region is rural and agrarian, it includes two megacities: Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and Dhaka (formerly Dacca).

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia on the north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, and on the south by the Southern Ocean or, depending on definition, by Antarctica. It is named after India. The Indian Ocean is known as Ratnākara (Sanskrit: रत्नाकर), "the mine of gems", in ancient Sanskrit literature and as Hind Mahāsāgar (Devanāgarī: हिन्द महासागर) in Hindi.

Geography

The borders of the Indian Ocean, as delineated by the International Hydrographic Organization in 1953 included the Southern Ocean but not the marginal seas along the northern rim, but in 2000 the IHO delimited the Southern Ocean separately, which removed waters south of 60°S from the Indian Ocean, but included the northern marginal seas.Meridionally, the Indian Ocean is delimited from the Atlantic Ocean by the 20° east meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas, and from the Pacific Ocean by the meridian of 146°55'E, running south from the southernmost point of Tasmania. The northernmost extent of the Indian Ocean is approximately 30° north in the Persian Gulf.

India

India, officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.

Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.