Kutch district

Kutch district (also spelled as Kachchh) is a district of Gujarat state in western India. Covering an area of 45,652 km², it is the largest district of India. The population of Kutch is 21 Lac, literacy rate is 59.79% and the sex ratio is 951. It has 10 Talukas, 1389 villages and 6 Municipalities

Kutch literally means something which intermittently becomes wet and dry; a large part of this district is known as Rann of Kutch which is shallow wetland which submerges in water during the rainy season and becomes dry during other seasons. The same word is also used in the languages of Sanskrit origin for a tortoise. The Rann is famous for its marshy salt flats which become snow white after the shallow water dries up each season before the monsoon rains.

The district is also famous for ecologically important Banni grasslands with their seasonal marshy wetlands which form the outer belt of the Rann of Kutch.

Kutch District is surrounded by the Gulf of Kutch and the Arabian Sea in south and west, while northern and eastern parts are surrounded by the Great and Little Rann (seasonal wetlands) of Kutch. When there were not many dams built on its rivers, the Rann of Kutch remained wetlands for a large part of the year. Even today, the region remains wet for a significant part of year. The district had a population of 1,583,500 of which 30% were urban as of 2001. Motor vehicles registered in Kutch district have their registration Number starting with GJ-12. The district is well connected by road, rail and air. There are four airports in the district, Naliya,Kandla, Mundra, and Bhuj, which is well connected with Mumbai. Being a border district, Kutch has both and an army and an airforce base.

Rann of Kutch

Rann of Kutch (Kutchi language: કચ્છ જો રણ) is a large area of salt marshes located in mostly in Gujarat (primarily the Kutch district), India and the southern tip of Sindh, Pakistan. It is divided into two main parts; Great Rann of Kutch and Little Rann of Kutch.

Geography

The Rann of Kutch is located in the Thar Desert bio-geographic area in the Indian state of Gujarat with some parts in Pakistani province of Sindh. It is a seasonally marshy region, the word Rann meaning "salt marsh", alternating with medaks, elevated pieces of land where vegetation grows.

Kutch is the name of the district in Gujarat where this region is situated. The marsh covers a huge area of around 10,000 square miles and is positioned between the Gulf of Kutch and the mouth of the Indus River in southern Pakistan. To the northeast corner of the Rann of Kutch lies the Luni River, originating in Rajasthan.

Ecological importance

The Rann of Kutch is the only large flooded grasslands zone in the whole Indo-Malayan region. The fact that the area has desert on one side and the sea on the other provides the Rann of Kutch with a variety of ecosystems, including mangroves and desert vegetation. The grassland and deserts of the Rann of Kutch are home to forms of wildlife that have adapted to the often harsh conditions of this vast area. These include endemic and endangered animal and plant species.

Rann (fictional planet)

Rann is a fictional planet in the Polaris star system (formerly the Alpha Centauri System) of the DC Comics Universe whose capital city is Ranagar. Rann is most famous for being the adopted planet of the Earth explorer and hero Adam Strange and for their teleportation device called the Zeta Beam. The planet Rann, along with her famous non-native son, first appeared in Showcase #17 (November–December 1958).

Natives of Rann

Natives of Rann, known as Rannians, are for all intents and purposes the same as Earth-based humans. However, years of reclusive living and apathy brought on by reliance upon their technologically advanced machinery resulted in a society which had stagnated. While entirely apt to continue for some time, Rannians found their gene pool to have deteriorated, resulting in a sterile culture. For decades, no children were born, until Adam Strange fathered a child with Alanna, daughter of Sardath, the man who invented the Zeta Beam. Their daughter, Aleea, remained on Rann with her mother.

Narendra Modi

Narendra Damodardas Modi (Gujarati: [nəreːnd̪rə d̪ɑːmoːd̪ərəd̪ɑːs moːd̪iː], born 17 September 1950) is the 15th and current Prime Minister of India, in office since 26 May 2014. Modi, a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament (MP) from Varanasi. He led the BJP in the 2014 general election, which gave the party a majority in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Indian parliament) – a first for any party since 1984 – and was credited for 2014 BJP electoral victories in the states of Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir.

Since taking office as Prime Minister, Modi's administration has focused on reforming and modernising India's infrastructure and government, reducing bureaucracy, encouraging increased foreign direct investment, improving national standards of health and sanitation and improving foreign relations. Modi has been appreciated for starting initiatives like Swachh Bharat Mission, Make in India and Digital India. Earlier, as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi's economic policies (credited with encouraging economic growth in Gujarat) have been praised, although his administration has also been criticised for failing to significantly improve the human development in the state and failing to prevent the 2002 Gujarat riots. A Hindu nationalist and a former member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Modi remains a controversial figure domestically and internationally, despite his progressivism. Known for his tech savvy image, he is the second most followed politician on social media after U.S. President Barack Obama.