Ooty

Udhagamandalam (also Ootacamund ( listen )) and abbreviated as Udhagai and Ooty ( listen ), is a town and municipality in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located 80 km north of Coimbatore and is the capital of the Nilgiris district. It is a popular hill station located in the Nilgiri Hills.

Originally occupied by the Todas, the area came under the rule of the East India Company at the end of the 18th century. The economy is based on tourism and agriculture, along with manufacture of medicines and photographic film. The town is connected by the Nilgiri ghat roads and Nilgiri Mountain Railway. Its natural beauty attract tourists and is a popular summer destination. As of 2011, the town had a population of 88,430.

Etymology

The origin of the name Udhagamandalam is obscure. The first mention of the place occurs in a letter of March 1821 to the Madras Gazette from an unknown correspondent as Wotokymund. In early times it was called OttaikalMandu. "Mund" is the Tamil word for a Toda village, and the first part of the name is probably a corruption of the local name for the central region of the Nilgiri Plateau. Another likely origin of the stem of the name (Ootaca) comes from the local language in which Otha-Cal literally means Single Stone. This is perhaps a reference to a sacred stone revered by the local Toda people. The name probably changed under British rule from Udhagamandalam to Ootacamund, and later was shortened to Ooty.

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu (/ˈtæmɪl ˈnɑːduː/ TAM-il-NAH-doo;  Tamil pronunciation ; Tamil: தமிழ் நாடு; literally The Land of Tamils or Tamil Country) is one of the 29 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai (formerly known as Madras). Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Puducherry and the South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. It is bounded by the Eastern Ghats on the north, by the Nilgiri, the Anamalai Hills, and Kerala on the west, by the Bay of Bengal in the east, by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait on the southeast, and by the Indian Ocean on the south. It also shares a maritime border with the nation of Sri Lanka.

Tamil Nadu is the eleventh largest state in India by area and the sixth most populous state in India. The state was ranked sixth among states in India according to the Human Development Index in 2011. Tamil Nadu is the second largest state economy in India with ₹4789 billion (US$70 billion) in gross domestic product. The state has the highest number (10.56 per cent) of business enterprises and stands second in total employment (9.97 per cent) in India, compared to the population share of about 6 per cent. Tamil Nadu was ranked as one of the seven top developed states in India based on a "Multidimensional Development Index" in a 2013 report published by a panel headed by current RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. Its official language is Tamil, which is one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world.

States and union territories of India

India is a federal union of states comprising twenty-nine states and seven union territories. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and further into smaller administrative divisions.

Responsibilities and authorities

The Constitution of India distributes the sovereign powers exercisable with respect to the territory of any State between the Union and that State. "Article 73 broadly stated, provides that the executive power of the Union shall extend to the matters with respect to which Parliament has power to make laws. Article 162 similarly provides that the executive power of a State shall extend to the matters with respect to which the Legislature of a State has power to make laws. The Supreme Court has reiterated this position when it ruled in the Ramanaiah case that the executive power of the Union or of the State broadly speaking, is coextensive and coterminous with its respective legislative power." (italics in original)

The Nilgiris District

The Nilgiris District is in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Nilgiri (English: Blue Mountains) is also the name given to a range of mountains spread across the division between the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. The Nilgiri Hills are part of a larger mountain chain known as the Western Ghats. Their highest point is the mountain of Doddabetta, height 2,633 m. The small district is mainly contained within this mountain range, with its headquarters at Ooty (Ootacamund or Udhagamandalam). It ranked first in a comprehensive Economic Environment index ranking districts in Tamil Nadu (not including Chennai) prepared by the Institute for Financial Management and Research in August 2009. As of 2011, the Nilgiris district had a population of 735,394 with a sex-ratio of 1,042 females for every 1,000 males.

History

The Nilgiri hills have a history going back several centuries. They were probably called the Blue Mountains because of the widespread blue Strobilanthes flower, or perhaps the smoky haze enveloping the area.