Saturday, June 22, 2013

British Railways Posters


BOMBAY(MUMBAI) TO POONA(PUNE) G.I.P.(Great Indian Peninsula Railway - Wikipedia)Poona Races Railway  A colonial-era poster advertising the express trains journeys from Bombay to Poona Racecourse along the Great Indian Peninsular (GIP) railway. With such enticing facilities as a ladies' boudoir and baths the new carriages were clearly suitable for the great and the good of British society.
File:Great Indian Peninsula Railway.jpg

                                                               A 20th-century poster for the Great Indian Peninsula Railway

A poster from November 1905 for the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. The India railway service began in 1853 with a 25 mile journey from Mumbai (Bombay). During the year 1946-7 the number of railway employees in India stood at 1,047,000.

November 1905



A poster advertising the Bombay Baroda & Central India Railway, operating between Bombay and Delhi. A train races across a viaduct.
An Engine Is Wheeled
10" x 8" Print of the 1949 British Railways Poster "An Engine is Wheeled" by Terence Cuneo, subtitled "Derby Locomotive Works

RAILWAYS OF THE RAJ:-http://railwaysofraj.blogspot.in/2010/09/history-of-railways-from-bombay-to-rest_20.htmlys


Saturday, June 15, 2013


BMC fails to start work on potholes



MUMBAI: Though citizens and civic engineers have begun to report potholeson the BMC's tracking website, few are getting filled. A total of 95 potholes have been reported over the last week. While the BMC has planned to fill 12 of these, only two have actually been filled.


Of the 95 potholes, around 55 have been reported by engineers of the roads department, and the rest by engineers at the ward level. No pothole reported at the ward level has been considered yet for filling. 

Civic officials say contractors are yet to mobilize machinery and labour, and this is the reason for the delay. 

According to data on the BMC's pothole-tracking website, a total of 26,285 potholes were reported since last monsoon to June 1, of which 25,026 have been attended to. Most of the unattended potholes are ones reported on roads managed by other agencies, like the MMRDA, PWD, Mhada and BPT. A total of 883 potholes were reported on roads belonging to these agencies. 

Meanwhile, civic standing committee members have come down heavily on additional municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta, who is in charge of roads, saying that all projects in his department are pending. 

Former deputy mayor and BJP corporator Shailaja Girkar said Gupta had promised her that the bridge being built on Poisar river would be completed before the monsoon. "That bridge is being built for the last four years and has still not been completed. I do not know why this work is taking so much time and why no action has been initiated against the contractor."

  1. BMC in a hurry to fix problems before monsoon | The Freepress ...

    freepressjournal.in › Mumbai
    May 21, 2013 – Mumbai : BMC seems to be in a hurry to fix problems before ... The civic body will auction these goods, if the hawkers do not pay fine and retrieve them. This was done in two shifts under BMC's initiative to clean up streets ... he would notbe given any BMC task due to his lethargy in the given assignment.




Another Maharashtra airport plan ‘lands’ in trouble

MUMBAI: After the Navi Mumbai international airport, the planned international airport at Chakan in Pune has also run into land acquisitiontrouble.


The government is facing difficulties in acquiring the 3,300 hectares of land required for the project. 

Initial plan was to acquire land from seven villages in Chakan. However, since most of the affected land is under irrigation, villages here have presented a stiff opposition to the move. 

An alternative plan to set up the airport on land acquired for a private SEZ in the Khed-Chakan area has also hit a hurdle with the SEZ developer unwilling to part with all the land. 

On Friday, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan was briefed about the difficulties in finalizing a site for the airport. In a last-ditch attempt, Chavan asked officials to examine the feasibility of setting up the project on another piece of land near the SEZ. 

"We are trying to find a feasible solution that does not affect the SEZ project," Maharashtra Airport Development Corporation chairman U P S Madan said. 

Officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) will conduct the feasibility survey for the new site, which could take a month or so. 

This land, however, is only about 1,000 hectares, way short of what was initially planned. Madan agreed that the airport project might have to be downscaled. 

With the Navi Mumbai airport facing land acquisition trouble, the government is considering the Chakan airport as an alternative option to decongest air traffic over Mumbai.

Prince William, second-in-line to the throne, will be first British king with proven Indian ancestry,

Prince William has Indian heritage, DNA proves
Britain's Prince William, (L) and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge in London.
LONDON: Prince William, second-in-line to the throne, will be first British king with proven Indian ancestry, DNA analysis has revealed. 

The DNA analysis of saliva samples taken from the Duke of Cambridge's relatives have established a direct lineage between the 30-year-old prince and an Indian housekeeper on his mother Princess Diana's side. 

It is his only non-European DNA and means he will become the first head of the Commonwealth with a clear genetic link to its most populous nation - India. 

William is now likely to be encouraged to make his debut mission to India soon after the birth of his baby next month. 

Researchers have uncovered the details of his lineage via a doomed relationship of William's Indian great-great-great-great-great grandmother. 

Eliza Kewark was housekeeper to Prince William's great grandfather Theodore Forbes (1788-1820), a Scottish merchant who worked for the East India Company in the port town of Surat in Gujarat. 

Eliza's mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was passed on by her daughters and granddaughters directly in an unbroken line to Princess Diana and then on to Prince William and Prince Harry

Eliza is claimed to have been Armenian, possibly because her surname is rather like the Armenian name Kevork and letters from her to Forbes have been found which contain Armenian script. 

This in turn suggests a degree of Armenian cultural heritage and the possibility that her father may have been of Armenian descent. 

"But we believe that all the evidence we have gathered shows that her genetic heritage through her motherline is Indian," Britains DNA, a DNA ancestry testing company, said in a release. 

"Princes William and Harry carry Eliza Kewark's markers but will not pass this Indian mtDNA onto their children, as mtDNA is only passed from mother to child," it added. 

Jim Wilson, a genetics expert at the University of Edinburgh and Britains DNA who carried out the tests, said that Eliza's descendants had an incredibly rare type of mtDNA, inherited only from a mother. 

It has so far been recorded in only 14 other people, 13 Indian and one Nepalese. 

The revelation explains why the Scottish father of Eliza's children suddenly deserted her and sent their daughter, Katherine, to Britain at the age of six


























 
      
















ENGLISH LIFE IN INDIA:-











SURAT HARBOUR 1700'S


Magnificence of the Sultan (Governor) at Suratte, from 'Voyages Celebres et Remarquables faits de Perse etc.', by Jean Albert de Mandelslo, 1727
Magnificence of the Sultan (Governor) at Suratte, from 'Voyages Celebres et Remarquables faits de Perse etc.',
by Jean Albert de Mandelslo, 1727




Sultan
 Qutb-ud-Din Bahadur Shah, who reigned 1526–1535 and 1536–1537, was a sultan of Gujarat Sultanate,




The Mughal Emperor Humayun, fights Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, in the year 1535.

Death of Bahadur Shah in front of Diu during negotiations with the Portuguese, in 1537. Akbar Nama, end of 16th century.
Panel 2 Panorama of Surat, a colored aquatint by Alfred Robert Freebairn, 1830
Panel 3 Panorama of Surat, a colored aquatint by Alfred Robert Freebairn, 1830










Transfer of Premier Port Status from Surat to Bombay 1687 CE


The following is a synopsis and short chronology of events related to the early years of the British take-over of Bombay:

  • In 1661, the British received the Bombay islands as part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry.
  • However, until 1662, the local Portuguese governor do not give up the Bombay islands.
  • The islands were administered by an officer of the British crown from 1662 to 1668.
  • Since Bombay did not provide the British crown with revenue, it was handed over to the British East India Company, the Company, in 1668.

In 1669, a council of eight members was chosen to assist the Company's President, five of whom were to reside in Surat. While the President was to hold the position of Governor of Surat and Bombay, he would reside at Surat - a condition that would change with time. On the one hand, the Company's factory at Muslim ruled Surat was under constant threat of Maratha raids, and there was not much the British could do at that time to mitigate the threat. On the other hand, Bombay, was an island in the possession of the English. Ever since the English government had given the Company possession of Bombay in 1668, Bombay increasing became a preferred candidate for the Company's main base. Finally in 1684, the British East India Company decided to transfer the chief seat of the company's trade from Surat to Bombay.

However, because of a mutiny of its troops in Bombay between 1683 and 1684, as well as a war between the English and Mughals, the actual transfer did not take place until 1687.

In the meantime in 1685, the Company took steps to recover Salsette Island that had as part of the dowry been ceded by the Portuguese. Despite Portuguese reluctance to give up the island, the English sent in troops that succeeded to gaining control of Thana and Salsette Island. That in turn gave the Company the ability to act independently of the Mughals or local chiefs (or for that matter, the British Crown).

To secure its independence and security, the Company began to strengthen its fortifications in Bombay and surrounding possessions in 1687. The position of Bombay within the Company was elevated to that of capital of the Company's Indian possessions and the residence of its Governor-General. As a result of the transfer of the Company's headquarters from Surat to Bombay, its ships to and from Europe would now drop anchor at Bombay rather than Surat. The move quickly shifted the claim of being India's premier port from Surat to Bombay. Trade to and from Surat, Calicut and Karwar were routed via Bombay and transported there on coastal vessels. Bombay, therefore not only became a principal port, but a hub port for most of the Company's Indian Trade.




Dutch Factory at Surat as seen in April 1629. Plagerized / Reproduced by J.A. von Mandelso and labelled 'English factory'after an original etching by Pieter van den Broecke (1585-1640), a Dutch cloth merchant in the service of the Dutch East India Company in Korte Historiael ende Journaelsche Aenteyckeninghe published in Amsterdam, 1634. The only difference between the Mandelso & Broecke images is the distribution of people passing in front of the building


Dutch Factory at Surat as seen in April 1629. Plagerized / Reproduced by J.A. von Mandelso and labelled 'English factory'
after an original etching by Pieter van den Broecke (1585-1640), a Dutch cloth merchant in the service of the Dutch East India
Company in Korte Historiael ende Journaelsche Aenteyckeninghe
published in Amsterdam, 1634. The only difference between the Mandelso & Broecke images is the distribution
of people passing in front of the building.


British East India Company Factory in Asia. Back view of a factory with high surrounding walls. In the foreground a tank, to the left the cemetery with large tombs. A sepoy sentry stands outside the wall and an English man sheltered by an umbrella and accompanied by servants is approaching the entrance. Painting 1790-1800.
British East India Company Factory in Asia. Back view of a factory with high surrounding walls.
In the foreground a tank, to the left the cemetery with large tombs. A sepoy sentry stands outside the wall
and an English man sheltered by an umbrella and accompanied by servants is approaching the entrance.
Painting 1790-1800.
                                      

 



















       east India company main office London

         ENGLISH CEMETERY IN SURAT

photo
The Cemetery which has the earliest mausoleums from 1659. Many British Raj officers & their family members from the 17th till 19th century rest in peace here. The monuments are strongly influenced by the Indian and Arabic Architecture.The pinnacles as minarets and the pointing arch of the windows resemble a semi-Islamic style.





photo
Surat was one of the earliest strongholds of the British Kingdom. The English Cemetery is where many of the distinguished dignitaries of the Surati British Raj rest in peace. 



photo

Dutch & Armenian traders came to India in the early parts of 17th century &; left in 1825. In a small dirty bylane of Rampura, lies their past




















India in 1765 and 1805 showing East India Company Territories











Governor-GeneralPeriod of TenureEvents
Warren Hastings20 October 1773–1 February 1785Bengal famine of 1770 (1769–1773)
Rohilla War (1773–1774)
First Anglo-Maratha War (1777–1783)
Chalisa famine (1783–84)
Second Anglo-Mysore War (1780–1784)
Charles Cornwallis12 September 1786–28 October 1793Cornwallis Code (1793)
Permanent Settlement
Cochin become semi-protected States under British (1791)
Third Anglo-Mysore War (1789–1792)
Doji bara famine (1791–92)
Separation of judicial and revenue administrations
John Shore28 October 1793–March 1798East India Company Army reorganized and down-sized.
Jaipur (1794) & Travancore (1795) come under British protection.
Andaman Islands occupied (1796)
Company took control of coastal region Ceylon from Dutch (1796).
Richard Wellesley18 May 1798–30 July 1805Nizam of Hyderabad becomes first State to sign Subsidiary alliance introduced by Wellesley (1798).
Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1798–1799)
Nawab of Oudh cedes Gorakhpur and Rohilkhand divisions; Allahabad,FatehpurCawnporeEtawahMainpuriEtah districts; part of Mirzapur; andterai of Kumaun (Ceded Provinces, 1801)
Treaty of Bassein signed by Peshwa Baji Rao II accepting Subsidiary Alliance
Battle of Delhi (1803).
Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–1805)
Remainder of Doab and Agra division, parts of Bundelkhand annexed fromMaratha Empire (1805).
Ceded and Conquered Provinces established (1805)
Charles Cornwallis(second term)30 July 1805–5 October 1805Financial strain in East India Company after costly campaigns.
Cornwallis reappointed to bring peace, but dies in Ghazipur.
George Hilario Barlow (locum tenens)

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10 October 1805–31 July 1807


























Vellore Mutiny (July 10, 1806)