Karnataka Quiz - Part 1

Sir Mokshagundam Vishveshwariah KCIE, popularly known as Sir MV; 15 September 1860 – 14 April 1962 was a notable Indian engineer, scholar, statesman and the Diwan of Mysore during 1912 to 1918. He is held in high regard as a pre-eminent engineer of India. He was the chief designer of the flood protection system for the city of Hyderabad, now capital city of Andhra Pradesh, as well as the chief engineer responsible for the construction of the Krishna Raja Sagara dam in Mandya.

The State of Mysore was created based on the States Reorganization Act which organized India's states and union territories along linguistic lines. Mysore state was formed on November 1, 1956, merging the Kannada-speaking regions of Bombay and Madras presidencies and the principality of Hyderabad, with the princely Mysore state. It was only later in 1973 that the state was renamed as Karnataka after a prolonged debate ending with the then chief minister Devraj Urs taking a decision to change the name of the state to Karnataka.

The Vijayanagara Empire (also called Karnata Empire), referred to as the Kingdom of Bisnagar by the Portuguese, was an empire based in South India, in the Deccan Plateau region. It was established in 1336 by Harihara I and his brother Bukka Raya I of Sangama Dynasty.The empire rose to prominence as a culmination of attempts by the southern powers to ward off Islamic invasions by the end of the 13th century. It lasted until 1646 although its power declined after a major military defeat in 1565 by the Deccan sultanates. The empire is named after its capital city of Vijayanagara, whose ruins surround present day Hampi, now a World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India.

Aluru is today fondly remembered as the Kannada Kula Purohita or the 'High priest of the Kannada clan'.

The Mysore province had only before 1956 had only 10 districts. With the formation of the State of Mysore in 1956, there were a total of 20 districts. In 1989, this rose to 21 with the formation of Bangalore Rural. This further rose to 28 in 1997 and finally to 30 by 2007. The 30th district was the Yadgir district created from the Gulbarga district.

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This composition was sung as a welcome song at the All India Congress Session held at Belgaum under the President-ship of Mahatma Gandhi. This song infused a new spirit among the Kannadigas to work towards the goal of a unified Karnataka. Thirty two years later on 1st November 1956 this dream was realized when the then President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad inaugurated the unified New Mysore State at Bangalore by pressing a button whereby the map of the new state was brilliantly lit. On this occasion once again the song “Udayavaagali namma cheluva Kannada nadu” was sung by P.Kalinga Rao.

In May 1905, Alur visited Anegundi and was very much pained to see the ruins of the once splendour Vijayanagar Empire. Why is that the Kannadigas though scattered under different administrative units were silent and not agitating for the establishment of a united Karnataka was the thought, which lingered in the mind of Alur. The lack of pride for their language and land was due to the fact that the Kannadigas were unaware of their own glorious history and heritage. Hence in 1914 he started the Karnataka Ithihasa Samshodhana Mandali for doing research on Karnataka history. The result was his monumental work about Karnataka’s glorious history, Karnataka Gathavaibhava published in 1917.

Decline of Mauryan empire led to the rise of the earliest native kingdoms, the Kadambas and the Western Gangas, marking the region's emergence as an independent political entity. The Kadamba Dynasty, founded by Mayurasharma, had its capital at Banavasi; the Western Ganga Dynasty was formed with Talakad as its capital.
These were also the first kingdoms to use Kannada in administration, as evidenced by the Halmidi inscription and a fifth-century copper coin discovered at Banavasi

The state has the highest area under modern cut flowers, and 40 flower growing and exporting units. The country’s first and only flower auction center is located in Karnataka. In Karnataka, there are 18,000 hectares under floriculture cultivation. The Tigala community near Devanahalli and Chickaballapur are extremely good at growing flowers.

The city is popularly called as Silk City as lot of textile and small scale Silk industries are there in the city. This town was once known for its famous hand woven silk. Doddaballapur was once known as Indian Manchester of textiles.