Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Kerala (or Keralam) is a state in India.
Kerala Capital Thiruvananthapuram Area 38,863 km2 Population
- Total (2001)
- Density
31,838,619
819/km2Date of formation November 1, 1956 Latitude 8°18'N to 12°48'N Longitude 74°52E to 72°22'E Width 35 - 120 km Length 580 km
Geography
Kerala occupies a narrow strip of India's southwestern coast. It is bounded by the Arabian Sea on the west and the Western Ghats in the east.
Many places in Kerala have become tourist attractions. These vary from beaches to hill stations. Central Kerala's backwaters (inlets of the sea connected by canals) are major tourist attractions. One of the premier tourist attractions is Kovalam Beach, which is 20 minutes by taxi from Thiruvananthapuram. Western tourists lounge on the beach while fishermen pull in their nets with the catch.
Kovalam Beach - tourists and fishermen
Larger version
The states of Karnataka in the north and Tamil Nadu in the east are Kerala's immediate neighbours. A part of the union territory of Pondicherry also shares a land border with Kerala.
Kerala is divided into 14 districts. They are Alleppey (Alappuzha), Ernakulam , Idukki , Kannur , Kasargod , Kollam (Quilon) , Kottayam , Kozhikode , Malappuram , Palakkad , Pathanamthitta , Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) , Thrissur (Trichur) and Wayanad (Wynad).
Thiruvananthapuram is the capital of the state.
People
More than 95% of the people in Kerala speak Malayalam.
The major religions followed in Kerala are Hinduism (57%), Islam (23%), and Christianity (19%). Kerala also has a tiny Jewish population, said to date from 587 BC when they fled the occupation of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. The state has many famous temples, churches, and mosques. The synagogue in Kochi is the only one in India.
In Kerala, as in many other parts of India, a strict caste system used to be in force. Despite the efforts of reformers and the government, caste prejudices still exist.
Kerala has a rich cultural tradition. In addition to the classical dance forms Koodiyattom (UNESCO Human Heritage Art), Kathakali and Mohiniyaattam, which are native to the region, Kerala has numerous folk and classical art forms and a rich literary tradition. The state is known for Ayurveda, a traditional system of medicine. Kerala has a traditional calendar of its own.
Kerala has its own form of Martial arts, Kalaripayattu, which is probably the oldest martial art form in the world.
The main Keralite festival is Onam, which is native to the state. Another prominent festival is Vishu, the first day of the Malayali New Year.
Kerala ranks highest in India with respect to "social development parameters" such as primary education and healthcare. This is mainly due to government policies, which make these services available free of cost for Keralaites who would not otherwise have access to them. Literacy in Kerala, at higher than 90%, is the highest among Indian states.
Economy
However, Kerala's emphasis on social welfare also resulted in slow economic progress. Kerala possesses few major industries, and its per capita GDP is lower than the nation's average of 360 USD per year (1998). Remittances from Keralites working abroad, mainly in the Middle East, make up over 60% of the state's GDP.
Agriculture is the most important economic activity. Coconut, Tea and rubber are grown extensively. Coir (Coconut fiber), Cashew, and Spice are among the most important products.
Tourism, too, plays an important role in the state's economy. Kerala has great beaches (Kovalam and Varkala), serene hill stations and national parks (Thekady and Munnar) and beautiful inwaters Kumarakom.
History
People have lived in the region now known as Kerala since ancient times. Regional identity developed in the 1300's AD with the development of the Malayalam language.
Vasco da Gama's voyage to Kerala from Portugal in 1498 was largely motivated by Portuguese determination to break the Kerala Muslims' control over the trade between local spice producers and the Middle East. He established India's first Portuguese fortress at Cochin (Kochi) in 1503 and from there, taking advantage of rivalry existing between the royal families of Calicut and Cochin, managed to destroy the monopoly.
The dispute between Calicut and Cochin, however, provided an opportunity for the Dutch to come in and finally expel the Portuguese from their forts. The British moved into the area in the form of the British East India Company and were firmly established in Kerala by the beginning of the seventeenth century. Tipu Sultan attempted to encroach on British-held territory in 1792, but he was defeated and the British remained in control until independence.
The Portuguese were surprised to discover, when they arrived in Kerala 500 years ago, that Christianity was already established. The history of that community dates back to the arrival in 52 AD of St. Thomas the Apostle, and to the establishing of a Christian community by a contingent of Syrian Christians who arrived in 192 AD via Baghdad.
Modern day Kerala was created in 1956 from Malabar, which had been part of the Madras Presidency, and from Travancore and Cochin. The latter two were princely states which had been ruled by maharajas, both being somewhat unique among their kind in that they had concerned themselves with the education and provision of basic services to the residents of their territories.
Politics
Kerala gained the distinction, in 1957, of having the first democratically elected Communist government anywhere in the world. Kerala has a reputation as being the most left wing state in India, and over 80% of the vote at both State and National level, usually goes to Left Wing parties. These include Congress,various splinter groups from Congress, and various Communist Parties.
List of famous Keralites
- Adi Sankara - saint, poet, thinker, reviver of Hinduism in India
- Adoor Gopalakrishnan - film maker
- A.R. Rahman - music composer, Tamil and Hindi films; composed for Bombay Dreams, an Andrew Lloyd Webber production
- Arundhati Roy - Booker Prize, 1997 for ''The God of Small Things
- Hariharan - singer, ghazal, film and pop songs; record-breaking album Colonial Cousins
- Kamala Das, poetess - Asian Poetry Prize, 1964, Kent Award,1965
- K.J.Yesudas - singer, devotional and film songs, exponent of Carnatic music
- K R Narayanan - President of India (1997-2002)
- Manoj "Night" Shyamalan - Hollywood director
- Shashi Tharoor - novelist, Commonwealth Writers Prize, 1991; Under- Secretary-General (Communication and Public Information) of the United Nations
- Dr Verghese Kurien - architect of India's Milk Revolution
- Sree Narayana Guru - was a social reformer, a great teacher, and founder of the SNDP (Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogum), which was created for the upliftment of the low-caste communities of Kerala. SNDP is mainly backed by the Ezhava community, which forms a major portion of Kerala’s population.
- W C Naraynan BA BL-was one of the earliest members of the Ezhava community to graduate and then get a law degree; later he became a district judge and served Kerala before and after independence. He was the chairman of minimum wages committee appointed by the then government of Kerala.
- Prem Naseer - was a famous actor of Malayalam cinema. At one time he was considered to have acted in the leading role in more movies than any other actor, a world record which John Wayne now holds. He appeared primarily in Malayalam movies.
- Anju B George - First Indian woman to win bronze medal at the World Athletics Championships. She won the memorable medal in Paris, 2003.
External links
- All About Kerala
- The official web site of Kerala
- Information on Kerala from Department of Public Relations, Government of Kerala
- History of Kerala
- Government of Kerala Tourism Site
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Kerala."
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Mr. Kerala (1969) Love in Kerala (1968) Vadakath: A Thervad in Kerala (1984) Towards Zero Population Growth in Kerala (1983) Glimpses of Kerala (1983) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
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| "Kerala Tea Field" by Sam Dhargalkar Commentary: "Workers in a plantation picking tea leaves. Taken in November 2002 in the mountains of Kerala - a southern state in India." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | The Kanoo group has entered the IT business by setting up its own fully owned subsidiary in an IT software park in Kerala, India. (references) | |
The Government of the state of Kerala (India) is planning on opening their own tourist promotion office in Dubai this year that will be operated in addition to the current Indian Tourist Information office. (references) | ||
Economic History | Maldives | Mopla pirates from the Malabar Coast--present-day Kerala state in India--harassed the islands. (references) |
India | States that have announced a major computerization drive include Gujarat, Kerala, Orissa, Delhi, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan. (references) | |
Human Rights | India | The three-member Kerala Human Rights Commission is understaffed and relatively inactive, though it has probed prison conditions. (references) |
Women | India | According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics, 6,917 dowry deaths occurred in the country in 1998, including 2,229 dowry deaths in Uttar Pradesh, 1,039 in Bihar, 598 in Madhya Pradesh, 500 in Andhra Pradesh, 420 in Maharashtra, 200 in Karnataka, 176 in Tamil Nadu, and 21 in Kerala. (references) |
Worker Rights | India | The NHRC also has appointed a special rapporteur to work in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu and report on compliance. (references) |
India | The Kerala High Court declared that all general strikes (bandhs) were illegal and all organizers of protests would be liable for losses caused by shutdowns. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "KERALA" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 96.15% of the time. "KERALA" is used about 26 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 96.15% | 25 | 69,787 |
| Noun (singular) | 3.85% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 26 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-e-k-l-r" | |
-1 letter: akela, areal, kraal, laker. | |
-2 letters: alae, alar, arak, area, earl, kale, lake, lark, leak, lear, rake, rale, real. | |
-3 letters: aal, ala, ale, are, ark, ear, elk, era, kae, kea, lar, lea, lek. | |
-4 letters: aa, ae, al, ar, el, er, ka, la, re. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-e-k-l-r" | |
+1 letter: kraaled. | |
+2 letters: asparkle, kaleyard, lawmaker, malarkey. | |
+3 letters: breakable, frankable, jailbreak, jaywalker, kaleyards, lapstrake, lawmakers, malarkeys, malarkies, metalmark, playmaker. | |
+4 letters: backlasher, blackheart, blackwater, breakables, cakewalker, glassmaker, hallmarked, jailbreaks, jaywalkers, lawbreaker, marketable, meadowlark, metalmarks, perikaryal, platemaker, playmakers, racewalker, ramshackle, remarkable, remarkably, saltshaker, tracklayer. | |
+5 letters: alkalimeter, alkalimetry, backlashers, backslapper, blackhander, blackhearts, blackmailer, blackwaters, cakewalkers, crackleware, glassmakers, halterbreak, lawbreakers, lawbreaking, leatherback, marketplace, meadowlarks, platemakers, quacksalver, racewalkers, racewalking, rattlesnake, saltshakers, spacewalker, tracklayers, trackwalker, unbreakable. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4B 45 52 41 4C 41 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-.- . .-. .- .-.. .- |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
|
Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001011 01000101 01010010 01000001 01001100 01000001 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)K E R A L A |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004B 0045 0052 0041 004C 0041 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)453952354635 |
| 1. Definition 2. Usage: Modern 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Images: Slideshow | 5. Images: Digital Art 6. Quotations: Non-fiction 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Anagrams 10. Orthography 11. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
