IT city is now Bengalooru, almost

The golden jubilee celebrations of the state's formation day "� Karnataka Rajyothsava "� began on Wednesday with the name of Bangalore being changed to 'Bengalooru' from November 1.

Though the decision to rename Bangalore as Bengalooru was taken at a Cabinet meeting last month, the change will come into effect on Wednesday. A gazette notification will be made shortly. The Centre's approval will be sought for the change in name.

The decision to rename the city was taken by the earlier Dharam Singh government but not implemented. Following pressure from various circles, including renowned litterateur, Jnanpith awardee U R Ananthamurthy, the decision has been renewed. But it is still not official as the gazette notification is yet to be issued.

The government has also proposed to rename other cities too "� Mysore as Mysooru, Mangalore as Mangalooru, Shimoga as Shivamogge, Hubli as Hubballi, Belgaum as Belagavi and Gulbarga as Kalburgi.

To mark the occasion, the state government has declared Kannada poet G S Shivarudrappa as Rashtra Kavi (national poet) two decades after bestowing such an honour on Jnanpith awardee litterateur K V Puttappa (Kuvempu), who was instrumental in renaming the state of Mysore as Karnataka.

The year-long event, christened "Suvarna Karnataka" (Golden Jubilee of Karnataka) started with the hoisting of the red and yellow state flag and rendition of the state's anthem 'Jai Bharatha Jananiya Thanujathe ...' across the state.

Colourful processions depicting the progress by the state over the last five decades in various fields were taken out. Karnataka Governor T N Chaturvedi, Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and other dignitaries presided over the function here, while district in-charge ministers attended the event in the respective district headquarters.

Cultural programmes, including folk dances and drills by schoolchildren, were special attractions during the day-long celebrations.

Karnataka came into being on November 1, 1956, following the re-organisation of the states on linguistic basis.

The state was carved out by merging 11 districts from the neighbouring states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu with the nine districts from the old Mysore region.