Mark Meek's Ideas: Bengaluru (Bangalore)

The history of India seems to revolve much more around the northern part of the country, as that is where new people such as the Aryans and Mughals entered, than the southern part of the country. The world-famous Taj Mahal, the capital of New Delhi, the financial center of Mumbai and, the Sikh religious center of Amritsar, are all in the northern part of the country.

But yet it is the far southern city of Bangalore that is, in many ways, the focal point of modern India. I am going to refer to it as Bangalore because, unlike Mumbai, the correct Indian name of Bengaluru is not well-known outside India. Bangalore is located in the heat of southern India, but is at a considerably high altitude which makes it more comfortably cool.

Bangalore is where India's space agency is located, the launch site is on the east coast but the headquarters are in the city. It is also the aeronautic and aerospace center of the country. It is known across the world as India's IT and software hub. Bangalore is also known as India's "Science City". It may not have the Taj Mahal, but it is leading India into the future.

Space missions to Mars have a high casualty rate. It is more difficult to get to Mars than to Venus, because Mars if further from the sun than earth. To get to Venus, it is necessary only to fire retro rockets so that the spacecraft loses the orbital momentum that it began with as part of the earth, and the sun's gravity will do the rest. If the timing is right, the spacecraft will fall into orbit around Venus.

India remains the only country to launch a successful Mars mission on it's first attempt. From Bangalore, a spacecraft had earlier been put into orbit around the moon. From that spacecraft, a projectile spacecraft was purposely crashed into the moon, at it's south pole, so that the lunar debris that flew up from the collision could be analyzed. Communication was later lost with the main spacecraft, but NASA has located it still in orbit around the moon.

Symbolism is a powerful force and I believe that the driving force behind India's space program is it's flag. The green at the bottom represents Earth. The Ashoka Chakra represents the moon and the orange at the top represents Mars. Also notice that the Ashoka Chakra is like looking at one of the poles of the moon. India has concentrated on exploring around the south pole of the moon and I have already suggested here that the area around the pole should be called "New India". Images from the Wikipedia articles "Mars" and "Flag of India".

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Here is the area around Bangalore Fort.

This is Bangalore Palace.

https://www.google.com/maps/@12.9629824,77.575845,3a,75y,138.6h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNcqF3p7bn3ATGgG7R4ysx0u3WLglPfwJEHcPx_!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNcqF3p7bn3ATGgG7R4ysx0u3WLglPfwJEHcPx_%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya108.33092-ro-0-fo100!7i4608!8i2304

This is downtown Bangalore.

This is a look at residential streets of central Bangalore. Notice the bright pastel colors of the buildings, compared to northern India. I suppose that Bangalore is like the Florida of India.