Port Blair Will Be Renamed As ‘Sri Vijaya Puram’

Port Blair will be renamed as ‘Sri Vijaya Puram’.:

The Union Home Minister of India said that Port Blair will be renamed as ‘Sri Vijaya Puram’.

• Port Blair is the capital city and the entry point of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• It was named after Archibald Blair, a naval surveyor and lieutenant in the Bombay Marine. Blair was the first officer to carry out a thorough survey of the Andaman Islands.
• It is located on the east coast of the South Andaman Island.
• It is also the place that hosted the first unfurling of our Tiranga by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.
• Port Blair’s connection with the imperial Cholas and Srivijaya
• Some historical records suggest that the Andaman Islands were used as a strategic naval base by the 11th-century Chola emperor, Rajendra Ito attack Srivijaya, which is in present-day Indonesia.
• As per an inscription found at Thanjavur dated to 1050 CE, the Cholas referred to the island as Ma-Nakkavaram land (great open/ naked land), which possibly led to the modern name of Nicobar under the British.