India - States

A state is a division under Indian constituency, which has a separate government. States are explained as the administrative unit that has its elected government, which has the right to frame its laws. It has its own Legislative Assembly and the Chief Minister, for administration. The Governor acts as the representative of the President, in states. Union Territories are ruled directly by the Central Government has a Lieutenant Governor as an administrator, who is the representative of the President of India and appointed by the Central government. Union Territories have no representation in the Rajya Sabha except Delhi and Puducherry.

The erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and Ladakh awakened to a new future. In 2020 India officially had one state less and two Union Territories more - J&K and Ladakh, i.e. India now had 28 states and 9 union territories.

By 2018 India had twenty-nine states, seven union territories, and one national capital territory. Boundaries of States have changed, names of States have changed, and the number of States has changed. When India became independent, it had a number of provinces that the British government had organised only for administrative convenience. India at the time of independence was not only divided into provinces created by the British; but there were more than 500 princely states which had to be integrated into existing States or new States had to be created.

A number of princely states merged with the newly independent Indian union. These were joined to the existing provinces. Since then boundaries of States have been reorganised many times. During this entire period, not only did boundaries of State change, but in some cases, even their names changed according to the wishes of the people of those States. Thus, Mysore changed to Karnataka and Madras became Tamil Nadu. Telangana became the 29th State of India on the 2nd June, 2014 after reorganisation of the State of Andhra Pradesh.

Pradesh is a Hindi language word meaning "territory", "province", "region" or a lot of other kindred things. Currently, there are five Indian states whose official name includes the word pradesh. The names of the states are a reference to its composition or setting. Hence, Himachal means “snowy slopes” (Sanskrit: hima, “snow”; acal, “slopes”), and Pradesh means “state.” Arunachal Pradesh is derived from Arunacha = Land of the Sun (i.e., Sunrise). Andhra Pradesh is homeland of the Andhras, and Madhya Pradesh, Central Province, and Uttar Pradesh, Northern Province are other forms.

Indian states officially do not have flags of their own, except for Jammu and Kashmir. However, some unofficial flags have been reported.

The ranking of states typically posits much of south India as having fared better than the Hindi-speaking central and northern belt, which includes Bihar, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh (UP). The latter are often referred to as BIMARU, a popular acronym meaning ‘sick’ in Hindi.