PUNE

City, formerly Poona , Maharashtra; at the junction of the Mula and Mutha rivers. Known as the "Queen of the Deccan", the city gained importance as the capital of the Marathas in the seventeenth century. It was temporarily captured by the Mughals but again became the official Maratha capital from 1714 until its fall to the British in 1817. It served as the seasonal capital of the Bombay Presidency, and after Independence it is a burgeoning city, expanding in all directions, but especially along the Pune-Mumbai (Bombay) rail and road routes through the industrial townships of Pimpri and Chinchwad.

  Pune has long been a major education and cultural centre; former Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru referred to it as the "Oxford and Cambridge of India". In addition to its well-known schools, technical institutions, there are colleges of arts, sciences, teacher training, technology, and medicine, affiliated with the University of Pune (1948). There are research institutes of international status like the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI, 1917), the Gokhale Institutes of Politics and Economics (GIPE) and the Deccan College Post Graduate Research Institute (DCPGRI) which is now a deemed University. The city's government offices include the Directorate of Education, Secondary School Certificate Examination Board, Maharashtra State Bureau Textbook Production and Curricular Research (popularly known as "l Bharati"), Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, and educational institutes sponsored by Societies founded by political, social, and educational leaders. There are also Union Government-sponsored institutes like the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and the National Institute of Virology. On the western margins of the city are located the National Defence Academy (NDA) at Khadakvasla and the Central Water and Power Research Station; on the north is the Institute of Tropical Meteorology; in the University of Pune campus, the Inter-University and Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCCA); Khadki with its defence production units, to the east of the city, there is also a cantonment and its extension which houses defence command units and the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC).

Keeping pace with modernism, Pune has modern large-scale industrial units that produce cars, scooters, and trucks, antibiotics and pharmaceuticals, engineering spares and parts, and oil engines; as well as other units located in Chinchwad and the surroundings areas, including Bhosari on the east.

The region surrounding Pune, now called Greater Pune, includes parts of the Sahyadri hills, the Balaghat range (north) and the Mahadeo hills (south), which enclose the upper Bhima river valley. Chief crops are jowar (sorghum), bajra (pearl millet), sugar cane, and rice. Most of the important religious, historical, and tourist attractions are located around the Sahyadri and its slopes abutting the Bhima river. Some of the famous Marathi forts like Sinhgad have become modern resorts. Important religious centres include Bhimashankar, one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, of India; Dehu the birthplace of the poet-saint Tukaram; Alandi, the home of the Jnaneshvara, the author of the well-known commentary on the Bhagavadgita, and Karli, the site of famous Buddhist caves. Nearby are Meherazad and Meherabad, sites associated with saint Meher Baba. Population (2001) 3,760,636.