Gandhinagar has been christened after the great Bapu, the Father of the Nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. In 1960, when the old Bombay State was divided into Maharashtra and Gujarat, the city of Bombay went to Maharashtra. It was then decided to construct a new seat of power for Gujarat. This served as the origin of Gandhinagar, a city well planned, to give Chandigarh a tough fight. Gandhinagar occupies an area of 57 sq. kilometers. It has 30 sectors with each sector having its own shopping, health, housing colonies and community centre. Initial plans were to rope in the renowned American architect Louis Kahn to build the city to rival Le Corbusier’s, Chandigarh. But, the plans were cancelled due to pressure to make the new city an Indian enterprise. So, the charge of making the new city was given to Indian architects, H. K. Mewada and Prakash M. Apte. The city is the administrative centre, the power block of the state of Gujarat, as it encompasses almost all the important offices of the state. The city is a dedication to greenery and aptly does justice to the goals of the tri colour.

The Knowledge Park

Gandhinagar can boast of being one of those cities of the country where education is the buzz word. Having in its boundaries, one of the premiere institutions of India, this city is surely a Knowledge Park. The Institute for Plasma Research, a scientific research organization is the city’s best research centre. The Institute was moved to its present campus in Gandhinagar in the year 1998 and is a prestigious and much sought after plasma physics research centre of India. The Indian Institute for Advanced Research in Koba, which is primarily concerned with biotechnology based advanced research, is also an asset to the educational infrastructure of the city. Dhirubai Ambani Institute of Information and Technology was established in the year 1995 and has a reputation of being one of the renowned technical institutes of the country after the IIT’s and NIT’s. The National Institute of Fashion Technology serves as a centre of creativity and verve and thus adds to the charisma of this intellectually gifted city.

Religion and Travel

Akshardham is a renowned temple of the “Swaminarayan Sect,” which is the most prosperous sect in the world. It is a popular and spiritually healing superstructure built in Gandhinagar in divine remembrance of Lord Swaminarayan. Inspired by H. D. Pramukh Swami Maharaj, Akshardham is a spectacle, which is the reflection of multiples of free individuals, who worked day in and day out to change a mere plot of land into a focal point of divinity and solace. The Indroda Dinosaur and Fossil Park in Gandhinagar, contains the second largest hatchery of Dinosaur eggs in the world. The extensive and ingenious Park was established by the Geological Survey of India and happens to be the only Dinosaur museum in the country. The only reel life character that the Park misses is the reel life, touch-and-go, Tyrannosaurus Rexes and rapine raptors of the Spielbergian epic, “Jurassic Park”. Otherwise, Indroda has it all for the dedicated Paleophile.