Source: IE
Context: Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, has been renamed Sri Vijaya Puram as part of the Indian government’s effort to remove colonial legacies.
- Originally named after Archibald Blair, a British naval officer, the city was a strategic point for the British East India Company and later became infamous as a penal colony during British rule, housing political prisoners in the Cellular Jail.
- The new name, Sri Vijaya Puram, connects to the imperial Chola dynasty.
- Historical records suggest that the Chola emperor Rajendra I used the Andaman Islands as a base in the 11th century for his naval expeditions against the Srivijaya Empire in present-day Indonesia.
