Port Blair Renamed Sri Vijaya Puram

New Delhi: Port Blair, the capital city of the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, has been renamed Sri Vijaya Puram, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced on Friday.

Shah said the decision was taken to free the nation from colonial imprints as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands had an “unparalleled place” in the country’s freedom struggle and history. “Inspired by the vision of Prime Minister @narendramodi ji, to free the nation from the colonial imprints, today we have decided to rename Port Blair as ‘Sri Vijaya Puram’,” Shah said on X.

While the earlier name had a colonial legacy, Sri Vijaya Puram symbolises the victory achieved in India’s freedom struggle and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ unique role in it, the home minister said.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands have an “unparalleled place” in the freedom struggle and history, and the island territory that once served as the naval base of the Chola Empire is now poised to be the critical base for India’s strategic and development aspirations, he added. “It is also the place that hosted the first unfurling of our Tiranga by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose ji and also the cellular jail in which Veer Savarkar ji and other freedom fighters struggled for an independent nation,” Shah said. Being a Union Territory, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands come under the direct administrative control of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.