Kanpur in the context of "Dornier 228"

Ahmedabad (/ˈɑːmədəbæd, -bɑːd/ AH-mə-də-ba(h)d), also spelled Amdavad (Gujarati: [ˈəmdɑʋɑd]), is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 (per the 2011 population census) makes it the fifth-most populous city in India, and the encompassing urban agglomeration population was estimated at 8,854,444 (as of 2024) is the seventh-most populous in India. Ahmedabad is located near the banks of the Sabarmati River, 25 km (16 mi) from the capital of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, also known as its twin city.

Ahmedabad has emerged as an important economic and industrial hub in India. It is the second-largest producer of cotton in India, due to which it was known as the 'Manchester of India' along with Kanpur. Ahmedabad Stock Exchange (before it was shut down in 2018) was the country's second-oldest. Cricket is a popular sport in Ahmedabad; the newly built Narendra Modi Stadium at Motera can accommodate 132,000 spectators, making it the largest stadium in the world. The planned Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sports Enclave will be one of the biggest sports centres (Sports City) in India once complete.

Kannauj (Hindustani pronunciation: [kənːɔːd͡ʒ]) is an ancient city, administrative headquarters and a municipal board or Nagar Palika Parishad in Kannauj district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is located 113 km (71 mi) from Etawah, 93 km (58 mi) from Kanpur, 129 km (81 mi) from Lucknow.The city's name is an evolved form of the classical name Kanyakubja. During the ancient Vedic period, it was the capital city of the Panchala Kingdom during the reign of king Vajrayudha. In the medieval era, it formed the core of the Kingdom of Kannauj and was ruled by multiple successive royal families.

It was also known as Mahodaya during the time of Mihira Bhoja. It is situated 104 kilometres west of the state capital, Lucknow.

After independence, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, initiated reforms to promote higher education and science and technology in India. The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)—conceived by a 22-member committee of scholars and entrepreneurs in order to promote technical education—was inaugurated on 18 August 1951 at Kharagpur in West Bengal by the minister of education Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. More IITs were soon opened in Bombay, Madras, Kanpur and Delhi as well in the late 1950s and early 1960s along with the Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) (now National Institutes of Technology (NIT). Beginning in the 1960s, close ties with the Soviet Union enabled ISRO to rapidly develop the Indian space program and advance nuclear power in India even after the first nuclear test explosion by India on 18 May 1974 at Pokhran.

India accounts for about 10% of all expenditure on research and development in Asia and the number of scientific publications grew by 45% over the five years to 2007. However, according to former Indian science and technology minister Kapil Sibal, India is lagging in science and technology compared to developed countries. India has only 140 researchers per 1,000,000 population, compared to 4,651 in the United States. India invested US$3.7 billion in science and technology in 2002–2003. For comparison, China invested about four times more than India, while the United States invested approximately 75 times more than India on science and technology. Research and development spending grew to US$17.2 Billion in 2020–2021.

Ashraf Ali Thanwi (often referred as Hakimul Ummat and Mujaddidul Millat; 19 August 1863 – 20 July 1943) was an Indian Sunni Muslim scholar, jurist, thinker, reformist and a revivor of classical Sufi in the Indian subcontinent during the British Raj. He was a central figure of Islamic spiritual, intellectual and religious life in South Asia and continues to be highly influential today. He wrote over a thousand works including Bayan Ul Quran and Bahishti Zewar. He was also one of the chief proponents of the Pakistan Movement.

He graduated from Darul Uloom Deoband in 1883 and moved to Kanpur, then Thana Bhawan to direct the Khanqah-i-Imdadiyah, where he resided until his death. His training in Quran, hadith, fiqh studies and Sufism qualified him to become a leading Sunni authority among the scholars of Deoband. His teaching mixes Sunni orthodoxy, Islamic elements of belief and the patriarchal structure of the society. He offered a sketch of a Muslim community that is collective, patriarchal, hierarchical and compassion-based.

The Grand Trunk Road (formerly known as Uttarapath, Sadak-e-Azam, Shah Rah-e-Azam, Badshahi Sadak, and Long Walk) is one of Asia's oldest and longest major roads. For at least 2,500 years it has linked Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent. It runs roughly 3,655 km (2,271 mi) from Teknaf, Bangladesh on the border with Myanmar west to Kabul, Afghanistan, passing through Chittagong and Dhaka in Bangladesh, Calcutta, Kanpur, Agra, Aligarh, Ghaziabad, Delhi, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Prayagraj in India, and Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Peshawar in Pakistan.

The highway was built along an ancient route called Uttarapatha in the 3rd century BCE, extending it from the mouth of the Ganges to the north-western frontier of India. Further improvements to this road were made under Ashoka. The old route was re-aligned by Sher Shah Suri to Sonargaon and Rohtas. The Afghan end of the road was rebuilt under Mahmud Shah Durrani. The road was considerably rebuilt in the British period between 1833 and 1860.

Several cities in the Indian subcontinent, including Ahmedabad, Ambala, Bellary, Belgaum, Bangalore, Danapur, Jabalpur, Kanpur, Bathinda, Delhi, Nilgiris, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Meerut, Ramgarh, Secunderabad, and Trichy, contained large cantonments of the former British Indian Army, with Meerut and Ramgarh being two of the most important cantonments in Northern India, second only to the headquarters at Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan). Meerut was established in 1803, and for 150 years was the largest cantonment in the region. Although cantonments in India were considered to be semi-permanent in the 18th and 19th centuries, by the turn of the 20th century, they had transitioned to being permanent garrisons. They were further entrenched as such, via the military reforms ofLord Kitchener in 1903, and the Cantonments Act of 1924.

At India's Independence in 1947, India had 56 cantonments. After this India added 6 cantonments the last being Ajmer Cantonment in 1962, taking the total number to 62. They covered an area of 161,000 acres (650 km).

The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh borders with Nepal and the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and National Capital Territory of Delhi. The Himalayas lies in the north of the state and the Deccan Plateau is at the south. In between them, the river Ganges, Yamuna and Sarayu (ghaghra) flow eastwards. Uttar Pradesh can be divided into two distinct regions, Southern hills and Gangetic plain. Uttar Pradesh is divided into 75 districts under 18 divisions. As of 2011, with an estimated population of 199,581,477. Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in India. Uttar Pradesh occupies 6.88 per cent of the India's land surface area but is home to 16.49 per cent of the India's population. As of 2011, 64 cities in the state had a population of over 100,000 people. Kanpur is the largest city of Uttar Pradesh in terms of population whereas Lucknow is also the largest city of Uttar Pradesh in terms of area (as per municipal limits) covering an area of 631 km². The smallest city with a population over 100,000 people was Kasganj with a population of 101,241 people according to 2011 census figures.