Written by Madhav Bahl, a grade 9 student.

In every country there is a specific set of rules and regulations that need to be followed before the name of a public property can be changed.

In India, for instance, the names of railway stations cannot be changed by the Indian Railways, even though they own the station. This is done by state governments.

The way it works is that the state governments send a request to the Ministry of Home Affairs, which starts the process. It’s important to note that the state needs to give a strong reason and explanations for the proposed name change, and also the new name selection. Also, there should not be any other station with the same name.

Once the home ministry approves then the process is started.

In November last year, the Bhopal railway station was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi . Members of the Bharatiya Janta Party, the ruling party of Madhya Pradesh, had proposed the name changing to the centre that then passed it. The name of the station was changed from Habibganj to Rani Kamlapati.

Who was Rani Kamlapati?

Queen Kamlapati was the widow of Nizam Shah, one of the last Hindu queens of Madhya Pradesh.  She played a large part in developing both Madhya Pradesh as well as the Gond tribe. During her reign, she set up many parks and temples and started a water project.

What’s the Gond Tribe?

The Gond tribe is one of the most well-known tribes in India. People of the Gond tribe are generally found in Maharashtra, Bihar, Odisha, and some other parts.

While the Gondi language is related to Telugu, most Gonds speak Hindi, Odia and Marathi.

I Kid You Not now has a large readership across India and also parts of the world. If you want to write for us, you can submit your story here. You can also apply to become a news anchor. Apply here

Headline image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Habibganj_signboard.jpg
BY: Aman Gupta, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons