Education Institutes of Delhi

Schools and educational institutions in Delhi are either run by the NCT government or by private organizations. According to the economic survey of Delhi in 2001, there were a total of 2416 primary, 715 middle and 1576 secondary schools in Delhi while there were 131 colleges including 5 medical colleges and 8 engineering colleges. In addition, Delhi has four universities, seven deemed universities and one open university. Delhi has a literacy rate of 81.2%.

Private schools in Delhi typically use English or Hindi as the medium of instruction and are affiliated to either the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) or the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE). In 2001, about 1.47 million students were enrolled in primary schools, .32 million in middle schools, while 1.31 million students were enrolled in secondary schools across Delhi. During the fiscal year 2000-01, the Delhi government spent 30.1 billion INR on education. Females represented 51% of the total enrollment.

The top 5 universities in Delhi are Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Indira Gandhi National Open University. Delhi attracts students from all over India. A number of government and private colleges offer quality education in science, engineering, medicine, arts, law and management. The government sponsors as many as 40 Delhi University colleges. The prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences is among the best medical institutions in India. Other notable educational and research institutes include Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Delhi School of Economics, Hansraj College,Shri Ram College of Commerce, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Delhi College of Engineering and St Stephen's College. In 2001, Delhi University had 220,000 students, making it one of the largest universities in Asia. It has 14 faculties, 86 academic departments and 79 colleges spread all over the city.

Urban structure of Delhi

Most of the Delhi metropolitan area lies within the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). The NCT has three local municipal corporations: Municipal Corporation of Delhi, New Delhi Municipal Council and Delhi Cantonment Board. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is one of the largest municipal corporations in the world providing civic amenities to an estimated 13.78 million people[10]. The capital of India, New Delhi, falls under the administration of New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC). The chairperson of the NDMC is appointed by the Government of India in consultation with the Chief Minister of Delhi.

The National Capital Territory of Delhi is divided into nine districts. Each district is headed by a Deputy Commissioner and has three subdivisions. A Subdivision Magistrate heads each subdivision. All Deputy Commissioners report to the Divisional Commissioner. The District Administration of Delhi is the enforcement department for all kinds of State and Central Government policies and exercises supervisory powers over numerous other functionaries of the Government.

Delhi has four major satellite cities which lie outside the National Capital Territory of Delhi. These are Gurgaon and Faridabad in Haryana and NOIDA and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh.

Red Fort

Mughal palace architecture reached its peak with the construction of the Red Fort at Agra. Built over many centuries under different regimes, it is the product of many different architects who each worked on only a small portion of the whole. To our eyes, this gives the Red Fort a rather eclectic feel that is unified only by the ubiquitious red sandstone that gives the fortress its name.

The Red Fort began its life in the 10th century as a simple mud and brick fortress along the banks of the Yamuna river. Under Akbar (1564-1570s) of the Mughal dynasty it was rebuilt along the lines of its predecessor, which accounts for its irregular outer walls. Originally intended as a fortress, the site was partially converted into a palace during the reign of Shah Jahan, who lived in the fortress and died there - a prisoner of his own son.

The residential and defensive portions of the fortress can be described separately. The outer walls, built during Akbar's time, are penetrated by two gates, called the Amar Singh and the Delhi gate respectively. The Delhi gate, to the west, was originally the main entrance although the southern gate, the Amar Singh, is used today. Both gates are sheathed in red sandstone and consist of an enormous facade flanked by twin towers. Entry is on the diagonal, and to foil invaders, visitors were originally forced to negotiate several right-angled turns before reaching the gate.

The interior of the fortress is largely empty but for a row of residential dwellings facing the river. Built during Shah Jahan's time and after, these luxurious structures drew the resources of an entire empire and were worked on by craftsman of many different nationalities. The earliest of these dwellings, the Jahangiri Mahal, was built by Akbar as a women's quarters. It is predominantly Hindu in character and was probably inspired by the Gwalior Man Mandir, a palace built earlier in the century.

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History of Delhi

The name "Delhi" is of uncertain etymology. One suggestion is that its eponym is "Dhillu", the name of a Mauryan maharaja. However, some historians believe that the word Dilli, another name for Delhi, originated from the Persian word dahleez (Urdu: دہلیز‎), meaning "frontier" or "threshold". Another theory suggests that the city's original name was Dhillika. The Persianized surname Dahelvi is also related to residents of Delhi. The Hindi/Prakrit word dhili ("loose") was also used for the locality, gradually morphing into the local name "Dilli".


Delhi is believed to be the site of Indraprastha, capital of the Pandavas in the Indian epic Mahabharata, founded perhaps as long ago as 5000 BC.Ancient Hindu texts describe a city in North India called Indraprastha, which means "city of Indra" (God). In later years, according to the ancient texts, parts of the city came to be known as Hastinapur or "the city of elephants". Archaeological evidence suggests that Indraprastha once stood where the Old Fort is today. The earliest architectural relics date back to the Maurya Period (c. 300 BC); since then the site has seen continuous settlement. The famous Iron pillar near the Qutub Minar was commissioned by the emperor Kumara Gupta I of the Gupta dynasty (320-540) and transplanted to Delhi during the 10th century. Eight major cities have been situated in the Delhi area. The first four cities were in the southern part of present-day Delhi.


The Tomara Rajput dynasty founded the city of Lal Kot in 736 A.D. near the Qutub Minar. The epic Prithvirajaraso names the Rajput Anangpal as the founder of Delhi. The Chauhan Rajput kings of Ajmer conquered Lal Kot in 1180 A.D. and renamed it Qila Rai Pithora. The Chauhan king Prithviraj III was defeated in 1192 by the Afghan Muhammad Ghori. From 1206, Delhi became the capital of the Delhi Sultanate under the Slave Dynasty. The first Sultan of Delhi, Qutb-ud-din Aybak was a former slave who rose through the ranks to become a general, a governor and then Sultan of Delhi. Qutb-ud-din started the construction the Qutub Minar to commemorate his victory but died before its completion. In the Qutb complex he also constructed the Quwwat-al-Islam (might of Islam), which is the earliest extant mosque in India. After the end of the Slave dynasty, a succession of Turkic and Central Asian dynasties, the Khilji dynasty, the Tughluq dynasty, the Sayyid dynasty and the Lodhi dynasty held power in the late medieval period and built a sequence of forts and townships that are part of the seven cities of Delhi. In 1526, following the First Battle of Panipat, Zahiruddin Babur, the former ruler of Fergana, defeated the last Lodhi sultan and founded the Mughal dynasty which ruled from Delhi, Agra and Lahore


In the mid-sixteenth century there was an interruption in the Mughal rule of India as Sher Shah Suri defeated Babur's son Humayun and forced him to flee to Afghanistan and Persia. Sher Shah Suri built the sixth city of Delhi, as well as the old fort known as Purana Qila and the Grand Trunk Road. After Sher Shah Suri’s early death, Humayun recovered the throne with Persian help. The third and greatest Mughal emperor, Akbar, moved the capital to Agra resulting in a decline in the fortunes of Delhi. In the mid-seventeenth century, the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1628-1658) built the seventh city of Delhi that sometimes bears his name (Shahjahanabad), and is more commonly known as the old city or old Delhi. The old city served as the capital of the later Mughal Empire from 1638 onwards, when Shah Jahan transferred the capital back from Agra. Aurangzeb (1658-1707) crowned himself as emperor in Delhi in 1658. In 1761, Delhi was raided by Ahmed Shah Abdali after the Third battle of Panipat.


Delhi passed to British control in 1857 after the First War of Indian Independence. Shortly after the First War of Independence, Calcutta was declared the capital of British India and Delhi was made a district province of the Punjab. But in 1911, Delhi was again declared as the capital of India. Parts of the old city were pulled down to create New Delhi, a monumental new quarter of the city designed by the British architect Edwin Lutyens to house the government buildings. New Delhi, also known as Lutyens' Delhi, was officially declared as the seat of the Government of India after independence in 1947. During the Partition of India thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees from West Punjab and Sindh migrated to Delhi.

In 1991, the Parliament of India passed the National Capital Territory Act which gave Delhi its own legislative assembly, though with limited powers. On February 16, 2006 the Delhi High Court passed a notice to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to remove all commercial ventures within residential areas in the city.