Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Indian Postal Service

Indian Postal Service functioning under the India Post, isit is generally referred to within India as "the post office"The Indian Postal Service, with 155,333 is the most widely distributed post office system in the world . The large numbers are a result of a long tradition of many disparate postal systems which were unified in the Indian Union post-Independence. Owing to this far-flung reach and its presence in remote areas, the Indian postal service is also involved in other services such as small savings banking and financial services.

History:

The established post offices in from 1764-1766, each serving the Bombay, Madras and Calcutta presidencies. During governorship, postal service was made available to the general public. A letter would cost 2 annas (one-eighth ) for distances up to 100 miles (160 km). Payments would be done through ; a letter was hand stamped "post paid" if paid for, otherwise it was stamped "post unpaid" or "bearing".In 1839, North West Province Circle was formed and since then, new Postal Circles were formed as needed. In December 1860 Punjab Circle, in 1861 Burma Circle, in 1866 Central Province Circle and in 1869 Sind Circle were formed. By 1880 circles had been formed in (1870), (1871), (1873), (1877), Eastern Bengal (1878) and Central India (1879). Afterwards, the creation of new circles was accompanied by the merging of some circles. By 1914, there were only 7 Postal Circles — Bengal & Assam, Bihar & Orissa, Bombay (including Sind), Burma, Central, Madras, Punjab & NWF and U.P.


The usage of the stamps began on in district, with the use of an embossed pattern on paper or wax. The shape was circular, with "SCINDE DISTRICT DAWK" around the rim, leading to the common name "". 1854 was the year of the first issue for all of India. The stamps were issued by the , which first printed a 1/2a in April but never sold it to the public, then put four values (1/2a, 1a, 2a, 4a) on sale in October. All were designed and printed in , featuring the usual profile of Queen . A new set of stamps, with the queen in an oval inside a rectangular frame, and inscribed "EAST INDIA POSTAGE", was printed by in England (who produced all the subsequent issues of British India) and made available in 1855. These continued in use until after the British government took over administration of India in 1858, and from 1865 were printed on paper with an head.

Governance and organization:

The postal service comes under the Department of Posts which is a part of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology under the . The apex body of the department is the Postal Service Board. The board consists of a chairman and three members. The three members hold the portfolios of Operations & Marketing , Development and Personnel. The Joint Secretary and Financial Advisor to the Board is also a permanent invitee to the Board.India has been divided into 22 postal circles. Each circle is headed by a Chief Postmaster General. Each Circle is further divided into Regions comprising field units, called Divisions, headed by a Postmaster General. Other functional units like Circle Stamp Depots, Postal Stores Depots and Mail Motor Service may exist in the Circles and Regions.Besides the 22 circles, there is a special Circle called the Base Circle to cater to the postal services of the Armed Forces of India. The Base Circle is headed by an Additional Director General, Army Postal Service holding the rank of a .


India Post News Service:


SAN FRANCISCO: A unique gathering of pre-eminent scientists, engineers and executives from India and the US, Nobel Laureates, and industry movers and shakers is about to take place in Silicon Valley on June 22-24. This event is being organized by the Indian Institute of Science Alumni Association of North America (IISc AANA) and details can be found at the website .Preparations have been underway for a number of months and the enthusiasm and anticipation amongst alumni is building with each passing day for this first ever event of its kind. This conference will be a platform for interactions between the Institute, alumni, industry and academia, in India and the US, to build long term partnerships that will take on the global challenges at hand in the 21st century.


Participants will get to hear a video address by the President of India APJ Abdul Kalam, Nobel Laureate and Venture Capitalist Arno Penzias, Applied Materials' Chairman of the Board James Morgan, CEO of TCS S Ramadorai, Vice Chairman at Cognizant Technology Solutions Lakshmi Narayanan, the Chancellor of the University of Berkeley Prof. Robert Birgeneau, and top officials from IISc itself such as the Director Prof Balaram and many senior faculty members. Having been founded in 1908 by the great industrialist JN Tata, the Institute will be celebrating its 100 years of accomplishments all throughout 2008-09.The Institute has been the architect of India's scientific and technological enterprise, and its faculty and graduates have led India's National Labs, its Space and Atomic Energy programs, and supported its defense establishment. India's only scientific Nobel Prize was won by Sir CV Raman in 1930, one of the Institute's Directors.


IISc is India's only university that is ranked in top 20 by World Education Report. Today, the Institute continues to fuel the engine that has been pulling the Indian economy on its meteoric rise. While the Institute is held in high esteem by those who needed to know, it has remained relatively unheard-of among the general public in the US, unlike the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) or The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), both of which have acquired a "must-know" stature, especially in Silicon Valley, thanks to the dynamism of IIT alumni and well known Indian entrepreneurs. Even though IISc alumni have been meeting in the San Francisco Bay Area for a number of years, it was only in 2006 that a critical mass of true believers was reached, and since then the momentum has been unstoppable