Transport

Within the city, city buses and autorickshaws provide means of transportation. Two-wheelers, especially scooters and motorcycles are the favored means of personal transportation on the roads mainly owing to the narrow nature of the roads.

The intra-city public transport is dominated by the state-owned KSRTC (Kerala State Road Transport Corporation). There are also private bus services, but are limited in number. The city services of KSRTC operate from six depots namely, the City depot, Vikas Bhavan, Peroorkada, Pappanamcode, Kaniyapuram and Vellanad.

These services were revamped in 2005 with the introduction of modern buses and electronic ticketing mechanisms. The central city bus terminal is located at East Fort, near the Padmanabha Swamy temple. Trivandrum is the only City in Kerala where Double Decker buses are plying. The Central and Inter State bus station is located 1km away at Thampanoor. Buses from it go to all major towns and villages in the State as well as big cities in India such as Bangalore and Chennai.

The central railway station is also located at Thampanoor in the heart of the city, 8 km from the airport. It is a very important terminus which handles over 50 trains daily. The city is well connected by rail to almost all major cities in India. Trivandrum is the first major city from south along the second longest train route in the world, Kanyakumari to Jammu. A second satellite station was opened in 2005 at Kochuveli, near the International Airport.

Thiruvananthapuram’s international airport, with direct flights from the Middle East, Singapore, Maldives and Sri Lanka is the gateway to the tourism-rich state of Kerala. Indian Airlines and Jet Airways are the domestic airlines operating from here. Air India, Gulf Air, Kuwait Airways,Silkair, Srilankan Airlines,Emirates and Air Maldives are operate the international flights. There are also two military airports one near the civilian airport and the other at the Southern Air Command of the Indian Air Force in Akkulam.

The Vizhinjam International Seaport and Container Transhipment Terminal is under constrcution in Chinese collaboration and is expected to be commisioned by 2010. With that it is expected that Trivandrum will become the hub of all the commercial activities in Asia. Since Trivandrum is the most nearest point in Indian Sub Continent with respect to the most busy International Sea Route, Trivandrum will grow as the Gate Way of Asia.

The Ports of Colombo, Dubai and Singapore shall face severe threat due to the development of Vizhinjam Sea Port and Trivandrum City as it is a deep sea port that requires no dredging. The existing port at Cochin and the proposed Valalrpadam Container Terminal (with a depth of 7 m and 9 m respectively)need not worry since they are uncomparable to the Vizhinjam Port which has a natural depth of 24 to 30 m.

The exponential growth of the services and IT based sectors coupled with its prominence as the state capital and tourist centre has caused considerable strain on the transport infrastructure of the city. To tackle this crisis, several construction projects are now underway including the construction of several underpasses and flyovers, scheduled to be completed by early 2007.Infact Trivandrum is the only City in Kerala with a well planned road route system having a number of parallel and wide roads. That is why Trivandrum is not at all suffocating like Cochin, which suffers from regualr traffic blockades.

Demographics

The city has a population of 889,191 according to the 2001 census, making it the most populous in the state and the 30th in the country. Within the city, the density of population is about 3,500 people per square kilometer. The district has a literacy rate of 88%. Unlike most other Indian cities there are more women in Thiruvananthapuram than men, with the sex ratio being 1037 females to every 1000 males.

Hindus comprise of 62% of the population, Christians are about 20% and Muslims about 15%. The major language spoken is Malayalam. English and Hindi are also widely understood. There is also a prominent minority of Tamil speakers and a few Tulu and Konkani speakers.

Culture
Thiruvananthapuram has a rich cultural background, with the rulers of erstwhile Travancore taking an active interest in development of arts and culture. Thiruvananthapuram has produced several great artists, the most famous ones being Maharaja Swathi Thirunal and Raja Ravi Verma.

Maharaja Swathi Thirunal was a great composer and played a vital role in the development of Carnatic music. He is widely credited with introducing the violin in to the world of classical Carnatic music. A music college in his name exists today in the city. Raja Ravi Verma was an illustrious painter with global recognition. His contributions to Indian art are substantial. Most of his famous paintings are preserved at the Sree Chithra Art Gallery in the city.

The Padmanabha Swamy Temple and the fort surrounding it, the Napier Museum and Zoo, the VJT hall, Palayam Mosque and Church are among the prominent heritage buildings in the city. The Veli Lake and Shangumukham beach are home to various sculptures of noted sculptor Kanhai Kunjiraman.

Thiruvananthapuram easily disguises itself as a laid back quiet city to the casual observer. However beneath it, there is a humdrum of cultural activity.The city is quiet and safe. But what really is lacking in the city is the night life as there are no discos or pubs in the city. The only things for entertainment are cinema halls and a couple of parks. It’s high time that when more and more youngsters from other parts of country are flocking for highy paid IT jobs the city must offer them more in order to make them stick on to Trivandrum.

The city comes to life during the festival season of Onam in August\September and during the tourist season later in the year. The state government conducts the tourism week celebrations every year during Onam with cultural events taking place at various centers in the city. The other major events include the annual flower show, the Attukal Pongala, the Aaraat at Padmanabha Swamy Temple, the Beemapally Uroos, Vettucaud Perunaal etc.

The CVN Kalari at East Fort, is world renowned center for training in Kerala’s own martial art the Kalaripayattu. The Margi center offers training in many of Kerala’s traditional arts including Kathakali.

Education

Thiruvananthapuram is a major academic hub. The University of Kerala is located here. The city also has several professional education colleges including 15 engineering colleges, 3 medical colleges, 2 Ayurveda colleges (one of which is Goverment Ayurveda college Thiruananthapuram is perhaps the oldest in the world!) and 2 law colleges. The College of Engineering, Trivandrum is one of the prominent engineering institutions in the country.

There are about 900 schools in Thiruvananthapuram district. The public schools are run directly by the state government. They follow the syllabus prescribed by the state government. In addition to this there are also four Kendriya Vidyalayas run directly by the Central government which follow the CBSE syllabus. In addition to a number of schools run by the Government there are several schools run by private educational trusts or boards which follow CBSE and/or ICSE syllabus.

Media

Daily newspapers are available in English and Malayalam. The English newspapers with editions from Thiruvananthapuram are The New Indian Express, The Hindu and The Pioneer. The major Malayalam newspapers are Mathrubhumi, Malayala Manorama, Kerala Kaumudi, Desabhimani, Madhyamam and Mangalam.

Most Malayalam TV channels are based in Thiruvananthapuram. The government owned Doordarshan began broadcasting from here in 1981. Asianet was the first private Malayalam channel and began operations in 1991. The other channels now based in Thiruvananthapuram are Surya TV, Amrita TV, Kairali TV, Kiran TV (Youth channel of Surya TV) Asianet Plus (Youth channel of Asianet) and People (News and current affairs channel of Kairali TV). The local cable services are provided by ACV and Siti Cable and they provide a bouquet of local channels in addition to all the Indian channels. DTH services are available through Doordarshan Direct Plus and Dish TV. All India Radio has an AM (1161 MHz) and an FM (101.9 MHz) station for the city. There are no private radio stations.

There are several cinema halls which screen movies in Malayalam, Tamil, English and Hindi. There are also two movie studios in the city, Chithranjali and Merryland. The International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) is held in November every year.

The basic telephone services are provided by BSNL, Reliance and Tata Indicom. The cellular networks operating in the city are BSNL CellOne, Airtel, Idea Cellular, BPL Mobile (all GSM) and Reliance (CDMA). The number of mobile phone connections have increased exponentially since the late 90s. Broadband internet services are provided by ACV Dataline, Siti Cable and BSNL DataOne. The major dial-up internet providers are BSNL NetOne, Kerala Online and KelNet among others.

Sports

The most popular sports are Football and Cricket. Basketball, Badminton and Volleyball are also popular, mostly in schools. The Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium is a prominent football stadium and has hosted both national and international level matches. The University stadium has hosted two international cricket matches and is also used for athletics. The Jimmy George Sports Complex, the GV Raja Sports School and Lakshmi Bhai National College for Physical Education (LNCPE) are the other major sports establishments in the city. The city also has a golf links and a tennis club both located at Kawdiar.

The city fields two football clubs SBT and Titanium, both in the second division of the National Football Leauge.

Science and Technology

Thiruvananthapuram is a Research and Development hub in the fields of space science, information technology, bio-technology, medicine and so on. It is home to a cluster of research centres to rival any in the world, which include
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC)
Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, LPSC
Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station, TERLS
Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, CDAC
Regional Research Laboratory, CSIR
Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology
Regional Cancer Centre, (RCC)
Sree Chitra Thirunal Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology
Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute, TBGRI
Centre for Earth Science Studies, CESS
Centre for Development Studies
Central Tuber Crops Research Institute, CTCRI
Kerala State Science and Technology Museum
Priyadarsini Planetarium
College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram
Software Technology Parks of India, STPI
Technopark
Kerala Highway Research Institute
Kerala Fisheries Research Institute