Bhopal is the capital of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of Bhopal district and Bhopal division. The city was the capital of the former Bhopal State. Bhopal is known as the City of Lakes for its various natural as well as artificial lakes and is also one of the greenest cities in India. Bhopal is the 16th largest city in India and 134th largest city in the world. It is basically divided into two parts - old Bhopal and new Bhopal.A Y-class city, Bhopal houses various institutions and installations of national importance. Some of these include ISRO's Master Control Facility, AIIMS Bhopal, National Institute of Fashion Technology AMPRI, MANIT, IISER, SPA, IIFM, BHEL, School of Planning and Architecture and NLIU, Gandhi Medical College.The city attracted international attention after the Bhopal disaster, when a Union Carbide India Limited pesticide manufacturing plant leaked a mixture of deadly gases including methyl isocyanate on the intervening night of 2 / 3 December 1984, leading to one of the worst industrial disasters in the world's history with over 16,000 estimated deaths caused by the disaster.Since then, Bhopal has been a center of protests and campaigns which have been joined by people from across the globe.
