{"id":76500,"date":"2026-02-25T23:45:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T14:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/25\/india-state-kerala-to-be-renamed-keralam-malayalam-language"},"modified":"2026-02-25T23:45:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T14:45:25","slug":"indian-state-of-kerala-to-be-renamed-keralam-to-reflect-local-pronunciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76500","title":{"rendered":"Indian state of Kerala to be renamed Keralam to reflect local pronunciation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Proposal approved by Modi government will bring official English name into line with Malayalam language<\/p>\n<p>The Indian state of Kerala, known as \u201cGod\u2019s own country\u201d for its golden beaches and lush tea plantations, is to be given a new name.<\/p>\n<p>Narendra Modi\u2019s cabinet has approved a proposal to change the southern coastal state\u2019s name from Kerala to Keralam. The move will bring the official English name into line with how it is pronounced in Malayalam, the primary language spoken by the state\u2019s estimated population of 35 million.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/25\/india-state-kerala-to-be-renamed-keralam-malayalam-language\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Proposal approved by Modi government will bring official English name into line with Malayalam languageThe Indian state of Kerala, known as \u201cGod\u2019s own country\u201d for its golden beaches and lush tea plantations, is to be given a new name.Narendra Modi\u2019s c&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4603,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,503,433,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-india","category-indigenous-peoples","category-narendra-modi","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76501,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76500\/revisions\/76501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}