Karnataka

Karnataka runs across southern India from the Arabian Sea coast to the Deccan plateau, with the capital at Bengaluru. The Western Ghats form its western edge, and the plateau slopes east toward the Krishna and Cauvery basins.

Bengaluru is the centre of India’s software and business-services industry and hosts a large cluster of aerospace, defence electronics, biotechnology and research institutions, including the headquarters of the Indian Space Research Organisation. Outside the capital, the Ghats districts grow coffee, pepper, cardamom and areca, the coastal belt depends on fisheries and ports, and the northern plateau grows cotton, maize, sugarcane and pulses. Karnataka is a leading producer of renewable power, particularly wind and solar.

Water sharing is the state’s most persistent dispute: the Cauvery, which it shares with Tamil Nadu, has been litigated for more than a century and remains a source of periodic unrest. The Western Ghats portion of the state is one of the world’s recognised biodiversity hotspots, and the tension between conservation restrictions and the livelihoods of hill communities has been a recurring conflict.