alibag

Alibag is a coastal town and a municipal council in Raigad District in the Konkan region of Maharashtra, India. It is also the headquarters of the Raigad district. The original name of this place was Ramnath which is just adjacent to main city Alibag

History
Alibag was developed in the 17th century by Sarkhel Kanhoji Aangre the naval chief of King Shivaji's Kingdom. Alibag is a coastal town and municipal council in Raigad district in Konkan region of Maharashtra, India. It is the headquarters of the Raigad district. Raigad's first name was "Kulaba". Today's Ramnath was the main village at that time. A Bene Israelite named Ali used to live there at that time . He was a rich man and owned many plantations of mangoes and coconuts in his gardens. Hence the locals used to call the place "Alichi Bagh"(Marathi for "Gardens of Ali"), or simply "Alibag", and the name stuck.

Just 3 kilometers away from Alibag on Alibag-Mumbai highway you will find one small village Khandale having population of around 5000 people,which is also heading Gram Panchayats. Khandale is surrounded by wonderful Shiva temples such as Sidheshwar . During Shrawan month the beauty on these hillocks is breathtaking and on each Shrawani Somwars thousands of Alibagkars visit this place for worship and enjoying nature beauty. Also on the same highway goddess Patrudevi Mandir is located in small Ghat calles Karle Khind.

Khandale is also very famous for white onions, which are sold all over Maharashtra as "Khandale Kande". This unique breed of onions are having very rich contributions in Ayurvedik medicines and very useful during summer heat which is having unique sweeter taste. Rewdanda, Chaul, Nagon, Akshi, Varsoli,Thal, Kihim and Aawas villages were known as "Ashtagare" at that time. During those times there were some naval battles out of which one was fought at Varsoli between Kanhoji Aangre and Siddi of Janjira in the year 1706. In 1722 English and Portuguese jointly attacked on Kulaba fort and they lost this war. At Chaul there was a battle between the English and Sakhoji in 1730. Sakhoji won this war and brought down the losing party along with their captain at Kulaba. Kanhoji even issued his own currency in the form of a silver coin called the Alibagi rupaiya. Alibag and its surrounding villages are the historic hinterland of Bene Israeli Jews. There is a synagogue in the "Israel Ali" (Marathi- इस्राएल आळी meaning Israel lane) area of the town.

Alibag also houses a Magnetic Observatory which was set up in 1904. It serves as one of the significant observatories forming part of a global network now run by Indian Institute of Geomagnetism.The observatory has two buildings; the first building has magnetometers that record changes occurring in the Geo magnetic fields. The second building consists of precision recording instruments, which give data about geomagnetic storms caused by solar storms which is shared with different countries. It is from years that the Alibag Region and Raigad district in all is headed and ruled by the Bhartiya Shetkari Kamgar Paksha (Peasants and Workers Party of India).

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