Haridwar, April 1 -- Locals in Haridwar district of Uttarakhand on Tuesday celebrated the state government's decision to change the name of Gajiwali village to Arya Nagar, among various other villages to "honour public sentiment, Indian culture and heritage." The had been wanting to have the names changed for a long time.

"The atmosphere is like Diwali or Holi. This was the demand of the villagers for a long time and long ago, we had made a proposal to former minister (Yatishwaranand) Swami too," said a villager, Devendra Singh Negi, to ANI.

"He took a big initiative and reached out to (Pushkar Singh) Dhami. Dhami ji has done the work of changing the name of the village. We celebrated with dhols (drums), distributing sweets, people have...