Notes on South India

> In other cases, everyone seems to agree that the renamings are acts of tribal identity politics.

Depends on the place. The British changed the names of many places because they could not pronounce them. A lot of those places will eventually go back to their old names.

> a woman named Droupadi Murmu is the (mostly ceremonial) president.

Presidents have just about enough power to be a major irritant to the three arms of government, if they so wish. They can sit on bills passed by parliament indefinitely (pocket veto). They are first in the order of precedence[1] which is a check on the vanity of politicians in the executive.

> the government, led by Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister, ended License Raj, reduced tariffs, and deregulated many aspects of the economy.

This would have been impossible without the political backstopping provided by Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao. The man managed to run a minority government to full term. I don't think the feat has been repeated at the center or state level since then.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_precedence_in_India