Whenever I set up one of my electro-gadgets for the time zones I have colleagues in, I notice Mumbai is offset by half an hour. For instance in New York it’s 10:47 but in Mumbai it’s 8:17 rather than XX:47. Why is that?
I believbe what happened is rather than divide India into two time zones each divided by an hour, the government decided to take the half measure. Cecil has a column on it somewheres.
There are a few other places that aren’t in a time zone with a whole number. South Australia, the Northern Territory and Broken Hill, in Australia, are 9 1/2 hours in advance of Greenwich.
According to the list of time zones on Wiki, here are the places that are offset from UTC by other than a whole number of hours:[ul][]Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia), UTC-09:30[]Venezuela, UTC-04:30[]Newfoundland & southeastern Labrador (Canada), UTC-03:30[]Iran, UTC+03:30[]India and Sri Lanka, UTC+05:30[]Nepal, UTC+05:45[]Burma/Myanmar & the Cocos Islands (Australia), UTC+06:30[]Certain areas in Western Australia, UTC+08:45 (unofficial)[]The areas of Australia mentioned by Giles above, UTC+09:30[]Lord Howe Island (Australia) UTC+10:30 (but not during DST)[]Norfolk Island (Australia)[]Chatham Islands (New Zealand), UTC+12:45[/ul]As to why this choice was made, it’s basically to make solar time line up more closely with clock time. For Newfoundland (above), the largest city (St. John’s) has its clock time pretty much exactly aligned with solar time at that longitude.
Because India is big enough to be two time zones, so rather than have one half of the country be about an hour earlier or later than it should be, they split the difference.
nt
Oh, sure, cornflakes, spoil my chance to snarkily point out that I sniped you. 
I sniped you first. 
Granted, you had a cite.
I give myself the credit 'cause I actually did the Google search.
List of all the different time zones is here. There’s an interesting recent BBC news article on time zones here, prompted by Venezuela changing its time zone. Some points from both of them:
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Hugo Chavez put Venezuela’s clocks back by 30 minutes earlier this year, creating a new time zone. He said it was to ‘increase productivity’ but there’s suggestions he did it just to put Venezuela in a different time zone from the US.
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There are 2 time zones in the world that are even weirder than the half-hour offest: Nepal is only 15 minutes ahead of India, on UTC+5:45. The Chatham Islands off New Zealand created the other, which is UTC+12:45.
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Kotzebue, Alaska has skewed its time zone so far that once a year they get two sunsets in the same day. China uses a single time zone across its whole span, meaning that in some places the solar “high noon” takes place as late as 3pm. Some small areas in Australia have done some crazy things with their time zones as well, I didn’t really understand what though!
Wayne and Shuster used to do a bit where a product was advertised as “Just Nine Dollars and Ninety-Nine Cents! That’s $10.99 Canadian! 8:30 Newfoundland!”
We like it that way,dude !
Oh, great — thanks for bringing this up. I hear that a lot on the CBC1 live feed. Why always 8.30?
As noted above, Newfoundland Standard Time is a half-hour later than Atlantic Standard Time, which is in turn a full hour later than Eastern Standard Time. The CBC (and, I think, most Canadian broadcasters) run their shows at the same clock time in each time zone. So, for example, the Halifax stations broadcast “Quirks & Quarks” at noon AST; the Ottawa stations broadcast it at noon EST; the Winnipeg stations broadcast it at noon CST; and so forth. However, the Newfoundland stations are synchronized with those in the rest of the Maritimes, and when it’s noon in Halifax it’s 12:30 in Newfoundland. Hence, “Quirks & Quarks” is on at noon in most of the country, but a half-hour later in Newfoundland.
It’s pretty much the same reason why shows are on at “8:00 / 7:00 Central” in the States. You can read up on the history of that in Cecil’s column.
Because Newfoundland is one of the “half hour off” territories, and so, just as in the States you hear TV show times announced as “8:00 pm! 7:00 pm Central Time”, in eastern Canada, you often hear “8:00 pm! 8:30 Newfoundland!”
I just spotted this thread and how it is asking for information that has also been an issue in At this moment what does your computer’s clock display? which I started 08-27-2010, 05:58 AM, and which has some pertinent findings in this post.
I’m linking from that thread to this one as soon as I post this.
OK, I get it now. It’s the “synchronized with the rest of the Maritimes” bit that threw me off.
Thank you.
It’s so Hindu India won’t be like Muslm Pakistan
Nepalis like to say their clocks are set 15 minutes ahead of India’s to emphasize their independence from their influential neighbor. I don’t know if that’s really the reason.
I found out something truly interesting in looking up US/Canadian time zones: Between 1975 and 1983, Yakutat, Alaska (and its immediate outcountry) was the only place in the world in its time zone.
Prior to 1983, the Alaska Panhandle, along with British Columbia, the three Pacific Coast states, and Baja California, was on Pacific Time (UTC-8). Between 1918 and 1983, the bulk of Alaska was on the same time as Hawaii, known as Central Alaska Time or Alaska Standard Time between 1918 and 1967, when it was renamed Alaska-Hawaii Standard Time (UTC-10). Most of the Aleutian chain, extending southwest in an arc from the mainand, were in Aleutian or Bering Standard Time (UTC-11), as were Nome and the surrounding Wales Peninsula.
The Yukon Territory of Canada and a narrow strip across Alaska where the southwest corner of the Yukon came closest to the Pacific were on Yukon Standard Time (UTC-9); Yakutat was the only community in Alaska in this time zone.
In 1975, the Yukon moved to Pacific Standard Time, leaving only Yakutat in the old Yukon Standard Time.
In 1983, the bulk of Alaska, including both the Panhandle and the mainland that had been in UTC-10, all moved to join Yakutat in UTC-9, which was renamed Alaska Standard Time. The Aleutians moved into UTC-10, which was renamed Hawaii-Aleutians Standard Time.
But for those eight years, Yakutat (and the surrounding wilderness) had the distinction of being the only place in the world keeping UTC-9 time.