Did you know that the world’s first official airmail delivery took place in…
2025
Did you know that the world’s first official airmail delivery took place in India in 1911, only 8 years after the invention of airplanes?
On February 18, 1911, French pilot Henri Pequet carried the first official mail flown by airplane. Pequet carried a sack with about 6,000 cards and letters on his Humber biplane. The flight covered a distance of five miles, from Allahabad polo field to Naini across the Yamuna river. All mails received a special postmark depicting an airplane, mountains, and - “First Aerial Post, 1911, U.P. Exhibition Allahabad” written on it.
On October 1, 2024, India Post celebrated 170 years of service. Originally started by the British East India Company and known as ‘Company Mail’, India Post was brought under the Crown as a service in 1854 by Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General of India from 1848 to 1856. However, the history of postal systems in India goes back to the Maurya period, particularly the reign of Chandragupta Maurya circa 300 BCE.
Some historians believe that Chandragupta introduced an early postal system in India, using carrier pigeons to communicate between the different provinces of his vast empire stretching from Karnataka in the South to Afghanistan in the North, and Nagaland in the East to Eastern Iran in the West. This early postal system was most probably introduced to India by Alexander III of Macedon, who used it widely during his military campaigns after adopting it from the ancient Persians, who trained and used carrier pigeons as messengers as early as the 5th Century BCE. Carrier pigeons remained the primary mode of long-distance communication in India over the next thousand years. They were used extensively by rulers from the Maurya emperor Ashoka (302-234 BCE) to the Mughal emperor Babur (1483-1530 CE).
What was India Post known as earlier ?
- A.
The Crown Mail
- B.
Company Mail
- C.
Humber Biplane Mail
- D.
East India Company Postal Service
Attempted by 9 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Concept: In a passage-based factual question that asks what an institution or service was called earlier, the answer is the exact former name that the passage explicitly states — not a related event, an object mentioned nearby, or the name of an affiliated organisation.
Application: The passage states, "Originally started by the British East India Company and known as 'Company Mail', India Post was brought under the Crown as a service in 1854 by Lord Dalhousie." This sentence directly names the service's earlier identity as 'Company Mail', and separately names its later status as being brought "under the Crown" in 1854.
Cross-check: Testing each option against the passage confirms the reading:
"The Crown Mail" is built from the passage's mention that the service was brought under Crown administration in 1854 — the passage describes this administrative change but does not use this phrase as a name for the service.
"Company Mail" is the exact phrase the passage uses for the service's original name under the British East India Company.
"Humber Biplane Mail" mixes up the aircraft used for the 1911 airmail flight (the Humber biplane) with the name of the postal service itself — the passage never calls the service by this name.
"East India Company Postal Service" correctly identifies the founding organisation but is not the name the passage actually uses; the passage's own term for the earlier name is 'Company Mail'.
So the earlier name of India Post, as stated directly in the passage, is 'Company Mail'.