The 'Beijing' Kowtow and the Mumbai Jumbai Cringe - more on the strange renaming of cities

This is a considerable expansion and update of a posting I wrote some time ago about the strange, unexamined new habit of changing the names of major cities. I am constantly baffled by the readiness of people, institutions and newspapers to accept such renamings, especially as their origins are often quite nasty.  First I'd like to express gratitude to Mark Higgie for a fascinating article ('Ducking Peking', no link yet available perhaps

https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/09/china-notes-3/

)  w...