Kotwal House, which once housed Hyderabad police chief's office, restored after structural concerns
The institution of the city police commissioner of Hyderabad was created in 1847, and the Kotwal House became the official headquarters cum residence of the police commissioner after the then Nizam, Mir Mahbub Ali Khan, gifted the building for the required purpose. The location of the Kotwal House near Purani Haveli, the official residence of the Nizam, and many other prominent devdis (mansions) of the time, speaks to the importance the office held during that period.
C V Anand, Police Commissioner, who helmed the project, will now have an office in the old city to oversee bandobast activities. The South Zone, which comprises the core of the old city, remains a key area for the city police. He has decided to be present at the Kotwal House on every Friday, and at the Basheerbagh commissioner's office on every Wednesday, even as his main office remains in the Integrated Command Control Centre in Banjara Hills.
'When I took charge, there was a report of the roads and buildings department proposing to dismantle the building as it was declared dangerous. I used to go every Friday and spend time in the old city and during one meeting, a part of the roof caved in. It was then that we decided to do something to save the heritage building. We estimated the cost and Mr Anil of Greenko agreed to come forward to save the heritage structure,' Anand told indianexpress.com.
Mir Khan, conservator in chief of the Deccan Terrain Heritage, who oversaw the conservation project, said the building was unused for about 5 years and was taken up for restoration in May 2023. 'There were structural issues like damage in the load-bearing walls and terrace, water leaks and wall plaster deterioration, wooden doors and windows, as well as rafters in the ceiling were deteriorated due to common moisture,' he said.
The team stripped off the entire lime plaster and undertook a revamp of the terrace, replacing wooden members, rafters, doors, and windows to bring the building back to its original glory. The building is a prime example of a typical Madras terrace type building, characterised by load-bearing walls, typical varandas with Roman columns, and an overlooking courtyard and gardens, similar to the Secunderabad Club and Nizam Club, for example. There are two cannons, one made of brass cast in Hyderabad's Gun Foundry and the other of iron cast and imported from Norway.
Rahul V Pisharody is an Assistant Editor with the Indian Express Online and has been reporting from Telangana on various issues since 2019. Besides a focused approach to big news developments, Rahul has a keen interest in stories about Hyderabad and its inhabitants and looks out for interesting features on the city's heritage, environment, history culture etc. His articles are straightforward and simple reads in sync with the context.
Rahul started his career as a journalist in 2011 with The New Indian Express and worked in different roles at the Hyderabad bureau for over 8 years. As Deputy Metro Editor, he was in charge of the Hyderabad bureau of the newspaper and coordinated with the team of district correspondents, centres and internet desk for over three years.
A native of Palakkad in Kerala, Rahul has a Master's degree in Communication (Print and New Media) from the University of Hyderabad and a Bachelor's degree in Business Management from PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore. Long motorcycle rides and travel photography are among his other interests. ... Read More
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Indian Express
40 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Daily subject-wise static quiz: History and Culture MCQs on the Chola dynasty, Travellers in Indian history, Folk dance and more (Week 119)
Are you preparing for UPSC CSE Prelims? UPSC Essentials brings to you its initiative of daily subject-wise quizzes. These quizzes are designed to help you revise some of the most important topics from the static part of the syllabus. Attempt today's subject quiz on History and Culture to check your progress. 🚨 Click Here to read the UPSC Essentials magazine for July 2025. Share your views and suggestions in the comment box or at Which of the following parts of a temple structure is not correctly matched? (a) entry hall : mukhamaṇḍapa (b) pillared hall : ardhamaṇḍapa (c) vestibule : gopuram (d) sanctum : garbhagṛha A standard Chola temple was configured along an east-west axis, consisting of an entry hall (mukhamaṇḍapa), a pillared hall (ardhamaṇḍapa), a vestibule (antarāl̥a), and a sanctum (garbhagṛha) sheltered by a Tamil Draviḍa–style superstructure. Therefore, c is the correct answer. (For more, refer:Why Chola architecture represents a high watermark in the evolution of temple by Ajeya Vajpayee, UPSC Essentials, The Indian Express) Which Chola King returned with the water of the Ganga to sanctify and commemorate his victory at a new capital in his homeland, called Gangaikondacholapuram, after his successful campaign in the north? (a) Rajaraja I (b) Rajaraja II (c) Rajendra I (d) Rajendra II Rājarāja's heir, Rajendra I, after his successful campaign in the north, returned with the water of the Ganga to sanctify and commemorate his victory at a new capital in his homeland, called Gangaikoṇḍacōl̥apuram ('City of the Chola who conquered the Ganges'). Therefore, c is the correct answer. (For more, refer:Why Chola architecture represents a high watermark in the evolution of temple by Ajeya Vajpayee, UPSC Essentials, The Indian Express) With reference to 'Kudavolai system' consider the following statements: 1. It is an ancient taxation system. 2. The system finds its mention in the Uttaramerur Inscriptions. Which of the above given statements is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 As chronicled by K A Nilakanta Sastri in The Cholas (1935), the Chola administrative framework was built on two foundational units: the Sabha for Brahmin settlements and the Ur for non-Brahmin villages. These were not symbolic councils but elected bodies with real powers over revenue, irrigation, temple management, and even justice. 'It was democracy at the grassroots — built into the fabric of Tamil civic life,' Sastri wrote in Chapter VIII, 'Local Self-Government'. But what made the system particularly striking was the method of voting, a process called the Kudavolai system or 'ballot pot' election. Under this method, as detailed in the Uttaramerur Inscriptions documented in Epigraphia Indica Vol. XXII (1933–34), the names of eligible candidates were inscribed on palm leaves and placed inside a pot. A young boy, typically chosen for his impartiality, would draw the lot in full public view. This randomised draw was not a game of chance but a civic ritual rooted in transparency, fairness, and collective consent. Therefore, b is the correct answer. (For more, refer: Long before Magna Carta, Cholas had 'ballot pots': What is the ancient voting system PM Modi lauded? by Arun Janardhanan, The Indian Express) Manigramam and Ayyavole in the history of South India are closely related to: (a) Martial art (b) Classical music (c) Merchant guilds (d) None of the above Anirudh Kanisetti notes in Lords of the Earth and Sea (Penguin, 2023): the Chola model of statecraft relied heavily on decentralised administrative systems. By empowering merchant guilds such as the Manigramam and Ayyavole, and sustaining local assemblies, the Cholas expanded both trade and legitimacy. Therefore, c is the correct answer. (For more, refer: Long before Magna Carta, Cholas had 'ballot pots': What is the ancient voting system PM Modi lauded? by Arun Janardhanan, The Indian Express) Consider the following statements: 1. Barahmasa, a poetic tradition that emerged in medieval South India, lent itself to other forms such as paintings, which were patronised by the Vijayanagar Empire. 2. Meghaduta, the classical sanskrit poem, tells the story of a yaksha who longs for his wife and uses a cloud as a messenger. Which of the above given statements is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 Kalidasa's Meghaduta The classical Sanskrit poem, Meghaduta, by Kalidasa has lent itself as a theme to artists painting the monsoon. The poem tells the story of a yaksha who longs for his wife and uses a cloud as a messenger. Barahmasa painting The Barahmasa is a poetic tradition that emerged in medieval North India. It usually revolved around the theme of a woman longing for her lover, and described her emotional state in context of the season of the year. The Barahmasa, as the name suggests, refers to the '12 months'. With time, the genre lent itself to other forms of art, including dance, music and paintings. The Barahmasa paintings began developing during the Mughal rule and were at their peak during the 18th and 19th centuries. Among these paintings, the ones depicting the monsoon months are known to be the most evocative, with passionate rendering of colours and textures to show young lovers staring at clouds, or the lush countryside. Therefore, b is the correct answer. (For more, refer:Painting the rain: How Indian art obsesses with the monsoons by Adrija Roychowdhury, The Indian Express) Consider the following states of India: 1. Arunachal Pradesh 2. Meghalaya 3. Nagaland 4. Mizoram 5. Manipur 6. Sikkim 7. Tripura Which of the above states were part of colonial Assam before Independence? (a) 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 only (b) 1, 2, 3 and 4 only (c) 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 only (d) All of the above The Northeast Northeast India officially comprises eights states — Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura — which are a part of the North-Eastern Council, a statutory advisory body that plays a role in development planning, and region-level policy making. Pre-Independence, five of these eight present-day states (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram) were a part of colonial Assam. Manipur and Tripura were princely states, with resident British political officers answering to the governor of Assam. Sikkim, the most unique of the eight, was juridically independent but under British paramountcy. It became an independent country in 1947, before being annexed by India in 1975. In 2001 Sikkim was made a member of the North Eastern Council, and thus officially a part of the Northeast. Therefore, b is the correct answer. (For more, refer: How the Northeast was 'invented', 52 years ago by Sanjib Baruah, The Indian Express) With reference to the travellers in Indian history, consider the following statements: 1. Italian traveller, Pietro Della Valle visited India during the reign of Krishnadevaraya. 2. Moroccan traveler, Ibn Battuta visited India during the reign of Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq. Which of the statements given up is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 Pietro Della Valle visited Gujarat in 1623, during the reign of Mughal emperor Jahangir. Della Valle remained in Surat for about 40 days and received the utmost kindness and civility from the Presidents of both the English and Dutch factories. He was impressed by the equality enjoyed by all Mughal subjects in the town and the liberty they had to pursue their normal avocations and to amass wealth. He describes the famous Gopi Talav, which was built by the Hindu Governor of Surat during the reign of Sultan Muzaffar II from 1511 to 1527. He refers to it as a 'very large tank' that is surrounded by stonework and features numerous sides and angles. There are stairs leading down to the water's surface. The diameter of the tank is stated to be two good furlongs. Such reservoirs were commonly constructed by rulers or wealthy individuals for the public's benefit due to the scarcity of running water, as many towns relied solely on rainwater collected in these large tanks. Therefore, b is the correct answer. (For more, refer: 17th-century Gujarat through eyes of an Italian traveller by Amarjit Singh, The Indian Express ) With reference to Laho, consider the following statements: 1. Laho is a folk dance of Meghalaya's Jaintia hill region. 2. It is famous among the Pnar tribal community and an integral part of the Behdienkhlam festival. Which of the above given statements is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 Laho Laho hails from the cool, green Meghalaya's Jaintia hill region. It is an integral part of the Behdienkhlam festival, which is held annually to invoke divine blessings and to get rid of bad spirits. It is famous among the Pnar tribal community in Meghalaya. The synchronisation and harmony of the dance are noteworthy. Instead of musical instruments, a man recites couplets during the performance. Both men and women take part in the dance and wear colourful costumes and jewellery. This folk dance is also popular among the Harp tribe of the state but is called a different name, Wangala Dance. Therefore, c is the correct answer. (For more, refer: International Dance Day 2023– Here are 5 lesser-known folk dance forms of India, The Indian Express) Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X. Manas Srivastava is currently working as Senior Copy Editor with The Indian Express (digital) and leads a unique initiative of IE - UPSC Essentials. He majorly writes on UPSC, other competitive exams and education-related projects. In the past, Manas has represented India at the G-20 Youth Summit in Mexico. He is a former member of the Youth Council, GOI. A two-time topper/gold medallist in History (both in graduation and post-graduation) from Delhi University, he has mentored and taught UPSC aspirants for more than five years. His diverse role in The Indian Express consists of writing, editing, anchoring/ hosting, interviewing experts, and curating and simplifying news for the benefit of students. He hosts the YouTube talk show called 'Art and Culture with Devdutt Pattanaik' and a LIVE series on Instagram and YouTube called 'LIVE with Manas'.His talks on 'How to read a newspaper' focus on newspaper reading as an essential habit for students. His articles and videos aim at finding solutions to the general queries of students and hence he believes in being students' editor, preparing them not just for any exam but helping them to become informed citizens. This is where he makes his teaching profession meet journalism. He is also the editor of UPSC Essentials' monthly magazine for the aspirants. He is a recipient of the Dip Chand Memorial Award, the Lala Ram Mohan Prize and Prof. Papiya Ghosh Memorial Prize for academic excellence. He was also awarded the University's Post-Graduate Scholarship for pursuing M.A. in History where he chose to specialise in Ancient India due to his keen interest in Archaeology. He has also successfully completed a Certificate course on Women's Studies by the Women's Studies Development Centre, DU. As a part of N.S.S in the past, Manas has worked with national and international organisations and has shown keen interest and active participation in Social Service. He has led and been a part of projects involving areas such as gender sensitisation, persons with disability, helping slum dwellers, environment, adopting our heritage programme. He has also presented a case study on 'Psychological stress among students' at ICSQCC- Sri Lanka. As a compere for seminars and other events he likes to keep his orating hobby alive. His interests also lie in International Relations, Governance, Social issues, Essays and poetry. ... Read More
Scroll.in
a day ago
- Scroll.in
A 16th-century Chinese writer spoke of workplace burnout, creating a design for radical acts of rest
We are in the middle of a global workplace burnout epidemic — aptly named the 'burnout society ' by Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han. Four centuries ago, late Ming Dynasty scholar-official Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610) shifted from state administrative work to xiaopin – brief, personal essays celebrating everyday pleasures like gardening, leisurely excursions and long vigils beside a rare blossom. Today, his Ming Dynasty-era practice resonates with uncanny urgency within our burnout epidemic. Amid the Wanli Emperor's neglect and escalating bureaucratic infighting in Beijing, Yuan turned away from what today we call a 'toxic workplace.' Instead, he found refuge in Jiangnan's landscapes and literary circles. There he exchanged hierarchical pressures, administrative tedium and cut-throat careerism for moments of unhurried attention. Yuan's xiaopin, alongside those of his contemporaries, transformed fleeting sensory moments into radical acts of resilience, suggesting that beauty, not institutions, could outlast empires. The Ming Dynasty: A literary rebellion The late Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) was an era of contradictions. While Europe hurtled toward colonialism and scientific rationalism, China's Jiangnan region – the fertile Yangtze Delta in today's Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces – flourished via merchant wealth, global silver trade and a thriving print culture. Bookshops lined city streets like modern cafés. They peddled plays, poetry and xiaopin volumes like Meiyou Pavilion of Arts and Leisure (1630) and Sixteen Xiaopin Masters of the Imperial Ming (1633). The imperial examination system, a civil service written exam – once a path to prestige – had become a bottleneck. Thousands of scholars languished in bureaucratic limbo, channelling their frustrations and exhaustion into xiaopin 's intimate vignettes. In his preface to Meiyou Pavilion, editor Zheng Yuanxun (1603–1644) praised the genre's 'flavour beyond flavour, rhythm beyond rhythm' – a poetic nod to its rich sensory detail and subtle musicality – rejecting moralising orthodox prose by embracing immersive aesthetics. Against neo-Confucianism 's rigid hierarchies, xiaopin elevated the private, the ephemeral and the esthetically oblique: a well-brewed pot of tea, the texture of moss on a garden rock and incense wafting through a study. Wei Shang, professor of Chinese culture at Columbia University, has noted such playful text flourished among late Ming literati disillusioned with the era's constraints. The texts reframed idleness and sensory pleasure as subtle dissent within a status-obsessed society. When doing less becomes radical Long before French poet Charles Baudelaire's flâneur used dandyism and idle promenades to resist the alienating pace of western modernity, Ming literati like Chen Jiru (1558–1639) and Gao Lian (1573–1620) framed idleness as defiance. Drawing on Daoist wu wei (non-action), Gao praised the 'crystal clear retreat' that scrubbed the heart of 'worldly grime' and cultivated 'a tranquil heart and joyful spirit.' For him, human worth lay not in bureaucratic promotions but in savouring tea, listening to crickets or resting against a well-fluffed pillow. Hung-tai Wang, a cultural historian at Academia Sinica in Taipei, identifies xiaopin as a 'leisurely and elegant' aesthetic rooted in nature's rhythms. Chen Jiru, a Ming Dynasty-era painter and essayist, embodied this framework by disallowing transactional logic. In one essay, Chen lauds those who possess 'poetry without words, serenity without sutras, joy without wine.' In other words, he admired those whose lives resonated through prioritizing lived gestures over abstract ideals. In the late Ming's burgeoning urban and commercial milieu, xiaopin turned everyday objects into remedies for social isolation. In the Jiangnan gardens, late Ming essayists saw landscapes infused with emotion. At the time, essayist Wu Congxian called it 'lodging meaning among mountains and rivers:' moonlight turned into icy jade, oar splashes to cosmic echoes. Chen Jiru had study rituals – fingering a bronze cauldron, tapping an inkstone – curating what he termed 'incense for solitude, tea for clarity, stone for refinement.' This cultivation of object-as-presence anticipates American literary scholar Bill Brown's 'thing theory,' where everyday items invite embodied contemplation and challenge the subject-object binary that enables commodification. The Ming Dynasty-era scholar-connoisseur, Wen Zhenheng (1585–1645), turned domestic minutiae into philosophical resistance. His xiaopin framed everyday choices – snowmelt for tea, rooms facing narrow water, a skiff 'like a study adrift' – as rejections of abstraction. Through details like cherries on porcelain or tangerines pickled before ripening, he asserted that value lies in presence, not utility. Wen suggests that exhaustion stems not from labour but from disconnection. The burnout rebellions: ' Tang ping,' 'quiet quitting' Just as xiaopin turned domestic rituals into resistance, today's movements recast the mundane as a mode of defiance. In April 2021, China's tang ping ('lying flat') movement surfaced with a post by former factory worker Luo Huazhong: 'Lying flat is justice.' The message was simple and subversive: work had become intolerable, and opting out was not laziness but resistance. In a backlash against China's '996' work model extolled by tech moguls like Jack Ma, tang ping rejects the sacrifice of dignity and mental health for productivity and casts idleness as a quiet revolt against exploitative norms. In the West, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked similar reckonings. The ' Great Resignation ' saw millions leave unfulfilling jobs. And 'quiet quitting' rejected unpaid overtime and emotional labour. These movements emerged as a soft refusal of hustle culture. As anthropologist David Graeber argues in Bullshit Jobs (2018), the 'moral and spiritual damage' inflicted by meaningless work reflects a profound political failure. Just like the late Ming literati who poured their lives into a state that repaid them with hollow titles and bureaucratic decay, today's workers withdraw from institutions that exploit their labour yet treat them as disposable. Unlike French philosopher Michel de Montaigne's introspective self-examination in his Renaissance-era Essays, xiaopin refuses utility. In doing so, it inverts the contemporary self-help trend critiqued by Byung-Chul Han, which co-opts personal ' healing ' as a form of productivity through neoliberal logic. Xiaopin proposes resistance as an existential shift beyond (self-) optimisation. Its most radical gesture is not to demand change, but to live as if the system's demands are irrelevant. Xiaopin asks: What is progress without presence? Its fragments – on lotus ponds, summer naps, a cat's shadow – prove that resistance need not be loud. Like Japanese writer Haruki Murakami's vision of contemporary literature as 'a space of individual recovery,' the genre shelters us from 'hierarchy and efficiency.' Here, time is not spent but reclaimed. To pause in an age of weaponised ambition is in fact revolt. Tracing a petal's vein, sipping tea until bitterness fades, lying flat as the machinery of productivity grinds on – these are not acts of shirking reality, but defiant gestures against the systems that feed on our exhaustion. They are affirmations of agency: microcosms where we rehearse what it means to belong to ourselves, and thus, to the world. Xiaopin 's revolution awakens in a flicker of attention: a reminder that presence, too, is a language – one that hums beneath the buzz of progress, waiting to be heard. Jason Wang is Postdoctoral Fellow, Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre, Toronto Metropolitan University.
Time of India
2 days ago
- Time of India
Beamed into focus: Lit-up angel atop Victoria dome to be part of Kolkata's night skyline
1 2 3 Kolkata: The rotating fairy atop Victoria Memorial Hall dome will soon be visible 24×7. Between 11 pm and dawn every night, it will shine like a jewel, bringing attention to a less conspicuous detail in one of the city's most celebrated landmarks. While Victoria Memorial Hall is lit up at dusk, the lights are switched off at 11 pm, plunging the marble edifice with the angel perched on the dome into darkness. Though the lights will still go off at 11 pm, 10 light beams will continue to be trained on the Angel of Victory with its wings unfurled, holding a wreath in the left hand and a trumpet in the right. "We will do the final light tests on Monday. If everything is good, the fairy will glow through the night, every night," said VMH secretary and curator-in-charge Anurag Kumar. When heritage lovers' group Kolkata Restorers sought Kumar's permission to try and illuminate the angel, he gave the go-ahead but with multiple conditions, VMH being a protected heritage site. Lighting design and illumination expert Suyash Narsaria was told no equipment could be fixed on the facade and that the dome and the angel were off-limits. "That meant no direct access and no standard lighting solutions. But the limitation was also an opportunity to innovate. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Cyprus investments might be cheaper than you think Cyprus Investments | Search Ads Get Info Undo We decided to experiment with narrow-beam focus lights — specifically, 8-degree beam angle fixtures. We did this first from the garden, nearly 350 ft from the fairy. Encouraged by the result, we moved to the terrace for focused and sharper beams," Narsaria said. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata To ensure that the rotating angel is illuminated from all sides, 10 LED focus lights of 18W. Each has been used with eight-degree beam angles, strategically arranged in a 360° layout so that the angel remains evenly lit regardless of its orientation. "The result has been magical. It almost felt like the fixture was designed specifically to highlight the angel — subtle, elegant, and powerful," the illumination expert added. The 4.9-m tall, 3.5-tonne bronze angel, named Victoria after the Roman goddess of victory, is a windvane that rotates in wind in excess of 18 kmph. Created by British sculptor Lindsay Clarke, the angel was shipped from Cheltenham, England, to India in 1920 and installed the following year on the dome, nine years after the memorial was inaugurated.
