Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91
Vol. XXXIV No. 7, July 16-31, 2024
Yet another Government-run Museum in city – with no creative plans for making it relevant
-- by Sriram V.
The State Government has announced that Humayun Mahal, part of historic Chepauk Palace, will soon be converted into Independence Day Museum. It will house memorabilia from the freedom struggle, donated by families of various patriots. It will have besides, a gallery for women freedom fighters and one more which will be an interactive site for lesser-known faces from the struggle for Independence. There will also be on display cannon, swords, documents and other objects transferred from various other museums in the State. The Department of Museums is preparing a detailed project report with the help of a consultant, after the approval of which, the process of release of tenders will begin, followed by execution. Which is all to the good. What about the actual functioning of the museum? Has any thought been given to that?
Past experience indicates that this vital, and often more important aspect of a museum will not have been paid any attention to. There are, all over the city, many museums now, ranging from the Government-run entity at Egmore to smaller displays belonging to the High Court, the Police, the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology, the ASI, the Railways and the San Thome Basilica. On the anvil are a few more including the old Anatomy Block at the Madras Medical College, the Victoria Public Hall, and one more at Ripon Buildings itself. There are besides, many memorials that double up as museums as well, such as the residences of Kamaraj and Subramania Bharathi, and the commemorative buildings including, and around, Gandhi Mandapam. The Government needs to ponder over how many of these receive footfalls if any, and why the numbers are so few. This exercise needs to be done before any more museums are thought of.
All of these are run on the lines of Government departments. After the initial fanfare of an inauguration, very little thought is given on how to make these attractive for repeated footfalls.
More loss of green cover: Chennai District Green Committee approves NHAI Port-Maduravoyal Expressway project
-- by Varsha V.
The Chennai District Green Committee has approved an application from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to fell roughly 2,200 trees under the scope of its Chennai Port-Maduravoyal Elevated Expressway project. According to media reports, the project will ease the movement of heavy motor vehicles along the route – the current detour runs to nearly 75 kms and takes two hours, which the proposed elevated corridor will cut down to 45 minutes. Operations at Chennai port are expected to gain by an increase in handling capacity and reduction in waiting time. That the project stands to benefit the city is of little argument; what grates is the loss of precious green cover that Chennai can ill afford to deplete.
According to a report in the Times of India earlier in April, the Chennai Metropolitan Area has suffered
Heritage Watch: Another landmark to vanish
Jammi Buildings has changed hands and is slated for demolition. Associated with Jammi’s Liver Cure which saved the lives of several infants from the 1930s till the 1970s, it was a landmark in the Mylapore-Royapettah area. It was in every way a tribute to the vision of its founder Jammi Venkataramanayya.
Constructed in 1951, Jammi Buildings is also a tribute to the Art Deco style. The architect (not identified at present) made perfect use of a trapezoid plot to come up with a commercial edifice
History of recording climate change on the Coromandel Coast*
-- by Anantanarayanan Raman, Anantanarayanan.Raman@csiro.au; araman@csu.edu.au
Climate change is a burning issue today. Everyone attributes losses – economic and otherwise – to the unpredictable, inconsistent behaviour of climate presently. However, the predominant, present-day thinking that climate change is a recent-time geophysical phenomenon is incorrect. A 19th-century Irish physicist John Tyndall first recognised and scientifically explained climate-change patterns in 1861. In the later decades of the nineteenth century, we – humans – understood that the industrial emissions, such as CO2, CO, CH4, N2O (the greenhouse gases) alter earth’s energy balance.
Lost Landmarks of Chennai
-- by Sriram V
The Esplanade(s) of Madras
The Esplanade today is a short stretch of road going south from NSC Bose Road and ending at the intersection of Sir T. Muthuswami Aiyar and North Fort Roads. It is architecturally a magnificent mile for it has the Raja Annamalai Manram, the South India Chamber of Commerce Building, Madras (now Chennai) House which was once Burma Shell Headquarters, the United India Insurance (now LIC) Building and Kuralagam. On the opposite side is the compound wall of the Law College, with the Yale Monument inside it. But a century or so ago, this alone was not the Esplanade. There was a Western Esplanade,
