(L to R) Farhat Basir Khan, Prof. S.P. Singh at the exhibition of Aditya Havelia (BCCL / Vishnu Jaiswal)
Lucknow, UTTAR PRADESH :
Lucknowites witnessed an underwater photography exhibition titled Into the Blue, by Aditya Havelia at an art gallery in Aliganj.
Giving the social message of saving our water from pollution, the eight-day exhibition attracted a lot of photography enthusiasts.
The exhibition, which had 54 pictures clicked by the photographer from the year 2010, was inaugurated by Prof SP Singh, vice-chancellor, Lucknow University. Singh said, “I really enjoyed seeing the underwater life.
Aditya’s initiative to promote the cause of water pollution was also worth appreciating.” Curated by the academician, Farhat Basir Khan, the photos displayed Aditya’s work from Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Netrani Island, Malaysia and Mauritius.
Telling us about the hard work put in to get the perfect clicks, Aditya said, “We usually don’t get a perfect guide for underwater photography, which made it a bit of a challenge for me to click these photographs.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Lucknow News> Events / by Adnaan Rizvi / TNN / April 05th, 2018
The sherwani that Mahbub Ali Khan wore evolved from the achkan with elements from Edwardian and Victorian frock coat
It is a known fact that the Sixth Nizam Mahbub Ali Khan had a taste for the good things in life. Visitors to the Nizam’s Museum in Purani Haveli area of Hyderabad are stunned to see the walk-in wardrobe that appears endless. “He never repeated a dress,” is the whispered word. But new research has spotlighted his role in the evolution of the sherwani which is now the dress of choice during weddings and is preferred by the political class during ceremonial occasions. Former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru even used the sherwani as a style statement during his visits to various foreign countries and events in India. Soldiers of the Pakistani Army are allowed to wear it for various events.
But it was on January 24, 1893, perhaps at 4 pm, that the world got its first memorable glimpse of the sherwani when Mahbub Ali Khan wore it and sat down with Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, then travelling in India, for a post-lunch photograph by the team of Raja Deen Dayal at the Chowmahalla Palace. History was made. According to a Ph D thesis by Toolika Gupta, the photograph is the first evidence of sherwani being used as it evolved from achkan. The achkan itself evolved from a garment called angarakha with the addition of buttons which were a European novelty.
The Lucknow historian Abdul Halim Sharar who spent a few years in Hyderabad tutoring the sons of a Paigah nobleman wrote about the evolution: “The achkanwas extremely popular and the style started to find its way from the towns to the villages. In a very short time it was worn throughout India. In Hyderabad, it developed, with a few alterations, into the sherwani. Its sleeves were made like those of an English coat, the adornments over the chest were discarded and for the lower part the shape of an English overcoat was adopted. It became so popular everywhere, including Lucknow, that it is now the national dress of all Hindus and Muslims in India.”
While the achkan is the gift of the nobility from Lucknow, Hyderabad can lay claim on the ownership of the sherwani. The sherwani was a gradual evolution of angarakha which had laces on either the right or left shoulder to tie up the flaps. A similar garment would be a women’s kurti with the cut not in the middle but across the right or left shoulder. But the sherwani revolution happened when the buttons moved to the centre and the oriental dress appeared like a version of frock coat which was popular during Edwardian and Victorian eras in England. One only has to think of Darcy and Bingley in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for the frock coat (some of the more popular illustrations were done by Hugh Thomson in 1894).
The 28-year-old Nizam who was a fashionista naturally adapted the trend, though Archduke Ferdinand remarks: “He always wears European dress; most of the times he is in a black frock coat and the only native piece preserved in his costume is a turban-like cap made out of yellow cloth with a golden tassel. He never takes off this headdress.” But for casual events, the Nizam knew the comfort factor in Indian clothes.
It was just perfect that it was in a kingdom where the British mingled with Indians with absolute freedom that the sherwani evolved.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture> Living Hyderabad / by Serish Nanisetti / March 10th, 2018
From left — Scientists Shriessh Srivastava, Syed Shams Yazdani, Zia Fatma and Tabinda Shakeel studied the phospholipid pathway of E. coli . (Photo – The Hindu)
New Delhi :
A team of scientists at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi has successfully experimented with the use of microbes in making hydrocarbons.
The scientists “have succeeded in engineering the metabolic pathway of Escherichia coli in such way that it would synthesise hydrocarbons of carbon chain length 15 and 17, which are the fundamental components of diesel,” says a report in The Hindu.
The results of the study, conducted by four researchers of microbial engineering – Shriessh Srivastava, Syed Shams Yazdani, Zia Fatma and Tabinda Shakeel – were recently published in the Journal of Metabolic Engineering.
“Few cyanobacteria are known to produce a low quantity of alkane. So we put the genes responsible for this production into the laboratory bacteria. But then the production was very minimal. So we took the approach of in-silico metabolic pathway, and finally over-expressed a gene (zwf gene) and removed few genes from E. coli which resulted in significantly high hydrocarbon production,” explained Zia Fatma, Postdoctoral researcherand first author of the paper.
Dr Syed Shams Yazdani, from Microbial Engineering group and corresponding author of the paper said: “Currently, most of our need for fuels is met by non-renewable crude petroleum. Few countries have commercialised biodiesel made via transesterification of vegetable oil, but they can only be blended in the proportion of 5-20% with diesel and are not compatible with the supply chain,” says per. “The production is currently only at the lab level. We have to integrate the engineered plasmid into the genome and go for mass production. We are working to bring about a ten-fold increase in the production and at the same time bring down the cost of the new product.”
Makkah Masjid in Hyderabad is one of the biggest mosques in India and the foundation stone for its construction was laid during 1616-17 CE and the foundation was laid by the Qutub Shahi ruler, Sultan Mohammad Qutub Shah VI.
The construction was completed by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1694 after 77 years.
The mosque is also listed as a heritage building. The Masjid is built in granite and the bricks for its construction were brought from Mecca, the holy city of Saudi Arabia.
source: http://www.siasat.com
The chief mason was Rangaiah Chowdhury while the engineer was Faizullah Baig.
The prayer hall can accommodate 10,000 people owing to its large size with dimensions of 75 feet high, 180 feet long and has a width of 220 feet.
According to the information available on the Hyderabad.org.uk, it is believed that a strand of Prophet Mohammed’s hair is preserved in a room in the mosque’s courtyard.
There are 15 intricately designed arches that support the roof of the main hall, in which 5 arches were constructed on 3 walls. The mosque is decked with Belgian crystal chandeliers, which adds to the beauty of the exquisitely designed interiors of the mosque. Inside the mosque, there are 5 passageways and tombs of the rulers belonging to the ‘Asaf Jahi’ dynasty.
According to the news reported in Times of India, during the Qutub Shahi rule, Iran was specifically mentioned in Friday sermons in all mosques in Hyderabad and elsewhere in the Qutub Shahi kingdom.
According to the historian Abdul Majeed Siddique in his ‘History of Golcunda (1956)’ one of the reasons for the Mughal rulers to attack the Qutub Shahi kingdom was the recital of the name of the Shah of Iran (Safavid dynasty) in Friday sermons. Emperor Shahjahan was so angry that he sent a letter to Abdullah Qutub Shah VII to stop mentioning the name of the Shah.
Historian Abdul Majeed Siddique quotes Emperor Shahjahan’s words that order “the abandonment of the name of the Safavid King and replacement thereof by the emperor’s own name in both, the Friday sermons and coins”.
Currently, the restoration works are being done to welcome the Iranian President Dr. Hassan Rouhani who will be the first Iranian President to address the congregation, though he is the second leader to visit the mosque. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Mohammad Khatami became the first Iranian President to visit Hyderabad (January 28, 2004), but he did not participate in the Friday congregation.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> Hyderabad> News> Top Stories / February 15th, 2018
Nazia Khan, 18, who has received a number of national and state awards for her bravery and social work, was recently honoured with the prestigious Bharat Award at the National Bravery Award ceremony held in Delhi. A resident of Agra, Nazia is the only recipient from UP to have won the award – there were a total of 18 children from various parts of the country who were honoured for their acts of bravery by Prime Minister Narendra Modi
. It started with saving an eight-year-old girl
The first act of bravery for Nazia, a BA first-year student, was when she saved an eight-year-old girl from getting kidnapped. She was also instrumental in stopping a bunch of people in her locality from gambling.
The first act of bravery for Nazia, a BA first-year student, was when she saved an eight-year-old girl from getting kidnapped. She was also instrumental in stopping a bunch of people in her locality from gambling.
‘I talked for at least half an hour with the PM’
Nazia received her Bravery Award in Delhi where she met the PM. She says, “I was seated right in front of him and noticed him smiling at me. While receiving the award, I talked to him when he jokingly called me ‘ladaku’. He also met my mother and asked her if I quarrelled with her as well.”
After receiving the award, Nazia also participated in the Republic Day Parade with 17 other awardees. She says, “It was an experience of a lifetime to participate in the Republic Day Parade. Every year, I used to watch the parade on television and always dreamt of participating in it. So being there was a dream come true.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Noida News / TNN / February 03rd, 2018
It was a grand homecoming for her after five long years in the United States where she had moved to after marriage.
When she had shifted in 2013, she was worried about what fate in the foreign country would do to her passion for cricket.
However, for 33-year-old Jhansi girl Zeenat Kausar , life in the US brought unparalleled success. She has been playing as a medium pace bowler with the American women’s cricket team since October 2015.
Now a mother of an infant, her sporting talent has taken her to international matches with Pakistan and England.
Married to a US-based software engineer who is also from Jhansi, Zeenat was born and brought up in the small town but had big dreams. Though a science teacher, she had a keen interest in cricket, thanks to her elder brother. In school and college, Zeenat represented Jhansi district woman’s cricket team in 2005 in Allahabad as vice-captain. She also played zonal-level cricket representing the winning central zone in 2007.
In 2008, she played for UP in the All-India Indira Gandhi Priyadarshani Memorial Cricket Tournament. The team was the winner.
Besides, Zeenat has played in a number of district and state-level cricket tournaments during her school and college time and has also participated in UP women’s cricket coaching camp in 2009. In the US recently, Zeenat and her team members had an opportunity to interact with master blaster Sachin Tendulkar .
“When my marriage was fixed, I was shattered, thinking that my cricketing career will end. But destiny held something else for me. In America, I got associated with local cricket clubs and a day came when I got this opportunity to play from the country itself,” said Zeenat, who is on a long vacation to meet her parents.
During her stay, she wants to motivate young boys and girls to pursue their dreams and encourages them to move ahead.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Lucknow News / by Arindam Ghosh / TNN / March 08th, 2018
