India's tallest building under construction....

MUMBAI | India Tower | 126 floors | 700m — Mumbai’s tallest skyscraper begins construction!

India Tower, Marine Lines, Mumbai, India

…Mumbai’s, India’s and the Subcontinent’s tallest, greenest

Big news Skyscraper Fans!

India Tower, (formerly known as “Park Hyatt Tower“), the 126-storey, 700 meter tall mixed-use residential and hotel tower has officially begun construction!

With this news, the 882,000 sq ft tower has set a number of records ranging from “Mumbai’s Tallest” to “India’s First Supertall” to “India’s Greenest Skyscraper.” It also has the great distinction of being represented in the Indian Skyscraper Blog’s logo!

While equally tall and taller buildings have been approved, like the Hyderabad’s 100+ storied Lanco Hills Signature Tower, Hyderabad’s 100+ storied APIIC Trade Tower, and Mumbai’s India International Trade Tower, and almost 10 more supertalls are proposed, so far none of them have actually broken ground yet.

Designed by Fox and Fowle (FXFOWLE) architects as part of a three-hotel luxury project being developed by Neelkamal Realtors in conjunction withHyatt hotels, India Tower is located at Marine Lines, Mumbai, just north of the city’s historical district. It marks the southernmost point of a major region of skyscraper development that currently stretches north to under construction Parel/Back Bay skyline.

For more information, and a large collection of hi-res pictures of this awesome project originally posted by me on Skyscrapercity.com, read on!…

The 882,000 sq ft project, India Tower, in the architects’ own words:

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…centers on creating an iconic residential mixed-use building within India’s emerging new economy.

[India Tower] is informed by distinctive indoor/outdoor environments and the desire to optimise the panoramic views of the surrounding landscape.

The tower’s rotated form emerges in response to the buildings functional requirements and its mixed-use program – which changes with each twist of the structure. This circulation pattern separates retail, 5-star hotel and serviced apartments and long lease duplex penthouse condominium apartments within a sustainable network of green roofs and hanging gardens; creating a singular, extraordinary building that, when completed, will be the tallest and greenest building in India.

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Fearing knee-jerk protests by NIMBYites, developers in Mumbai tend to be ultra-secretive about their projects until they have broken ground. India Tower is no different. Though the tower obviously was planned many months before, it was only officially announced in a very low-key manner on May 4, 2007, when Hyatt Hotels told the Economic Times newspaper about it.) Even then, it wasn’t picked up by any other news sources.

The architect’s website was originally the only other source of information, and there was a lot of confusion as to the status of the project for a while, until news came trickling down in architecture magazines and symposiums divulging precious more information by a rightfully proud FXFOWLE about its engineering marvel.

Finally, on June 21 , 2007, FXFOWLE officially launched the project in a press release:

FXFOWLE Architects: “India Tower in Mumbai is under construction”

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Greenest Skyscraper in India?

Tuesday 17 Jul 2007

Construction has started on India Tower, a new 126-storey (700 meters) world-class Park Hyatt hotel, retail, and residential tower located in South Mumbai, India. The developer is committed to making India Tower a United States Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED Gold-rated project. Construction is expected to be completed in 2010.

India Tower is located in the prestigious South Mumbai coastal area fondly referred to as the Queens Necklace. The tower’s rotated form emerges in response to the 3-acre site (1.2-hectares), the building’s functional requirements, and its mixed-use program that changes with each rotation of the tower. This circulation pattern separates retail, a custom-designed residential-style Park Hyatt hotel and serviced apartments, and long-lease and duplex penthouse condominium apartments.

The design concept for India Tower was informed by Mumbai’s climate, the site, and the desire to create distinctive indoor and outdoor spaces with optimum views, inspirational settings, and personalized contemporary accommodations for all users. Designed to have the least possible impact on the environment, the tower will integrate current innovative sustainable systems and technologies throughout the building – solar shading, natural ventilation, daylighting, rainwater harvesting, and green interior finishes and materials – to make it one of the greenest skyscrapers in India.

India Tower’s 3-story podium will include restaurants and cafés, luxury-brand retail stores, a health/fitness club with a swimming pool, and a nightclub/lounge. When arriving at India Tower, Park Hyatt guests will be directed to the Sky Lobby (levels 30-35) to check-in, then descend to levels 14 through 28 to their hotel residences.

India Tower’s long-lease apartments will be located on levels 38 through 50, and will feature stylish and spacious two-story living spaces that have been specially designed to take full advantage of the expansive views from this height. Levels 52 to 59 of the tower will house one-of-a-kind duplex penthouse condominium apartments with unparalleled panoramic views.

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While currently rather separated from the current skyscraper construction, it is located at the southern end of what will be a massive skyscraper-laden redevelopment region that will see a long skyline anchored in the north at Dharavi, west at Worli, in the middle at Parel, and in the south at Back Bay.

But it shouldn’t be isolated for too long. Peter Weingarten, AIA, FXFowle’s director of international architecture seems to have predicted the future when he told AIArchitect Magazine

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Weingarten’s vision of India Tower’s transformative potential is emblematic of developers in many emerging nations. “It will have a much more intangible effect than just another big building, and then it will spur more development around it,” he says. “It becomes a magnet and a center, and if enough of these dots start to get created and they start to become connected into a network,you can really start to see some dramatic changes in the landscape of Mumbai and India.”…

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…as other developers have made known that they are planning skyscrapers at Marine Lines. Currently a 50-storey commercial skyscraper, and 2-3 other projects, including the possible supertall Mumbai International Finance Centre, are planned around the location where Park Hyatt tower is being built.

Here are some more renderings of India Tower:

Aaand a couple older renderings of the building, which don’t look to be accurate anymore:

I will keep updating this post as more renderings and information come out!

India's tallest family..

                               1st   6.1 feet
                                2nd 6.2 feet
                                3rd  6.5 feet
                                4th   7.5 feet
 really amazing family 

Amazing..

4G reaches India

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Whether you want to check out your photos, watch a movie or tv show, or play a game, see it all on the big screen with HDMI. Access your phone’s content using your TV remote2 and the TV launcher homescreen using Bravia Sync. Browse through the internet with lightning fast 4G LTE speeds and a 1.5GHz dual processor.

Hang till death?

You do..

About jagannath rath yatra..

Dear Fiends ,

It has been a while since adiyen has got the opportunity of witnessing a ‘ther’ or chariot procession. Such an opportunity presented itself today!

Today was the temple ther/rath yatra of Sri Jagannath of Puri, Orissa. The event was being telecast live on Doordarshan and was running for close to 7 hours. The Puri Jagannath temple rath yatra consists of 3 rathas -  one each for Balabhadra (Balarama), Subhadra and Sri Jagannath. It was interesting to witness an elaborate ritualistic ceremony, including a slow rythmic carrying of deities into the ratha, the arrival of the king – ‘Gajapati Maharaj’ in a palanquin and a ritualistic broom sweeping done by him for all the 3 rathas (legend has it that an earlier king of Puri was protected by Krishna and Balarama themselves in a battle against the king of Kanchi). The procession then began with the traditional Oriya drums playing out loud. There was literally a sea of humanity out on the streets witnessing the sequence of the procession, with Balabadra followed by Subadra, and finally the pulling of Sri Jagannath’s ratha.

The 3 rathas of the Puri Jagannath rath yatra

The Puri Jagannath temple is one of its kind with the inclusion of deities of Sri Krishna’s siblings – Subhadra and Balabhadra. The temple is recognised as one of the ‘char dhams’ or four important places of pilgrimage as identified by Sri Adi Sankara. The other three identified by him include – Badrinath, Dwarka and Rameswaram.

Balabhadra, Subhadra and Sri Jagannath

The live telecast also featured a section on another temple known as Alalnath – originally known as Alwarnath. I had not heard of this temple before, and was surprised that this temple had a significant connection with our Udayavar, Sri Ramanuja.

Adiyen will try and enlist some of the events, not necessarily in sequence, of Sri Ramanujar’s time at Puri and thereabouts. These incidents are based on reading up of several documents and may not be accurate in occurrence.

Sri Ramanujar goes to Puri

Sri Ramanujacharya’s visit to Orissa occurred at a stage in his life when his divnity was well known and he had countless followers. He was at the prime of efforts in holding the flag of Sri Vaishnavism high. He made several trips to holy places in the north of India including Kashmir. It was during one of these trips that he visited Puri, Orissa.

A north-Indian temple named after Azhwars!

While adiyen does not know the exact sequence of events, some time during his trip to Puri, Sri Ramanujar visited a place located some 28 kms south of Puri, known as Brahmagiri. It is said that during Satya Yuga, Brahma performed great tapas on Vishnu, and Vishnu pleased with the worship instructed Brahma to construct a temple here with a standing pose of Vishnu. This place came to be known as Brahmagiri. It is said that Sri Ramanujar visited the temple during his Orissa visit. He must have been delighted to see a beautiful deity of a four armed Sri Maha Vishnu, with conch, discus, mace and lotus flower. It is also believed that he named the deity ‘Sri Alwarnath’ or the ‘lord of the alwars’. As we know, the alwars/azhwars were the divine saints of Sri Vaishnava Sampradaya. The place which housed Alwarnath hence also came to be known as Alwarpur. And today the words have been shortened with time, the temple known as Sri ‘Alarnath’ or ‘Alalanath’ and the place called ‘Alarpur’!

Sri Alarnath, Rukmini and Satyabama - Brahmagiri near Puri

There is more to the history behind Sri Alarnath temple connected to Vaishnavite traditions, which I shall explore in another post.

Sri Ramanujar establishes the Embar Mutt at Puri

On reaching Puri, Sri Ramanujacharya began to interact with the local priests and scholars. His natural brilliance attracted people and soon he found a crowd of devotees following in his foot steps. He decided to establish a monastery to be headed by Sri Govinda (his cousin). Govinda was also fondly called Embar by Emperumaanar, hence the mutt came to be known as ‘Embar mutt’.

Today the monastery is known simply as ‘Emar mutt’. The Emar mutt is located right outside the Puri Jagannath temple.*

Sri Ramanujacharya - Emar Mutt, Puri

Sri Ramanujar and the king of Puri

Emperumaanar had many meetings with the king, holding religious discussions with him. ‘Ananta Varman Choda Ganga Deva’ (Chodaganga) was the king at that time, who earlier had a leaning towards Saivite philosophy. The king developed a strong belief in Vaishnavism in his later years, during which time he had the opportunity of meeting Sri Ramanuja. The king was impressed by his preachings and deep knowledge of Vedic literature. It is believed that king Chodaganga grew deeper in his faith in Vaishnavism by the devotion and brilliance he witnessed in Sri Ramanujacharya.

Sri Ramanujar and Puri Jagannath mandir

Sri Ramanujacharya had a deep interest in establishing proper temple worship procedures wherever he went. He strongly believed in the Pancharatra Agama – school of temple worship, as followed at Sri Rangam. He desired to lay the foundations of the same style of worship in the Puri Jagannath temple. King Chodaganga eagerly supported this move.  The temple priests came to know about Sri Ramanujacharya’s intentions and grew uncomfortable. They were very stiff in their opposition and were not ready to accept any changes in their earlier practices. During the night, the priests grew anxious and prayed to lord Jagannatha to prevent Emperumaanr from changing the customs followed by them. Lord Jagannatha in all his mercy decided to grant the priests their wish. While Emperumaanar was asleep, Sri Jagannatha appeared in his dreams and informed him that his current mission needed to be abandoned due to the requests of His devotees.

Meanwhile it is believed that a bunch of people wanted to eliminate Ramanujar and headed to where the Acharya was asleep. The Acharya was oblivious to the danger that was expected to befall him. They brandished their weapons ready to strike. And suddenly, Sri Ramanujacharya disappeared from sight right in front of them!

Sri Ramanujar magically transported to a town in Andhra!

With the rising sun the following day, Sri Ramanujar found himself transported several miles away from Puri, to a place near the town of Srikakulam in the present day Andhra Pradesh. Viewed in the perspective of how difficult it would have been for people to travel distances by foot or by cart in those days, the distance to which he had been transported overnight was phenomenal!It is said that Sri Jagannatha out of His kind mercy sent Garuda to transport Sri Ramanujar away from a problematic situation.

Emperumaanar was surprised to be alone in an unknown land and saddened by the separation from his loving disciples. However he could sense that he was in a divine sthala, and noticed that he was near a temple tank. He explored the temple to find out that the inner sanctum housed a black stone which seemed to be Linga. Sri Ramanujar was saddened further as he thought lord Jagannatha had in anger denied the Acharya a glimpse of His form in the temple. As the Acharya would not eat food not offered to the lord (Vishnu), he fasted that day. In his dreams the following night, Sriman Narayana revealed the true identity of the deity at the temple. Emperumaanar woke up the next day and was overjoyed! Lord Jagannath had not sent him here for nothing!

Sri Jagannatha informs Emperumaanar of His true form

The deity at the sanctum sanctorum was a swayambhu – or naturally occurring stone. It has a distinct shape, of the fossilised structure of a turtle. The lord appeared in the Acharya’s dreams to inform him  that the deity was none other than the manifestation of the Kurma avatara of the lord. Sri Ramanujar also discussed it with the locals and was surprised to note that many of them already considered the stone as Sri Kurma, based on ancient stories. Even from a geological perspective, the temple is not too far from the sea, which supports the fossilised structure of a turtle theory. Interestingly there is also another stone – apaprently a Sudarshana-saligrama which had been placed earlier by Adi Sankara’s disciples at the tail end of the turtle-structure.

However, there was still a dispute in the village about the true identity of the deity. It is said that to convince everyone that it was indeed a manifestation of lord Vishnu, Emperumaanar asked the deity to turn towards him, towards the west. The deity did as was told! Hence another dwajasthamba or entrance pillar was constructed for the new direction in which the deity faced. This is one of the rare temples in which there are two dwajasthambas! There are more stories to this temple, which is a revered Abhimana sthalam for Sri Vaishnavas, which adiyen hopes to capture in another post.

Sri Kurmam - Andhra Pradesh

Influence on Choddaganga and on Jagannath temple

Despite Sri Ramanujar’s sudden departure from Puri, the influence of his vision on Puri Jagannath temple remains. There is a shrine/sannadhi for Lakshmi built inside the compound of the Jagannath temple by Choddaganga, as suggested by Emperumaanar. The Puri temple is actually also known as Sri Mandira, in line with the belief that Jagannath is always with Lakshmi. There is also said to be considerable influence of Sri Ramanujar on other procedures, including the ther or rath yatra festival. King Choddaganga as a devotee remained singnificantly impacted by the teachings of Emperumaanar.

No matter what the form, or the manifestation – Lord Jagannatha or Sri Kurma – rest assured lord, we as devotees shall always drown in the beauty of your various forms as well as worship the divine feet of our Acharyas!

Azhwar Acharyargal thiruvadigale sharanam l

Srimathe Ramanujaaya Namah l

Srimathe Narayanaaya Namah l

Amarnath yatra 2012...

15 aug 1947.

Please read.....

Understanding Modern India

In this reading, the author introduces five themes that are central

to understanding modern India. As with any set of generalizations,
there are exceptions, and not all authorities will agree with the
author. As you study more about India you will be better able to come
back to Buultjen's five ideas and decide whether you agree with him.

Five important features which will perhaps give us some aid in understanding modern India:

1. its diversity
2. the depth of culture
3. a land of minorities
4. its future depends on the interaction between two worlds:
5. in the cities and rural India, poverty, spirituality and modernity mix and coexist

Many people in the Western world think of India as an inert and distant
[grouping] of people and poverty, a combination of the exotic and
tragic. This misperception, popularized through years of media
stereotyping, conceals reality.

In fact, India is a vibrant society with an increasingly vigorous
internal dynamic and an increasing influence, directly and indirectly,
in the world. Its significance lies not only in its size -- some 930
million Indians are 15 percent of the planetary population -- but also
in the questions raised by the path India has chosen in domestic and
foreign policy. This nation is the largest functioning democracy, with
regular and freely contested elections. Thus, it is the test of whether
democracy is a suitable system of govemment for large numbers of
relatively poor people_in a world where democracy, as we understand it,
is a much- endangered political species, especially in Third World
countries.

Modern India is also a test of two middle-ground philosophies. As an
early proponent of non-alignment in international politics, India has
attempted to establish a [middle] position between Western and
[communist] oriented states. Over the years, its leadership in carving
out a Third World posture demonstrated that there is a viable route for
nations who did not want to take sides in Cold War politics, an
approach which many other nations in Asia, Africa, Latin America and
the Middle East have followed and hope to sustain.

India's economic policies have also broken new ground. They were the
first large-scale test of the modern mixed economy: central government
planning with a combination of both private and public ownership of
economic enterprises. It is perhaps still too early to evaluate the
results. On the one hand, poverty remains [widespread] and unemployment
is high. On the other, Indian agriculture has performed much better
than either Soviet or Chinese agriculture. (India now feeds her
population and has imported hardly any grain in the past four years.)
Also, India now ranks as the ninth largest industrial economy in the
world. A further significance of India today comes from the geopolitics
of South Asia. Bordering the Indian Ocean into which the Persian Gulf
flows, it is a key location in an era of oil logistics. Add the
proximity of Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and China, and India's
situation becomes critical to the tensions and interactions of current
global politics. From this perspective alone, apart from the many
human, cultural and other reasons, it behooves thoughtful people around
the world to make efforts to understand this vast and vital nation.

It is possible to say almost anything about India and have it apply to
some part of that subcontinent. India is a land of [poverty] and, in
some ways, of plenty. It is a nation both powerful and weak, ancient
and modern, climatically dramatic in its contrasts. The very term
"India" implies a unity which exists more as a tentative political form
than as a human and socio-cultural reality. From the intertwining of
its complex history with contemporary society, one can distill five
important features which will perhaps give us some aids in
understanding modern India.

The first feature to remember when thinking of India is its diversity.
It is a country in which there are 15 official languages, over 300
minor languages and some 3,000 dialects. Twenty-four languages have
more than one million speakers each. The largest spoken language is
Hindi, but this is the mother tongue of only about 40 percent of the
population. Often Indians cannot understand each other and frequently
use English as a link or administrative language. But language is not
the only diversity. There are four principal social groupings, what we
sometimes call castes, and several thousand sub- categories of the
castes. Although predominantly Hindu, all the world's major religions
are represented in India. Ethnic differences also [abound]. This mosaic
is culturally extraordinary. It is a source of divisiveness in a nation
where particular loyalties have a deep meaning, both spiritually and
physically. Given this diversity, it is remarkable that India has
remained and grown, and continues to grow, as one nation.

A second feature is the depth of culture, which contrasts with the
newness of the nation in its present form. There has been over 4,000
years of philosophical and cultural development in India, going back to
early Aryan civilization. Since then, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian,
Islamic, Sikh and other influences have left deep imprints on society.
Every Indian, even the poorest illiterate, can tell stories of myth and
history, a consciousness of a great civilizational heritage which is
unusually widespread. Yet, there was no India as we know it until the
achievement of independence in 1947. Before that there were various
fragmented (some very large) territories. Many of these were absorbed
into the British Indian Empire which mixed direct British rule with
supervision of many areas ruled by traditional princes and local kings
or maharajas. The modern state of India is only 34 years old and its
development must be understood in the context of trying to impose a
national framework on old cultural patterns. The consciousness of the
great past and the newness of the present sometimes produces an
abrasive reaction.

The third feature is that India is a land of minorities. About 80
percent of the population are Hindus. But Hinduism is an amalgam of
pluralistic beliefs and forms, often containing conflicting elements.
An additional 12 percent are Muslims, deeply aware of their Islamic
faith. Hindu, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telegu, Punjabi and other
languages create minorities of their own. Tribal and neo- aboriginal
peoples number almost 40 million. No contestant for political office
can be successful without an awareness of these constituencies. And
this, in turn, conditions both domestic and foreign policy.

A fourth feature of modern India is that, broadly speaking, its future
depends on the interaction between two worlds: the cities of India,
where 20 percent of the population live, and rural India, where about
600,000 villages contain the rest of the population. Urban India is the
India of modern industry, national politics and foreign policy,
government planning, the national media, the major universities,
business, the armed forces, science and technology. Its best products
are frequently as good as the best in the world, its orientation is
cosmopolitan. Rural India is the India of age-old patterns where
tradition is the principal dynamic of society, where outsiders come and
go but life continues, often without much change. When the two Indias
mesh effectively, India is a success, as in the expansion of education,
the reduction of illiteracy, the extension of the average lifespan, the
introduction of some basic health care, the sustenance of a democratic
political system. When they do not connect effectively, India is in
trouble, as with population control and unemployment. For the nation to
realize its considerable potential, the linkage between those two
Indias has to be expanded and strengthened.

The fifth and final feature we must remember is that poverty,
spirituality and modernity mix and coexist in India, without the
paradoxical implications which a Western perspective suggests. It is
the essence of Indian spirituality which enables even the most deprived
to endure poverty and it is modernity which provides the prospect of
improvement.

It is this spirit, a composite of many small individual visions and
inspirations, which characterizes modern India and offers the best hope
for the nation and its people.