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By:

Prithvi Asthana

20 August 2025 at 5:20:30 pm

Employee says the fire alarm did not go off

Many officials could not use fire extinguishers Mumbai: In a tragic incident a large fire broke out in the basement of Aaykar Bhavan, the Income Tax office located on Maharshi Karve Road at Churchgate in Mumbai on Monday. According to the sources, the fire broke out at 1:30 pm, but the Mumbai Fire Brigade received the initial call at 2:01 pm and officially declared it as Level-I fire around 2:15 pm. No casualties were reported in the incident and all the employees were rescued from the...

Employee says the fire alarm did not go off

Many officials could not use fire extinguishers Mumbai: In a tragic incident a large fire broke out in the basement of Aaykar Bhavan, the Income Tax office located on Maharshi Karve Road at Churchgate in Mumbai on Monday. According to the sources, the fire broke out at 1:30 pm, but the Mumbai Fire Brigade received the initial call at 2:01 pm and officially declared it as Level-I fire around 2:15 pm. No casualties were reported in the incident and all the employees were rescued from the building. As the building has a centralised air conditioning system and all the windows were closed the smoke from the fire spread rapidly throughout the building. The thick smoke also spread to the surrounding areas pf the building. Around 23 vehicles of the Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB) were engaged under the intense operation to extinguish the fire from different gates at the building. Backup ambulances police officials, and the BEST staff, were also seen at the site. The MFB deployed a DFO, ADFO, three Senior Station Officers and two Station Officers, along with three fire engines, one CFF, three jet units, one AWTT, one MWT, one WQRV, one TTL and one ALP. Specialised equipment including aerial ladder platform was deployed to evacuate people from the upper floors. Two people, a male and a female were rescued from the Guest House at the seventh floor of the building. Firefighters were successful in rescuing the staff on the lower floors as well. According to an employee, who requested anonymity said, “The fire broke out at 1:30 pm when the staff was having lunch, but the fire alarms did not go off.” “We were not allowed to exit from the main gate,” he added. The employee said, “The fire was confined to the basement and the smoke went up to all the floors of building.” Asked about the loss, the employee said, “As the fire broke out in the godown no person was injured. But the records kept in godown that are mostly old records have been burnt.” When asked about the fire drill protocol, the employee said, “The office staff did not know how to use the extinguishers, a possible reason why the fire’s intensity kept increasing.” Officials did not confirm the cause of the fire and or damage caused in the basement area. The Aaykar Bhavan, Income Tax office is multi-storey government building that serves as a workplace for a large number of Income Tax officials.

Lingua Pragmatica

Updated: Mar 20, 2025

As Southern leaders like M.K. Stalin rage against Hindi, Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu offers a model of pragmatism over parochialism.

Chandrababu Naidu
Andhra Pradesh

Amid the cacophony of opposition in southern states to Hindi, Andhra Pradesh CM N. Chandrababu Naidu has taken a markedly pragmatic stance by remarking recently in the state Assembly that there was no harm in learning other languages. Hindi, Naidu noted, was useful for communication across India, particularly in political and commercial hubs like Delhi. His remarks, though avoiding explicit mention of the NEP, were widely seen as an endorsement of multilingualism and a rebuke to the linguistic chauvinism that has gripped parts of the South.


Few issues in India stir political passions quite like language. It is not merely a means of communication but a marker of identity, a relic of colonial resistance, and a source of political mobilization. In the southern states, where anti-Hindi sentiment has long been entrenched, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and its three-language formula have reignited old tensions. No state embodies this defiance more than Tamil Nadu, where the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led by M.K. Stalin has framed the policy as an assault on its linguistic autonomy.


Naidu’s words, welcomed by his ally and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan, mark a sharp contrast with the DMK’s position. Tamil Nadu’s hostility towards Hindi dates back to the 1930s, when C. Rajagopalachari’s attempt to introduce it in schools met with fierce resistance. The anti-Hindi agitations of the 1960s cemented the DMK’s ideological stance, with its first Chief Minister, C.N. Annadurai, famously warning that Hindi imposition could push Tamil Nadu towards secession.


The question, however, is whether this rigid opposition serves Tamil Nadu’s interests. While Stalin, with an eye to the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, has been relentlessly portraying Hindi as a threat to his state’s regional identity, Naidu, a partner of the BJP-led Centre, is framing it as a tool for economic mobility. His argument is not that Hindi should replace Telugu or English but that it offers a competitive advantage.


The economic case for multilingualism is compelling. Indians who speak multiple languages tend to have better job prospects, higher earnings and greater geographic mobility. Andhra Pradesh’s Telugu-speaking diaspora is a case in point. Telugus make up a significant proportion of Indian-origin professionals in the United States, the Gulf, and Southeast Asia as Naidu pointed out, hinting that this success story was built not on linguistic rigidity but on adaptability.


In a country where inter-state migration is rising and where Hindi remains the most widely spoken language, refusing to learn it amounts to self-imposed isolation. Tamil Nadu’s approach, by contrast, risks limiting its youth. The DMK government has refused to implement the three-language policy, keeping schools strictly bilingual with Tamil and English. Its justification that Hindi is not necessary for global success could be true in a narrow sense but ignores the domestic context. If Tamil filmmakers can dub their movies into Hindi to expand their audience, why should Tamil students be denied access to the language that could open more doors for them within India?


The DMK has accused successive central governments, particularly under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of pushing Hindi at the expense of regional languages. Yet, rejecting Hindi outright is an overcorrection. The reality is that Hindi is an important language in India’s economic and political landscape. Naidu’s position, one of accommodation rather than confrontation, offers a middle ground that other Southern leaders would do well to consider.


Some states already recognize this. Karnataka, despite its own history of linguistic pride, has allowed Hindi to be taught as an optional language. Kerala, whose migrants work in Hindi-speaking regions and the Gulf, has been less hostile to Hindi education. Naidu’s model, balancing regional identity with practical necessity, offers a way forward. Languages should be embraced, not politicized. Southern leaders would do well to listen to him.

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