Foucault’s pendulum, and an artistic interpretation of a section of the night sky over Delhi on January 26, 1950 inside the new Parliament buildings drew crowds on the inaugural day, with several parliamentarians and invited dignitaries posing for pictures against them.
The Foucault’s pendulum, named after French physicist Leon Foucault, was conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the Earth’s rotation. A long and heavy pendulum is suspended from the high roof above a circular area and monitored over an extended time period showing that its plane of oscillation rotated. At the latitude of the Parliament, it takes 49 hours, 59 minutes and 18 seconds for the pendulum to complete one rotation.
Above the pendulum, on the ceiling, six individual panels depict the artistic interpretation of the section of the night sky and celestial bodies present over Delhi on the midnight of January 26, 1950.
The new Parliament is dotted with many such installations, murals and artworks. Roughly ₹200 crore was spent to decorate the interiors, an area of 64,500 square metres.
A photograph of a mural depicting what is believed to be a map of ancient India marking important kingdoms and cities of the past extending up to the present day Pakistan has gone viral. Sharing the picture, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi tweeted: “The resolve is clear – Akhand Bharat.”
The ‘Shapatya Deergha’ has murals on protected monuments by the Archaeological Survey of India and listed as UNESCO World Heritage. Different Yoga asanas are digitally projected on the top of these installations.
The new Parliament building varies in several ways from the old one. The entire building is centrally air-conditioned. The Ministers’ chambers can be accessed through corridors running parallel to the triangular boundary of the building. Their chambers are fitted with motion sensor lights and have dark wooden panelling. These rooms are the only ones that open onto a balcony. The only other open space is the central courtyard. This open-to-sky courtyard has a banyan tree at its centre, and encircling it are lounges for Parliamentarians and a library. Each of the three entrances of the building are also decked up with artwork.