Did You Know?
The Pearl City's Other Trade
Hyderabad was for centuries the global centre of the pearl trade, and the Golconda mines nearby produced some of the most famous diamonds in history — the Koh-i-Noor and the Hope Diamond both came out of this region.
Today the same city produces a substantial share of the world's vaccines; one Hyderabad manufacturer alone accounts for a large fraction of doses used in global immunisation programmes.
The clock: Hyderabad runs on UTC+5:30 — one of the handful of half-hour offsets still in use, a compromise India chose in 1947 between its eastern and western extremes.