Laxman Aelay, the internationally recognised painter and artist, has designed the new logo of Telangana that reflects the aspirations of the people of the region.

Aelay has met the expectations of K Chandrasekhar Rao, chief minister-designate of the new state, who asked him to design the logo.

The logo of Telangana consists of the four lions, the emblem of Asoka, representing the national spirit.

The emblem is placed on top of the iconic “Kakatiya torana”, the gateway of Kakatiya dynasty that ruled the region during 11-12th century. The third element in Laxman’s logo is the Charminar.

“I chose green and gold colours for the logo. Green represents prosperity and gold is the soil of Telangana,” Laxman says.

The seal of the 29th state of Indian Union, which will adorn all government offices and of course text books and other government registers is multilingual with “Telangana Prabhutvam” in Telugu, “Government of Telangana” in English and “Telangana sarcar” in Urdu.

Inscribed at the bottom of the seal is “Satyamev Jayate” in the national language Hindi.

Laxman Aelay was born in the Nalgonda district of Telangana region in 1964, received his BA in Painting from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University College of Fine Arts and took up full-time freelance painting.

Laxman was a signboard painter when he started to find a place in the highly competitive market of artists here in the eighties.

 He then chose to become a professional artist. Critics rate his paintings as nostalgic, depicting the rural people amongst whom he grew up.

“My source of inspiration are the poor people of my native village Kadirenigudem,” he recalls.

Recently, Aelay switched over from using white, black and shades of gray, which he preferred in his paintings, to using vivid colours.