Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department or Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology is the archaeology department of the Government of Tamil Nadu. Founded in 1961, the department is headed by an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer with the designation Commissioner for Archaeology and conducts archaeological excavations in the state of Tamil Nadu. The department initially functioned from a rented house in Besant Nagar, Chennai. In 2003, it moved to its present premises - a newly constructed building named "Tamil Valarchi Valagam" in Halls Road, Egmore. The department has a library at its headquarters in Chennai with over
History of Tamil Nadu in the Indian Union, Tamil Nadu was the seventh largest economy in 2005 among the states of India. The growing demands for skilled labour has caused increased number of educational institutions in Tamil Nadu. The widespread application of caste based affirmative action caused the state to have 69% of all educational and employment vacancies to be reserved to the backward castes. Such caste-based reservations have huge public support in Tamil Nadu, with no popular protests organised against its implementation. The politics of Tamil Nadu have gone through three distinct phases since independence. The domination of the Congress Party after 1947