The daily flight will take off from Bengaluru at 9.40 am and land here at 10.30 am. With the success of the Pondicherry-Hyderabad flights launched by SpiceJet in August 2017, the airport is all set to get more flights, thanks to Centre’s UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme.
SpiceJet has announced resumption of a service to Bengaluru from February 15 onwards. The daily flight will take off from Bengaluru at 9.40 am and land here at 10.30 am. The return flight, SG 3420, will take off from here at 10.50 am and land in Bengaluru at 12.10 pm. Spicejet had launched its service in 2013 with direct flights connecting Puducherry and Bengaluru, but stopped its operation after about a year. Puducherry is one of the four un-served markets the airline started operating to under the UDAN scheme. The daily flight service to Hyderabad introduced by SpiceJet in August last year is reportedly a huge success as the flight has almost 80 percentage occupancy during weekends. Air Odhisa is also getting approval to operate in the Chennai-Puducherry-Salem-Bengaluru sector, with which the airport would witness more services. “Puducherry is one of the most sought after tourist destinations in the country. The introduction of flight service is definitely a boost to the tourist sector as the journey became more convenient for the visitors. The Union Territory is also a hub of education, healthcare and home to several big IT software and hardware giants. The flight service introduction will add further to the growth of the state,” said a senior official from tourism department.He also said the government had already conducted several rounds of talks with Tamil Nadu government to provide land for runway expansion. The project will be carried out with the help of Government of India under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana scheme. ISO SIPCOT, Irungattukottai employees would have a township of their own as the National Career Service, an organisation functioning under ministry of labour and employment, is all set to commence benchmark survey for the project on Monday.
“The project will be carried out with the help of Government of India under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana scheme. The city would accommodate 3,000 residents working in SIPCOT Irungattukottai, Oragadam and Sunguvar Chathiram,” R.G. Senthil Kumar, state in-charge, National Career Service, said.Senthil also added that the mega international township would have National Youth Knowledge Park. “The park will provide skill development training to the youth. The benchmark survey will be initiated and we expect Prime Minister might come and lay foundation for the project,” he said.
All the fuss was soon cleared as Yonex later deleted the post and announced that their account was hacked.
Japanese sports merchandise group Yonex caused a stir on Saturday after they posted a cryptic post related to Indian badminton star PV Sindhu. They stated that they would no longer continue to support poor countries like India and added that would turn their focus to Japan to stay financially sound.
“Yonex says goodbye to Sindhu. Players from poor countries like India will no longer be sponsored by Yonex as we change our focus towards the Japanese youth,” the caption read with a picture of the Indian shuttler.
However, all the fuss was soon cleared as Yonex later deleted the post and announced that their account was hacked. The management released a statement of apology to their followers.
“To all Yonex fans, we would like to sincerely apologize for the inappropriate posts that have been posted on our Instagram account (yonex_com) today without our knowledge. Our Instagram account was hacked, but the issue has since been resolved and we have fortified our security measures to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Yours sincerely, Team Yonex,” the new post read.
Sindhu also stood in support of her sponsors and clarified that she would continue to be associated with the sports organisation.
“I’m sorry that YONEX Instagram was hacked by somebody. But YONEX team apologized this issue to me. Of course, I accepted their apology for this incident and look forward to continued support of Yonex in 2018. I’m going to stay with Yonex without any problem,” she wrote.
Apart from the Olympic silver-medallist, players like Saina Nehwal and Leander Paes are also sponsored by the Japanese group.
Channel to go live across 20 mn households with 22 hours of weekly original content
At a media launch event in Chennai today, Viacom18 announced the launch of Colors Tamil. Scheduled to go on air on February 19, 2018, the channel will be the national media conglomerate’s first foray into the Tamil market. The entire content library of COLORS Tamil will also be available digitally on VOOT.
Viacom18 already operates general entertainment channels in 5 regional languages, under the brand name Colors – Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali and Odia apart from Hindi and English. At launch Colors Tamil will be available in all leading cable networks catering to an estimated 11 mn homes in rest of Tamil Nadu through Tamil Nadu Arasu Corporation, and 3.5 mn homes in Greater Chennai through SCV, TCCL among others. Furthermore the channel will be available on all DTH platforms - Sun Direct, Tata Sky, Airtel, DishTv & Videocon D2h - reaching out to ~5.5mn households. Speaking at the launch, Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO, Viacom18, said, “After spreading our wings across 7 languages, India’s flagship general entertainment brand – Colors - is entering the lucrative, fast growing and discerning Tamil entertainment market – in line with our stated strategy to drive regional growth aggressively. Our proven ability to break the clutter and disrupt the status quo will help us tell endearing stories to over 20Mn TV households in the state and a large global audience in the coming months and years.” Ravish Kumar, Head, Regional Entertainment, Viacom18, said, “Tamil Nadu, the country’s 6th most populous state (per Census 2011) is among the bigger television content consuming markets, with a per capita daily viewership of ~3 hours which is more than that of the hindi speaking markets (~2.5 hours). With an estimated base of 1150 advertisers, Tamil Nadu is one of the more lucrative broadcast entertainment markets in India. Our biggest drive is to deliver new and never before seen content to the Tamil audience. We have invested big in conceptualizing programs that are inspiring, innovative, experimental and technically sound. With 22 hours of original content at launch, we are more than confident of Colors Tamil becoming a blockbuster hit here.” With a robust content strategy developed after thoroughly studying the consumer patterns of the region, Colors Tamil offers several original shows in both the fiction and the non-fiction categories. Foraying into a market with existing predominant players, the channel aims at bringing together a range of shows spanning a diverse variety of entertainment genres catering to all demographics. Anup Chandrasekharan, Business Head, Colors Tamil, said, “Idhu Namma Oru Coloru … the Colors of our land. Our tagline encapsulates our vision of Colors Tamil. It is a platform that aims to entertain, enrich and engage individuals across the length and breadth of the state. Our study of the existing broadcast entertainment market suggests that there is a need gap between what the audience wants to watch and the kind of content that is available to them. Therefore our focus on content that is differentiated, thought provoking and socially conscious. Colors Tamil is a promise of optimism, celebration and hope!” Launching with a well curated list of programs, Colors Tamil will be available on all DTH platforms for audience viewing. The entire content of Colors Tamil will also be available on VOOT for the on-the-go viewer. The channel will offer a range of fiction and non-fiction programs spanning from family drama, reality TV, comedy to fantasy to name a few. The four original shows of the channel will set new standards in the industry with its distinct content and sound technology. As part of its fiction lineup, Colors Tamil has curated three striking shows that portray strong women protagonists breaking the shackles of the society. Shot in native locations of Tamil Nadu with top-notch equipment, the shows are set to offer a movie-like experience to the viewers. Offering a refreshing break from the common soap operas, ‘Velunachi’ is an inspirational story of young girl who transforms herself into a strong woman carrying her father’s lineage in Silambattam. ‘Sivagami is a transforming tale of courage of a young woman tackling conflicts in society to bring up her daughter as a successful IPS officer. The story is set in rural Tamil Nadu with nativity and rustic, aims to create a positive change in mind-set among people. ‘Perazhagi’, is an uplifting drama that breaks the stereotype around skin color featuring a small girl who fights against all odds to become a celebrity. Created as the flagship show of Colors Tamil, the reality show ‘Enge Veetu Maapilai’ will feature the hunt for the ideal match for Brand ambassador and Kollywood Superstar Arya. Spanning over 40 episodes, the show will telecast the search for the heartthrob’s perfect match. Catering to the young ones, ‘Colors Super Kids’ is a one of a kind talent show for children, offering them an equal and well-deserved platform to showcase their talents without the concept of competing against each other.
"The Cognizant U.S. Foundation will directly address the existing technology skills gap through innovative programs focused on educating a wide range of Americans and preparing them to thrive in the digital era," Francisco D'Souza, CEO of Cognizant, said. Cognizant said it would establish a new non-profit foundation, with an initial grant of $100 million, to support science, technology, engineering , math and digital education and skills initiatives for U.S. workers and students.
The Teaneck, New Jersey headquartered firm also said it had hired 6000 US workers in 2017 and planned to grow its US headcount by at least an additional 25,000 in the next five years. "The Cognizant U.S. Foundation will directly address the existing technology skills gap through innovative programs focused on educating a wide range of Americans and preparing them to thrive in the digital era," Francisco D'Souza, CEO of Cognizant, said The foundation will fund 'STEM education and skills programs, public-private partnerships and other initiatives designed for high school graduates, community college and college students, military veterans and others in the workforce looking to obtain specialized technical skills for digital technology jobs.' CMRL is planning to commence trial run on Anna Salai line this week. CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government has urged the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) management to expedite its works in the city and complete them at the earliest, and thereby ensure commuting is made easy for the public.
State Industries Minister M. C. Sampath requested CMRL managing director Pankaj Kumar Bansal to complete works from Nehru Park to Central and from Saidapet to AG-DMS soon. The minister, who had recently visited the underground sites of the CMRL and inspected the work, had expressed satisfaction over the progress of the work, and wanted passenger services on the routes to begin soon. The stations between AG-DMK and Saidapet are getting finishing touches particularly at the entry or exit point, official said. CMRL is planning to commence trial run on Anna Salai line this week, said sources. The commissioner of Metro Rail Safety is likely to be invited for inspection in March. At present, CMRL is operating services in two routes in the city - Nehru Park to Airport and Little Mount to Airport. The first trial run between Nehru Park and Chennai Central covering a distance of 2.7 km was conducted on Jan.26. The first train was flagged off in 2015 by the then Chief Minister J. Jayalaltihaa. According to sources, the Chennai Metro Rail Limited is likely sign a loan agreement with JICA, for the phase II project and the sum is likely to be higher than the funding for the first project. JICA had funded phase I project for about Rs 14,600 crore. The CMRL is likely to sign an agreement with JICA once the Centre gives the nod. Tamil Nadu would never be able to get Cauvery water from Karnataka, declared BJP Rajya Sabha member Dr Subramanian Swamy. Chennai: Tamil Nadu would never be able to get Cauvery water from Karnataka, declared BJP Rajya Sabha member Dr Subramanian Swamy, insisting that setting up desalination plants along the coastline was the only answer to the state’s water crisis.
“People must first decide what they want — water or Cauvery water? If they want Cauvery water, they will never be able to get that. But if they just want water, we could have the vast seawater converted into potable water through desalination plants. Let Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami ask me if he does not know and I shall get four desalination plants from Israel for installation here”, the inimitable Dr Swamy told reporters at the airport here on Sunday. “You will never have any water problem if I get the Israeli desalination plants installed here”, Dr Swamy said. When it was pointed out that TN was knocking on Karnataka’s doors as there was not enough water in the Mettur reservoir to save the standing samba crop in the Cauvery delta, he said desalination plants would provide a permanent solution. “You will never have water crisis after that”, he said. To another question on inadequate allocations for TN in the Central Budget, Dr Swamy said the TN MPs should function effectively in the Parliament to secure enough funds and projects for the state. “They should not function like cattle”, he said. This is not the first time that Dr Swamy is recommending Israeli desalination plants to quench TN thirst. Even on January 30, he had tweeted: “Tamil Nadu CM must stop begging for Cauvery water from Karnataka govt. He should instead set up four desalination plants on the TN coast”. That tweet got huge response in social media with many raising questions how water from desalination plants could be pumped across vast hinterland to reach the delta farmers — the distance, the cost of maintenance and diesel. One twitterati asked Dr Swamy why he could not get the Israeli PM Netanyahu to sell the desalination technology directly to TN when he visited India a couple of weeks ago. “Without TN CM asking me?” shot back the BJP senior. With the window for applying to get the subsidy under ‘Amma two-wheeler’ scheme ending on Monday. CHENNAI: With the window for applying to get the subsidy under ‘Amma two-wheeler’ scheme ending on Monday, the Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of All Types of Differently-Abled and Caregivers has raised a demand to extend the deadline to ensure more disabled women getting the subsidy.
S. Namburajan, state general secretary, Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of All Types of Differently-Abled and Caregivers (TARATDAC), said the government has relaxed the norms for applying under the scheme. “The government has sent letters to district administrations and Chennai Corporation to give temporary relaxation to the disabled women. According to the letter, the disabled women without driving licence can apply”, he said. He also added that the correspondence was on February 2, three days before the closing. “With the deadline ending on February 5, many women could not able to send their application as weekend holidays fell in between. The disabled women without driving licence have only a day to make applications. So the government should extend the deadline by a week”, Namburajan said. Although the driving licence is not must while applying for the subsidy, the beneficiaries ought to possess their licences while availing their subsidies. Jayalalithaa did not live to see the second of the twin-shocks, the historic rolling out of the GST from July 1, 2017 CHENNAI: The Economics Nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen would hardly approve of the domineering, at times despotic, functional style of Tamil Nadu’s former Chief Minister, J Jayalalithaa. Yet, had she been alive, he would likely give her thoughts on India’s federal structure an empathetic hearing.
For it was Prof. Sen, currently Lamont Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University, who last year during a visit home flagged the issue of States and Chief Ministers re-visiting the federalism debate, when he said that the Central government should have consulted the States prior to demonetisation of high value rupee currencies in 2016 that had a shattering economic impact. Even if the “shocks” of demonetisation have “largely faded away”, as emphasised in the latest Economic Survey (2017-18), authored by the Finance Ministry team led by Chief Economic Adviser to the Government, Mr. Arvind Subramanian and tabled in Parliament prior to the Finance Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley presenting the Union Budget 2018-19 last week, the federalism issue has returned centre-stage. Ms. Jayalalithaa did not live to see the second of the twin-shocks, the historic rolling out of the ‘Goods and Services Tax (GST)’ from July 1, 2017, about which she had some serious reservations. But what she had not failed to register, apart from Tamil Nadu’s then position on the GST, was about some crucial aspects of Centre-State relations at a meeting of the Inter-State Council (ISC) in New Delhi on July 18, 2016, barely two months before she collapsed. Her speech was read out by her then Finance Minister, Mr. O. Pannerselvam, but relevant even today. The purpose of the ISC, set up when V P Singh was the Prime Minister in 1990, was to facilitate coordination between the States and the Centre on a whole range of Constitutional and administrative issues, and could well be seen as the parent of the present super-body the GST Council, constituted under the GST Law. The ISC, reconstituted last year under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister, has in recent years been deliberating on the recommendations of the seven-volume ‘Punchchi Commission’ on Centre-State relations and this is what makes Ms Jayalalithaa’s possibly last assertive text as Chief Minister politically significant in the larger context of the federalism debate. “The NDA’s ‘cooperative federalism’ will degenerate into empty rhetoric if the States are not given adequate powers and fiscal resources,” she had cautioned in that ISC speech. She not only pressed for amending Article 356 of the Constitution to “incorporate the safeguards inherent in the Bommai case judgment of the Supreme court” to ensure that the proviso was not arbitrarily used to dismiss elected State governments, but also urged, “preventing adventurism” by Governors. Equally instructive for Centre-State fiscal relations, Ms. Jayalalithaa, while pleading for decentralisation of authority and resources, said post-liberalisation, as political and economic power has shifted away from the Centre to the States, and state-level parties and leaders being “significant players”, “these should not be seen as centrifugal or fissiparous trends that have to be curbed, but a manifestation of India’s nurturing a Nation with diversity and democracy.” Hopefully, the ISC would continue to have a supervening role vis-à-vis the entire gamut of Centre-State relations, but the semantic outreach of the latest Economic Survey (ES) suggests the possibility of the new ‘GST Council’ taking away much of the ISC’s elevated sheen. The document says, India has created one of the most important “institutional mechanisms for Cooperative Federalism, the GST Council.” “At a time when International events have been marked by a retreat into economic nativism, and the attending seizing of control, the Indian States and the Centre have offered up a refreshing counter-narrative, voluntarily choosing to relinquish and then pool sovereignty for a larger collective cause.” The ES even further envisages a larger role for the GST Council as “Cooperative Federalism Technology” – a new coinage-, to tackle a wide array of “difficult structural reforms” that involves the States. These, according to ES, include a wide range from creating a common agricultural market, fixing the SEBs’, to even solving inter-state water disputes. This new “Technology” of ‘Cooperative Federalism’ could be a tool to “even replace untargeted subsidies (like power and fertilisers in agriculture) by direct income support,” the ES points out. It gives the impression that a fast-tracked ‘GST Council’, would come to be the mainstay in the new redrawing of Centre-State relations wherein the dice is loaded in favour of a strong national government. While the ‘Aadhar-Jan Dhann-Mobile interface’ and the move towards more digital, cashless transactions is one facet of this new ‘monism’ in the transactional culture emerging alongside the GST regime, its implications for Centre-State relations and the federal principle, traditionally understood as not intruding into the State’s powers in a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic country, are equally large. More and more centralised decisions, whether it be a one-off act like demonetisation or any other policy pronouncement through the ‘GST Council’, or through the budget, is thus logically bound to marginalise the role of States. No wonder the first cries of “our state” being ignored by the Central budget has come from the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu and Punjab Chief Minister, Amrinder Singh. Ms Jayalalithaa, had she been around, would have expressed the same objections now, as part of revisiting the federalism debate, alluding to the spirit of Prof Amartya Sen’s call following the demonetisation step. The predicament of the States has been brilliantly summed up by Prof. Harihar Bhattacharya, professor of Political Science, University of Burdwan, West Bengal, in his “Federalism over Democracy in India- Dialectics of Diversity-claims over Equality-claims” thus: “With India’s shift to a free market economy since the early 1990s’, Indian federal democracy is confronting an evolving, but contradictory reality.” Whether economic growth at any cost should get precedence over poverty alleviation will be an alternating dialectic, depending on the pre-election moods. Mr. Jaitley’s latest budget is partly a reflection of that bigger dilemma. Several senior officials remained mute spectators as Balakrishna conducted a review meeting. Actor-politician Nandamuri Balakrishna triggered a row after he occupied Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's chair at the latter's office in the Velgapudi Secretraiat.
Balakrishna, who is also the TDP MLA from Hindpur in Anantapur district, was conducting a review meeting on the upcoming Lepakshi festival in his constituency. According to reports, Balakrishna took the seat even as Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and senior IAS officials remained mute spectators. Naidu and his son and Andhra IT Minister Nara Lokesh, are in Davos from January 21 to 25 to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF). In their absence, many were upset that Balakrishna misused his relationship with the Chief Minister. Balakrishna's sister, Nara Bhuvaneshwari, is married to Naidu, while his daughter, Nara Brahmini is married to Lokesh. “Personal relationships should not intrude into official places, especially in the high positions in the state. Moreover, there are conference halls in every block and Mr Balakrishna could have chosen any of them instead of the one in the CMO,” an official told DC. Balakrishna is constantly in the news for his short temper, as he is known to have slapped multiple people on camera, including his own fans. Balayya, as he is popularly known, is former Chief Minister NT Rama Rao's son. In last year, during his electoral campaign tour in Nandyal of Kurnool, he slapped a party man who tried to take a selfie with him. In the same month, he whacked an assistant director on the sets of Paisa Vasool, and forced him to pick his shoes up. In March last year, much before this episode, Balakrishna had also invited solid criticism for making misogynistic remarks against women actors at an audio release functions. “If I play eve-teasing roles, and just follow girls, my fans will not accept. Either they should be kissed or should be impregnated. That’s all. We have to commit ourselves,” he had said. “I too act naughty with the actresses... I pinch them sometimes,” the actor added. |
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