WAL-MART TO OPEN STORES IN INDIA

It is now official that the Bharti Wal-Mart Joint venture planned to open its first Indian store in April 2008. But there will be no branding of Wal-Mart as well as Bharti in its retail stores when they come up round the corner in India. Michael T Duke, Vice Chairman of Wal-Mart said, "We have 52 different brands across the world and only 25 percent of the stores use the Wal-Mart brand name and we will repeat the same model in India". He added, "We are confident of a pan India presence besides stiff opposition from the states of Kerala, West Bengal, UP and Orissa, and also looking for Indian IT companies for providing IT solutions globally''.

Secondary Cross Runway in Chennai Airport

Google Earth's view of Chennai Airport

The Chennai airport, the 3rd busiest airport in India has opened its secondary cross runway for take-offs. In 2006-07, 5.9 million international passengers travelled through this airport and it handled an average of 329 aircraft movements per day with 21 international and 10 domestic airlines. Due to increase in air traffic, the AAI decided to bifurcate the Area control centre into two sectors - east and west. The new 2,085 metre long runway intersects the existing 3,658 metre long main runway. Now the airport will handle 40% of the traffic in east sector and the remaining in the west sector. The east sector will handle Chennai-Bangalore-Kolkata route and the west sector will handle the routes from Thiruvanthapuram to Mumbai. Till now it took 3 minutes for a take-off. But hereafter the airport can achieve two take-offs in just two minutes so that the aircraft movement per hour, both arrivals and departures will increase from 25 to 32.

DIRECT FLIGHTS FROM CHENNAI TO PAK AND BANGLADESH

India's third busiest airport, Chennai International Airport will soon get connected with cities in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Recently India and Pakistan reached an agreement to increase the frequency of air services from the present 12 to 28 a week. They also decided to add one more destination on both sides, Chennai and Islamabad respectively apart from the present destinations, Mumbai, Delhi, Karachi and Lahore.

Bangladesh based GMG airlines also planned to link Dhaka with Indian cities like Mumbai, Chennai and Dhaka. At present it operates flights on Delhi-Dhaka and Chittagong-Kolkata routes.

MUMBAI AND KOLKATA AMONG WORLD'S DENSEST CITIES

According to a survey made by the Forbes, the US Business magazine regarding the World's 20 densest urban areas, Mumbai and Kolkata occupied the first two places. Both cities consists of over 23,000 people per square kilometre. Pakistan's financial capital Karachi is at 3rd place. In that list, India's fourth largest metro Chennai is at No.8, the capital Delhi occupies the 13th position and the India's Silicon valley Bangalore is at No.19. China and India combine to have nine of the 20 slots, according to the 2007 statistics of citymayors.com.

MOSER BAER SETS UP FACILITY IN CHENNAI

Moser Baer, a global leader in the production of removal data storage has got the principal approval from the Tamil Nadu government to set up its production plant near Chennai, India. The facility will be developed by Moser Baer and its associate units in the Oragadam, Sipcot high tech industrial estate near Chennai to produce media players, silicon photovoltaic products, flash cards and thin films.

MINIMAL LAND ACQUISITIONS FOR CHENNAI METRO RAIL

For the proposed Chennai Metro Rail Project, a survey has been done recently to finalise the 46.5 km Metro line. According to the government sources, at some places the proposed elevated corridor has been changed to underground line to avoid the acquisition of households and other important buildings. They had concluded that only 45 households are going to be affected and the impacts due to the tunneling for underground line are not specified. However the government has decided to resist the construction of buildings within 50 m from the underground line.

The proposed corridors are

Corridor 1 : Washermenpet to Airport.
Corridor 2 : Fort to St.Thomas Mount.

MUMBAI AND NEW DELHI AMONG WORLD'S DIRTIEST CITIES

Mumbai and New Delhi are among the Dirtiest Cities in the World according to the US based business magazine, Forbes. Mumbai, the financial capital of India ranks 7th in the list and this magazine cites a private sector proposal, named 'Vision Mumbai' which needs $1 billion aid for the improvement of infrastructure and economic growth and for the pollution control. Though the capital New Delhi ranks at No. 24 in this list, it poses a severe threat to the marine life and the environment thereby increases the infant morbidity rate, as garbage and sewage wastes are flowing freely into the Yamuna river. Azerbaijan's capital, Baku and Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka occupied the first two places respectively while Mexico City ranks 5th in the list.