Soundarya to host a TV Show

Soundarya, the daughter of Super star Rajnikanth and MD of Ocher Studios is busy in the production of the 3D movie titled 'Sultan the Warrior'. Besides she is interested to host a TV programme of international standards. The preliminary works for that programme had been done by her and it is said to be produced by a leading production company. The programme is going to be telecasted by either Kalaignar TV or its rival Sun TV. Earlier she had done the graphics work of Anbe Aaruyire, Sivaji, Baba, Sivakasi and Chandramukhi.

Direct flights between Hong kong and Chennai shortly

Hong kong Airport

The long pending air traffic issue between India and Hong kong came to an end with both sides agreed to add new air services on the India-Hong kong route. According to this new agreement, the Indian carriers can be able to connect Hong kong with any city in India while those of Hong kong can be able to connect Hong kong with Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata directly. Chennai had been newly added on this list of cities. This agreement allows the Indian carriers to operate flights from Indian cities to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver through Hong kong. And the Hong kong carrier can operate flights to European cities through India. Hence the Indian passengers can fly directly to Hong kong without transiting Singapore or Bangkok.

Chennai Metro Rail project to get approval soon

The Union minster for Urban Development, Jaipal Reddy said that central government will give its final approval for the Rs 13,000 crore Chennai Metro Rail project next year. Apart from that, the Chennai Metro Rail Ltd (CMRL) get registered recently and its corporate office will be in the Ascendas Tech Park, Taramani. Since the TN government is not interested in Public-Private-Partnership model, it wants the project's cost to be shared with central government's aid and the remaining amount will be borrowed from the Japan Bank as loan. The project consists of two corridors of totally 50 km with 40 stations and most of the elevated track will be along the Anna salai. The project will be complemented in 4 years.

Will Chennai adopt the CNG fuel System?

A CNG propelled Auto rickshaw plying on New Delhi road

The Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) fuel system which was implemented strictly in the National Capital Region (NCR) in 2004 after the Supreme Court's order was a great success. The implemented CNG Fuel system helps greatly in decreasing the pollution level in the NCR region. All the public transport vehicles like buses, auto rickshaws etc... plying in NCR roads had adopted the CNG system. Due to this success, the CNG system has become a role model for other cities which are struggling to control air pollution. Now a question arises that when will other Indian metros will shift to CNG system. Especially Chennai which is facing high air pollution problems mainly due to motor vehicles.Though the cost required for the shifting is higher, CNG costs RS.25 per kg when compared to petrol of Rs.50 per kg.

Next Generation Cars of Toyota

Toyota HI-CT

• An edgy fun 4 seater electric car stores power by a plug-in hybrid drive system.
• Length3,330mm x width 1,695mm x height 1,780mm.
• The dimensions show that the car is almost rectangular.

Toyota Rin

• An oxygen-level conditioner and pinpoint humidifier employs the Green glass roof which infiltrates UV and IR rays.
• The Green color scheme provides a good physical and healthy mental behaviour and represents 'harmony with nature'.
  

Toyota 1/x

• Pronounced as "one-Xth".
• Weighs 420 kg.
• A flex fuel 500cc engine with plug-in hybrid drive system.
• Highly rigid carbon fiber reinforced plastic protects occupants in accidents.
  

Suzuki's Sharing Coach

At the recently held Tokyo Motor Show 2007 , Japanese Automobile major Suzuki unveiled its new model named as Suzuki SSC which has the following features.

• SSC (Suzuki Sharing Coach) is designed to haul 2 PIXYs.
• PIXY - a single-seat, low speed transport pod designed to move along sidewalks and inside buildings.
• PIXY+SSC combination will provide a complete downtown transport.

But this model does not has seats, steering wheel and luxurious appearance.

INDIA - 4TH LARGEST FOREIGN CURRENCY HOLDER

According to the Taiwan's central bank, India ranks fourth among the global economic powers in holding the foreign currencies. In its press release, Taiwan's central bank said that Taiwan has been replaced by India as the fourth largest foreign currency holder.

The foreign currency reserves of the global powers at the end of January 2008 are:

1. China - $1.5 trillion
2. Japan - $948 billion
3. Russia - $479.4 billion
4. India - $279.5 billion
5. Taiwan - $272.8 billion
6. South Korea - $261.8 billion
7. Singapore - $163.6 billion
8. Brazil- $163.5 billion
9. Hong Kong - $146.9 billion

IPTV TO TAKE OFF SOON IN INDIA

The IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) system which had not launched in India is waiting for the Central Government's approval for its take off. Both Mobile phones and Computers can opt for this technology which gives you the option of pausing the Live TV and often Time shifted TV, which enables you to watch morning news at noon. The IPTV can offer more than 300 films at a time to choose. It is expected that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry will clear all the hurdles by this April and afterwards all the telecom as well as the cable TV operators can provide this IPTV tecnology.

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.

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.

PAK TO NEGOTIATE NUKE DEAL WITH CHINA

After NSG gave a clean waiver for the Indo-US nuclear deal, the great Indian rival Pakistan is going to negotiate a similar deal with its closest ally China. Sources said that the Islamic nation was already in touch with China to clinch the deal to meet its current and future energy demand, which got worst affected since 2007. Pakistan’s new President Asif Ali Zardari will be visiting China next week to participate in the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games and talks will be held between the two country leaders to get a deal his visit.

PDP OPPOSES ELECTIONS IN J&K

The (PDP) People's Democratic Party said the party would oppose any move of conduct the Assembly elections in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. After meeting with the Chief Election Commissioner Gopalaswami, PDP’s general secretary Nizamuddin Bhat told the reporters that the current situation in the valley was not suitable to conduct the polls. He added that the people in the valley are very angry due to the incidents which happened after the controversial Amarnath land allotment order, which polarized the state on communal lines. So any move to conduct the polls will further worsen the situation, he added.

COGNIZANT TO ENTER MADURAI

Lakshmi Narayanan, Cognizant’s Vice-Chairman, said that the temple city 'Madurai' will be in its radar to expand the operations of the software firm. Mr.Narayanan who is also serving as the chairman of NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) came to Madurai to commence the competitions organised by the Thiagarajar College of Engineering for the school students. While replying for a question, he said that he will not comment on the name of the cities in which Cognizant is going to expand but it had shortlisted five cities for its future operations and Madurai is one of them.

Airtel got the Additional Spectrum

India's largest mobile service provider Bharti Airtel owned by Sunil Mittal said that it had got the additional spectrum to expand its mobile services in the five telecom circles of Gujarat, West Bengal, Assam, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (West). Meantime it also reported a 42% increase in revenue at Rs.1,722 crore in third quarter of this financial year against Rs. 1,215 crore in the same quarter of last financial year .

29 Indian Companies among World's Top 100

A recent survey carried out globally to know about the world's top 100 reliable and innovative MNCs shows that there are 29 Indian companies in the resultant list. Some Indian MNCs in the list are Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, Genpact, WNS Global Services etc.. according to Global Services Magazine. Companies belonging to Malaysia, Russia and Brazil in the list show that these countries are emerging outsourcing destinations. In the IT sector, India served as a global hub where 57% of the employees were employed followed by United states of 18%.

INDIAN RUPEE CROSSES 40-MARK AGAINST US $ !!!!

The Indian Rupee (INR) has crossed the 40 mark against the US dollar for the first time in last five months with the heavy shortage of the US currency, further emphasised by the global crude oil prices which hit the fresh records. The INR value against USD has been under the 40 mark since 20th September last year when it closed at Rs. 39.89 against an US dollar. At the Inter-Bank Foreign Exchange Market today, the INR touched a low of 40.24 against USD and finally closed at Rs. 39.95/97. Meanwhile the INR against other major foreign currencies are:

• Sterling Pound - Rs. 78.15/17
• Euro - Rs. 59.12/14

However RBI (Reserve Bank of India) fixed the refernce rate for the USD at Rs. 40.15 per dollar and for the Euro at Rs. 59.06 per Euro.