Long vacations in the UK, US and south-east Asia no longer involve the culinary nightmares of 20 years ago for Indian tourists. When they tire of bland local fare, there’s no dearth of Indian restaurants, run by the vast Indian diaspora and reasonably authentic, to get a taste of home.
The news, though, is that these destinations are becoming passé. Increasingly, it’s to countries in Indo-China, the Balkans, West Asia (the parts that are still peaceful, that is) and South America to which rich and upper middle-class Indians are heading to spend the generous forex allowance the Indian government now permits.
But as a Vietnamese restaurateur once told me, “Indians no eat all foods; velly big ploblem”. True enough, Indians with their many particularities of diet can find mealtimes a chore in many countries off the regular tourist beat. Yet where many Indians go boldly, can Indian restaurants be far behind?
As the listing here shows, there are Indian options available in cities from Dubrovnik to Peru for tourists who are so inclined. The names can be misleading, however: Oh Calcutta in Auckland, an award-winning restaurant, bears no resemblance to the well-known Bengali restaurant chain in India.
The restaurant, run by a chef called Meena Anand, has the standard north Indian/Mughlai fare. This, sadly, is true of almost all the menus on offer — the infinite varieties of the Indian sub-continent are largely absent. In Luang Prabang, the stunning UN heritage town in Laos, Nisha restaurant will give you an authentic dhaba experience: it offers, among other things, aloo ghobi, aloo mutter, “Dhal Fry” and rotis. It could be a comforting break from a bewildering local menu that may contain: dog, frog and, yes, even beef!
A gourmet itinerary
Vietnam
Mumtaz Restaurant
Ho Chi Minh City
Foodshop 45
Hanoi
Laos
Nisha Restaurant
Luang Prabang
Taj Mahal Restaurant
Vientiane
Cambodia
Dosa Corner
Phnom Penh
Taste Budz
Phnom Penh
Samsara
Siem Reap
Croatia
Royal Indian Restaurant
Zagreb
Incredible India Cuisine
Dubrovnik
Iran
Taj Mahal
Tehran
Jordan
Tandoori Oven
Amman
Peru
Guru Kebab & Curry
Lima
Brazil
Taj Bar
Iguasu
Gopala Hari
Sao Paulo
Veggie Govinda
Rio
Mexico
El Tandoor
Mexico City
New Zealand
Oh Calcutta
Auckland
Chilis Bistro and Tandoor
Wellington
Maharaja Indian Restaurant
Christchurch
The Spice Room
Christchurch
China
Masala Art
Shanghai
Punjabi Indian Restaurant
Beijing
South Africa
Royal Punjab
Johannesburg
Bukhara
Cape Town
Portugal
Passage to India
Lisbon
Data courtesy: Ashish Chadha, group managing partner, Leisure Ways, New Delhi
Artisan Mintu Pal is working round the clock at the Deshapriya Park Puja Committee workshop in Kolkata.
Eto Boro? Shotti! (This tall? Really?)
A teaser advertisement like this was doing the rounds of Kolkata since August.
While some thought it to be a telecom company advertisement, others felt it was about the tallest residential building that is about to come up in Kolkata soon.
Artisans give shape to Goddess Durga’s bahana — the lion — at the Deshapriya Park Puja Committee workshop in Kolkata.
Star Cement revealed recently that the teaser was its campaign for the world’s largest Durga idol to be installed at Deshapriya Park in south Kolkata.
“This year, Kolkata will see an idol of Goddess Durga that will touch the sky. Star Cement and the Deshapriya Park Puja Committee are the joint organisers of this event,” said Sanjay Kumar Gupta, CEO, Star Cement.
Artisan Mintu Pal stands next to the idol of Mahishasura at the Deshapriya Park Puja Committee workshop in Kolkata.
“This is an exciting challenge for me,” he told Rediff.com
About 40 artisans were at work at the Deshapriya Park Puja Committee workshop in Kolkata.
The fibreglass idol will be transferred to a huge platform at the centre of the park.
An assistant rubs clay on the fibre-glass hand of the idol.
Pal earlier created a 62-foot idol at the Salt Lake FD Block Durga Puja in 2011.
This year, Pal is all set to break his own record. This idol will be close to 100 foot, the artisan said.
He was in China recently to witness the making of the tallest Buddha statue (250 feet).
Artisans give final touches to the pandal at the Deshapriya Park in Kolkata.
Though the organisers are not giving away details of the budget, Star Cement is said to have already spent Rs 2.5 crore (Rs 25 million) for the teaser ads.
“The idol alone would cost Rs 50 lakh (Rs 5 million),” a source told Rediff.com
An artisan adds finishing touches to the idol.
The Puja committee is taking precautions for crowd management and security during the four days of the festival, starting October 19.
The Puja organisers have also applied for a certificate to the Guinness Book of World Records and eagerly await ratification.
No matter their cultural background, no matter their economic situation, kids will always find imaginative ways to have fun. Their wild imaginations and magical childhood moments, when captured on camera by talented photographers, can make for truly wonderful photos. These 33 images we collected will prove that childhood can be wonderful no matter where you go.
Many in the Western world fear that technology is making today’s children lose touch with nature and with their own creativity, and while there are arguments to be made for the intellectual stimulation that apps and programs for children can bring, there’s also something to be said for simply playing with a stick in the mud or chasing dandelion seeds though an open meadow.
For better or worse, the children in these photos seem entirely content making their own fun. For us adults, it’s important not to let our world-weary and jaded experience stifle our childish hopefulness and imagination!
An Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) is often the first point of contact between a health centre and a mother or expectant mother in India. She takes care of activities as basic as registration of pregnant women to more advanced interventions like routine immunization, identifying medical complications and providing referrals. An ANM has a lot of responsibilities and this simple, mobile-based intervention, Suyojana, enables her to effectively carry out her duties.
Rohini, from Chamrajnagar, Karnataka, is an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM), working in rural areas of the state. Despite the fact that she is proactive and interested in her work, Rohini often finds herself struggling to remain on top of all the information required to serve her patients effectively. From tracking crucial health parameters to scheduling important visits for critical cases, Rohini finds herself swamped with details that she is unable to handle in an organized manner.
Recently, however, Rohini began using Suyojana, a mobile-based application that improves the decision-making processes in maternal and child care activities undertaken by ANMs.
“The Suyojana application guides me from one step to another, within examinations and investigations, and does not let me skip a single step. This has made my work way more organized and systematic. The application has also made it very easy to identify high-risk cases and refer the patients on time to better facilities. The tool helps me take the right decisions at the right time,” says Rohini.
ANMs can keep track of their patients in a better way and also take necessary actions on time. –
Rohini is just one among several ANMs who have benefitted from the simple technology, Suyojana, launched by Swasti, a health resource centre established to provide health services to socially backward communities, in collaboration with D-Tree International and Karuna Trust.
“Swasti has been working in this field for 11 years now and work on improving different aspects of public health. Since ANMs do such important work at the grassroots level, we thought it was necessary to make decision-making easier for them through this mobile intervention,” says Shama Karkal, Director, Swasti.
The issue
The app does not let an ANM update her patients’ profile until all the fields in the app are filled. –
As par-medical professionals who are closest to the rural communities, ANMs play a crucial role. They are required to use their knowledge in order to take requisite actions on time.
Though ANMs undergo training, many times they are unaware of the basic practices they should follow. Shama recalls that ANMs met during the pilot did not carry blood pressure or weighing machines during home visits. “Everyone assumes that they know what they are doing. Even ANMs are not aware of what they could do better and there is no system to monitor the quality of the care they provide.
Without the application, ANMs can skip many of the examinations and other critical components of an ante-natal or post-natal visit.
This results in incomplete and in-accurate health monitoring of pregnant women and children.
The solution
This is where Suyojana plays a crucial role. This mobile-based clinical-decision support system (DSS) provides ANMs with consistent guidance with antenatal care (ANC), postnatal care (PNC), and neonatal care.
The mobile app takes ANMs through all the procedures and guidelines to identify the person’s conditions and provides options for decision making. The app uses the national guidelines maternal and neonatal care to guide the ANM. The app also allowsANMs to track patients they have visited, their expected clinic visit dates, their medication, etc. This also helps ANMs to identify those women who are due for their next appointment, both in-clinic visits and home visits.
“The app has various forms which ANMs complete during different visits. The forms in the application include registration, antenatal history (for ANC clients), pregnancy outcome (for PNC clients), danger signs, physical examination, investigation tests, intervention, and counselling. Basic care and monitoring of the child is also included — from foetal heart rate to neonatal danger signs, pre-referral treatments and home-based new-born care counselling. Required fields in the app must be completed in order to complete the visit and record it. This way, every aspect of the care provided is tracked,” says Shama.
With the app the ANMs do not need to maintain multiple registers. The app generates the standard reports which can be further customized.
Another interesting aspect of the app is that it also runs offline and synchronizes with the server using general packet radio service (GPRS) for back up, reporting and analysis.
The impact
With the app the ANMs do not need to maintain multiple registers.
Thanks to the easily available data, a supervisor can track the details from the server and can identify maternal health trends in a particular area. This way ANMs can also take expert advice from remote locations and can decide the next step they need to take on time.
“This application will help us in quickly referring a complicated case to higher public health facilities and will replace the cumbersome procedure of checking registers and day books. All we would be required to do is click on the app to get all the details. This would be a great relief for us and reduce our workload,” says Saraswathi, yet another ANM from Karnataka.
The interesting initiative, which was launched as a pilot project in March 2014 in Chamarajanagar district, involved 31 ANMs in four districts of Karnataka, including Chamarajanagar, Ramanagara, Bijapur, and Chikkaballapur.
To make the app more user-friendly, all the information is available in Kannada. The ANMs are first given formal training before they actually start using this app. Once the training is complete, ANMs using this app and sync the data collected by them on a regular basis. There is also a full-time supervisor who assists the ANMs in case of difficulties.
“We launched it on mobile phones since they are easier to use and are more handy. Currently, we install the app on the mobile phones of ANMs and it is not available for the general public to use,” says Shama.
Though the simple mobile app looks like a feasible solution to address difficulties of ANMs and the quality of care provided by them, the team is still struggling to have it accepted with the government.
The pilot was funded by D-Tree International, has a small team of four members, who are looking forward to expanding the initiative to cover many more districts and ANMs.
To know more about the initiative, contact Angela at – angela@swasti.org or check out their website.
The National Programme for Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), an e-learning platform, is revolutionising the concept of internet based higher education in India.
Developed on the lines of the Open Courseware by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to some extent, the National Programme for Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) is bringing some of the best teachers of the country together, enabling students to access courses on engineering, sciences, technology, management, humanities and more, free of cost, all across the globe.
Content on the platform is being used by many educational institutions. Faculty members are using it as part of their lesson plan to teach university curriculum, and students are using it to prepare for jobs and competitive exams.
Picture for representation only. Photo Credit: Flickr
NPTEL is a joint venture of seven IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), funded by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. The seven IITs include IIT Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee. It was developed with the aim of providing e-learning through course content in the form of web based supplements and video courses.
Up till Aug 2015, NPTEL had 420 web courses and 509 video courses, which can be accessed freely through the website nptel.ac.in. These include approximately 921 courses, and each course has about 40 video lectures, which are one hour long. There are online discussion forums as well where students can post and review questions. Courses are also accompanied by assignments, handouts, self-evaluations tasks, etc. Some of the disciplines include Aerospace Engineering, Biotechnology, Atmospheric Science, Chemical Engineering, Management, Humanities and Social Sciences, etc. There is no specific eligibility for the courses. The faculty member of a course may recommend some basic knowledge required for certain topics.
The video content is accessible free of cost. These videos can be downloaded through the official NPTEL website, in MP4, FLV and 3gp formats. They can also be streamed through the YouTube channel here. Students can obtain the video courses on hard disks as well, at the NPTEL office in IIT Madras.
The focus areas of the NPTEL project is to provide higher education, professional education, distance education and a continuous open learning atmosphere. It is a curriculum building exercise and the NPTEL content adheres to the syllabi of All India Council for Technical Education and the slightly modified curricula of major affiliating universities.
The courses are well structured and elaborate. Institutions are encouraged to build their own versions of NPTEL courses based on their curriculum using the NPTEL material available online. Thus the project is also meant to fill the gap between the current expertise level of faculty in institutions like IITs and IISc, and those in other engineering colleges across India.
Certification courses are also offered in association with industry partners like Aricent, NASSCOM and Google. These courses are offered 2 or 3 times every year. Students need to give an exam by paying a nominal fee, and after completion of the course, they get a certificate. Till August 2015, 7,267 students had received such certificates.
When you think of India’s international border with neighbouring countries, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Armed soldiers? Fences? Or maybe barbed wires?
Most of the time when you are in front of our international borders, the only indication that you get is a sign that says ‘Welcome to …’ or ‘Indian territory ends’.
The international border of India is the third largest in the world after China and Russia. Not just that, the borders of India are one of the most sensitive borders of the world along with extreme climatic conditions.
Through this article, I am presenting you some images of Indian borders with Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
1. India-Pakistan International Borders
The border runs from the Line of Control (LoC) in the north to Wagah which partitions the Indian state of Punjab and Punjab province of Pakistan in the east. And in the west, India shares its border in Barmer Border in Rajasthan and Sir Creek Border in Gujarat.
(i) In Jammu & Kashmir, India shares its border with Pakistan in POK and Suchetgarh.
ii) LOC (Line of Control)
(iii) This is the India-Pakistan Rajasthan border in the west.
(iv) Here’s how the Gujarat border of India-Pakistan looks like
(v) The evening flag lowering ceremony at the Wagah border.
vi) One of the very few beautiful international boundaries visible after dark.
(vii) The border, floodlit for surveillance purposes, looks like this at night.
2. India-Myanmar International Borders
Four Northeast Indian states – Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur share their borders with Burma:
(i) Moreh in Manipur…
(ii) This is Champhai in Mizoram.
(iii) The two countries also meet at the hilly untamed region of Nagaland.
3. India-Nepal International Borders
Nepal shares its boundaries with India in Uttarakhand and Sikkim in the north-east. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the other two states where they share their borders.
(i) In Uttarakhand, the border is mainly used for trading and other commercial purposes.
(ii) There is one more border in Bihar.
ii) …and in Uttar Pradesh too.
4. India-Sri Lanka International Borders
India and Sri Lanka form the shortest land border in the world. The length of the border between these two countries is 100 meters. Both the countries are joined by a narrow stretch of Adam’s Bridge.
5. India – China International Borders
India shares some of the most historic and famous borderlines with China which happen to be popular tourist destinations as well.
(i) First China meets India at Chumar, Ladakh.
(ii) ..then in the paradise of Himachal Pradesh.
(iii) Even in Uttarakhand, the two countries share the border area.
(iv) In Sikkim, they meet again at the Nathula Pass.
6. India-Bhutan International Borders
India shares a 699-km long border with one of the happiest countries in the world, Bhutan along Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
(i) First they meet at Sikkim.
(ii) Then at Bumthang, Arunachal Pradesh.
7. India-Bangladesh International Borders
The border between India and Bangladesh (4,096 Km) is the fifth-longest land border in the world. At first India meets Bangladesh at Kishanganj.
(i) After that, they meet at West Bengal.
ii) Also, they share an international border in Meghalaya
Iraq and Syria have been in a major state of disarray right now. Every day thousands of people of try to flee the horror and every day more migrants lose their life to either man or nature.
Yazidis whose life is commonly at gunpoint of Islamic State Of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) lived in many parts of Syria and Iraq in an attempt to ‘purify’ the non-Islamic influences are counting their days of hunger and starvation.
While most of us sit back and worry about the condition that is worsening every day, a Sikh community has taken up a never before initiative to help them out. They have set up their traditional langar with the name Langar Aid about 10 km from the Syrian border in the Pesh Harbour area.
This group constitutes of many NRI Punjabi Sikhs as well as some European volunteers who have come forward to help the migrants. Instead of a traditional kitchen, they have set up a bakery and are providing fresh bread to nearly 14,000 refugees every day.
The IS were destroying any food that was coming in for the refugees, therefore a UK based NGO Langar Aid took from help from the local government to set this up.
They are also getting some help from Serbia and Greece which are the neighbouring European countries.
The CEO of Khalsa Aid, Ravi Singh told TOI, “Refugees often mistake us for IS because of our appearance. I was there about two months back and it was a very overwhelming experience. It was poignant to meet a family that had fled from their homes with their 10-month old child and they were pleasantly surprised to find aid in the middle of nowhere. Then there was an elderly lady who still wanted to return to her village she had built after years of hard work. The situation will get more challenging as winter sets in.”
A UK based volunteer of Indian origin Indy Hothi said, “We set up a bakery at a refugee camp for Yazidi people to provide a self-sustaining solution. We are also trying to set a school for 5,000 local children on the Lebanon-Syrian border.”
Now that’s a service to God in the true sense. We are so proud of you.
Airports are exciting places of activity, but at times they also can be overwhelming for some fliers.
Recently, Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport brought in two legitimate, trained therapy dogs to help ease the stress of travelling.
Mumbai airport is possibly the first in the country to employ animals that would help ease travellers’ anxieties about returning to the skies. Earlier, therapy dogs were used to comfort special children and traumatised adults at US airports after the 9/11 attacks.
Goldie and Pepe, trained by the Animal Angels Therapy Centre in Pune, can sense a person’s mood by sniffing them.
Their mission is to put a smile on every passenger’s face they interact with.
This is what a Chicago-bound flier who came to bury his dead mother wrote in the feedback form:
“What an amazing and needed facet of airports. After a long painful day at the Mumbai airport, Goldie and Pepe brought ‘humanity’ into an otherwise dehumanising experience.”
Of course, not everyone is a dog lover. Some people would feel less stressed at an airport if they could cuddle with a cat.
But, let’s admit it, passengers will now have a PAWSitive experience at the Mumbai airport! 🐾
From the environment-friendly Chandigarh airport to the modern Delhi metro, from extraordinary solar projects to stellar freeways and tunnels, here is a list of 14 engineering marvels in India that have set a benchmark for other infrastructure projects to follow.
India has a great heritage in architecture and design. And, since independence, the country has made major advances in engineering too. Be it a tunnel in the treacherous mountains or the amazing metros that connect lakhs of commuters everyday, our talented countrymen have designed and executed some amazing projects that deserve to be recognized and applauded.
Here are 14 amazing infrastructural projects in India that make us super proud.
Cochin airport created news when it became India’s first airport to run on solar power in August 2015. The airport has photovoltaic (PV) panels laid across 45 acres near the cargo complex. The airport can avail 50,000 to 60,000 units of electricity per day through these panels which is sufficient for all its functions. This has technically made the airport “absolutely power neutral.” The implementation of this 12MWp solar power project cost Rs. 62 crore and took six months to complete. It has been set up by Bosch Ltd., Bangalore, and has a capacity to produce 18 million units of power annually. Read more about it here.
The recently constructed Chandigarh international airport at Mohali is the first airport in the country that is ‘totally green’. Spread over 53,000 sq. m, the airport has used environment-friendly green technologies that makes it one-of-its-kind, not only in India, but also in the world. The airport is constructed in a way that no artificial lights would be required to illuminate it during the daytime. It also has a transparent façade with low heat-gain glass which reduces the need for a large amount of air conditioning. The rooftop of the terminal has a 200KW solar plant which is enough to meet the major power needs of the building. Forty percent of the airport is illuminated with LEDs and the air-conditioning is fired by chiller efficient machines. Here’s more about the airport.
2. Magnificent Metro Projects
Starting with the first metro being built in Kolkata in 1984, metros have become lifelines in some of the major cities in India. The Delhi metro started its operations in 2002 and is one of the most disabled-friendly public places in the country, with all stations equipped with ramps, low level control panels in the lifts, and buttons in Braille. With 208 trains serving 140 metro stations, it is the first metro rail and rail-based system in the world to get “carbon credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Named one of the top 100 strategic global infrastructure projects at the Global Infrastructure Leadership Forum held in New York, the Hyderabad Metro Rail project will be the the world’s largest project under public-private partnership. It is also the world’s largest elevated metro and is expected to provide transportation to over 1.7 million commuters by 2017.
3. Neemuch Solar Power Plant, Madhya Pradesh
Located at Diken in Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh (MP), it is Asia’s largest solar power plant. This 151 (DC)-megawatt solar photovoltaic power project by Welspun Energy, India’s largest private solar project developers, is set up on an 800-acre site. The plant will address the power needs of 6.24 lakh homes in MP on completion.
4. Yamuna Expressway
The expressway which connects New Delhi with Agra is India’s longest motorway. This 165 kilometer, six-lane expressway was opened in 2012 and has dramatically reduced the travel time between the two cities; it now takes only a little over two hours to get from Delhi to the Taj Mahal. The project was featured in the list of world’s top 100 innovative infrastructure projects, prepared by KPMG.
5. India’s First Solar Park at Charanka Village in Gujarat
This group of solar parks constructed in Gujarat makes the state Asia’s largest solar park hub. Spread across 5,000 acres, with a capacity of 500 MW, the park can generate both solar and wind energy. Operational since 2013, it hosts 19 different projects by different developers, including Alex Astral, US-based Sun Edison, Lanco Solar, Roha Dyechem, and GMR .
6. Amazing Airport Terminals
The Indira Gandhi International Airport was ranked the world’s best airport in handling 25-40 million passengers per annum category by ACI 2014 and is South Asia’s largest aviation hub. The recently constructed T3 Terminal has added to the glory of IGAI. The terminal has a capacity to host 34 million passengers annually and is the 24th largest building in the world. Not only this, it also has India’s first automated parking management and guidance system in a seven-level car parking area which can accommodate 4,300 cars.
Mumbai’s T2 terminal, with a four-storey building and a capacity to handle 40 million passengers annually, is also nothing short of extraordinary. It also has the country’s largest airport escalator at 11.6 meters. The car parking can accommodate 5,200 cars and the steel used to build the roof of the terminal is enough to construct two Eiffel Towers.
Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) is an under-construction central business district between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar that will be a major financial hub. The Rs. 600,000 crore project will host corporate and regional offices of companies, a trade centre, housing colonies, and a centre for the domestic financial sector. It is expected to create over 10 lakh new jobs in 10 years. Organizations like International Monetary Fund (IMF) and agencies of United Nations are expected to open offices here. GIFT city is designed to be eco-friendly – it will use an energy-efficient district cooling system instead of air-conditioning.
8. Ahmedabad and Indore BRTS
The Bus Rapid Transit System of Ahmedabad is a planned commuting system with reduced emissions and improved air quality. It is also referred to as a model urban transport system. Started as a pilot project over a distance of 12.5 kms, it now covers 51 kms. Around 22 percent of commuters who used two wheelers earlier have now started using BRTS. The project ran free of cost for the first three months of operation.
Another BRTS service which is worth mentioning is Indore’s BRTS which has been built on the pattern of Ahmedabad BRTS. This project too offered free rides to the commuters in the initial phase. The project has 16 buses that operate on 10 lines. The buses have a frequency of every 15 minutes on every stop. Smart cards are used for fare collection.
India’s second largest flyover, Mumbai’s Eastern Freeway, is an amazing piece of engineering and design. It connects P D’Mello Road in South Mumbai to the Eastern Express Highway (EEH) at Ghatkopar. The 16.8 km long freeway became operational in June 2013 and is believed to support over 25,000 vehicles daily. Commuters can enter the flyover from eight points. Also, the flyover has enabled commuters to enjoy the 20 minutes road journey from CST to Chembur.
10. Banihal-Qazigund tunnel
The tunnel that connects Bichleri Valley of Banihal with Qazigund area of Kashmir Valley is India’s longest railway tunnel. It is also the second longest tunnel in Asia. The tunnel, which became operational in June 2013, is 11 kms long and is located in the Pir Panjal mountain range. The ambitious and difficult project took seven years to complete with the hard work of 150 engineers and 1,300 workers. The USP of the tunnel is the use of the New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM) of construction. The project cost was around Rs. 1,700 crore.
11. Interceptor Sewage System
Yamuna river’s sad state is not news. Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has come up with a solution to keep the river clean by implementing the Interceptor sewage system on three major drains – Najafgarh, Supplementary and Shahadra drains. This Rs. 1,357 crore project diverts the sewage to treatment plants so that the river’s water can be used for other purposes like horticulture and cleaning. The system captures sewage from the 1,600 unauthorized colonies through 600 mm to 2,400 mm wide pipes.
12. Petrochemical Complex at Dahej
Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) Petro additions Limited’s (OPaL) mega petrochemical complex at Dahej will be used to manufacture polymers along with products like detergent bottles, milk jugs, water pipes, etc. It will also export products to countries like China, Singapore, Turkey, Africa, Pakistan, etc. The construction of the project was started in 2009 and it was expected to be ready by 2013, but was delayed. The officials claim that the plant was mechanically completed by April 2015 and one of the units commissioned in June. Other units of the plant will also be commissioned soon. The entire plant is expected to start operations by end of 2015.
13. Narmada Canal Solar Project
Gujarat’s canal-top solar project covers a 5.5 km section of the Narmada canal with a photovoltaic grid. This 10 MW solar project is one of its kind in the world. Located at Chandrasan village near Mehsana, the plant is designed to generate 1.6 million units of electricity per year along with preventing water from evaporation. The project will eliminate the need of land solar projects and is expected to save two billion litres of water annually. Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited will build the plant and maintain it for 25 years.
14. The Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus
Spread over an area of 37 acres, it is the second largest bus station in Asia and is also accredited with the ISO 9001:2000 quality certification for its efficient management and functioning. Opened in 2002, this terminus has the capacity to handle 2,000 buses and 200,000 passengers daily. The bus station has 64 CCTV cameras and a ‘child-friendly’ centre for lost kids. The huge parking lot can accommodate over 2,500 two and four wheelers.
Take off with Natarajan 