Cochin Discussions

[mohammedirshad06]

Originally Posted by bijuarr

Kochi - The coolest city among the five major cities in south

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/13280855.cms

Kochi, which is close to the Western Ghats and is located on the windward side of the south-west winds, was among the coolest in the same period. The maximum temperature there has not crossed 33 degrees in the last one week.

But Bangalore had the best weather. Rains have cooled the city and maximum temperatures were around 32 degrees C last week. "The mornings remained slightly chill", said Aneesha Bangera, a resident of the city.

Though normally temperatures in any Kerala Cities donot cross beyond 36-37, still its really uncomfortable during Summer period as humidity is pretty high.... Especially in evenings, its too tough, with heavy sweating due to very high humidity.....

Kochi is far better than any other city in South India, in my experience.... Ofcourse Bangalore was an exception untill few years back. But rising population and industrialization has reduced the charm of Garden city.... I remember those days when we spend our summer vacations in Bangalore in mid 90s, as it was pretty cooler... Now nothing like that.....

[Malayaali]

Cyber Police Station to be setup at Kakkanad


cc: Madhyamam

[Malayaali]

Red Killers again in Kochi

[Malayaali]

Dental Expo in Kochi


cc: Manorama

[keralite]

@Malayaali: Your news images hosted all got deleted. seems like somebody reported it to the site admin.

[Malayaali]

Kanayannur Taluk office under renovation

The 125 years old building, built by then Kochi King Ramavarma Thamburan, is refurbished at a cost of Rs 25 lakhs. The structure will be notified as Heritage Structure soon, said District Collector.


cc: Mathrubhumi

[mohammedirshad06]

Thank god, Atleast now they are doing something.... Its really ridiculous that Govt is keeping Kochi's Royal Secretariat (Huzur Cutchery as known in those days) as a mere Taluk Office.

This complex is South India's first Earthquake resistant bldg, designed by Dutch Engineers in Kerala-Dutch Architecture. The entire interiors was once designed in premium rosewood and Diwan's chamber used to have 2 Sandalwood Pillars. The Glass were specially designed in Belgium at a cost of 40,000 INR that time.....

And we see how carelessly our modern babus maintain this splendid complex.... Dust and piles of files and garbages in one side, Handcuffed criminals and policemen walking on other side being part of court, makes this complex really downgraded....

It high time, the bldg should be declared a protected heritage structure and converted into a City museum.... The govt has constructed massive and impressive Revenue Tower near to this, which is still half unoccupied.... Its high time to move taluk office outside this facility and make it into a city museum......

[Malayaali]

JNU students to meet at Kochi on May 26

Present and former students of New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University will be meeting here on a common platform on May 26 to build a network of the JNU community.

Barring some small group alumni activities earlier, this is the first time that the JNU students from the 1970s till the present day JNUites are coming together on a common platform, a press release said.

This is the first time wherein the alumni and the present day JNU students have been brought together to build a strong network of the JNU community.

Eminent historian and chairman of the Kerala Council for Historical Research, Prof K N Panikkar, will be the chief guest at the function.
The organising team head Swapna Patronis said the "JNU as a university has enabled students to progress not on academic terms alone, but also to evolve as human beings. This first ever JNU meet in Kerala would enable to reassert the vision of the university".

All JNU students, irrespective of their year of study, course, region are joining in this meet, the release said.

[Malayaali]

Infopark CEO: Judgement deferred on petition against VS


cc: Metrovartha

[Malayaali]

Seminar on security system in the city

As Kochi city is one of the prime industrial cities of the country with several sensitive installations, the police force is all set to intensify the security system in the city. As part of it, a seminar named ‘Kochi Security Review 2012’ will be held at IMA hall on May 25 to discuss the security systems and other possible measures to be adopted for making the city safe.

The meet will be inaugurated by Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan at 10.30 am. A new programme named ‘Citizens for Security’ will be inaugurated by Excise Minister K Babu. Kochi Corporation Mayor, Tony Chammany will be present for the inaugural function. At the valedictory function, Central Minister K V Thomas will be the chief guest. In the evening, another new programme called ‘Integrated Digital Security Scheme’ will be inaugurated by Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan.

During the function, PWD Minister V K Ibrahim Kunju will release the logo of a campaign called ‘Safe Kochi Secure Kochi’. Representatives of Navy, Port trust, IT sector, Coast Guard, Industrial sector and Customs will also take part in the function.

There are four sessions about security of the commercial sector, Metro Rail project, coastal petroleum and gas pipe line, tourism security will also be discussed. Of this, Metro and gas pipeline security system will be closed-door meeting.

[Malayaali]

Originally Posted by Malayaali

Seminar on security system in the city

[Malayaali]

Thrikkakara to be upgraded as A-Grade Municipality


cc: Deepika

[Prasanth_KCV]

Instead of upgrading Thrikkakara to A Grade Municipality it should be added to the Cochin Corporation. Atleast Thrikkakara, Maradu, Thripoonithura, Eloor and Kalamassery Municipality as well as thoses panchayats near cochin is to be added to Cochin Corporation. There is no use or benifit in creating another Corporation near to Cochin Corporation.

Originally Posted by Malayaali

Thrikkakara to be upgraded as A-Grade Municipality


cc: Deepika

[psanthosh]

KOCHI: Reviving city's hopes of uninterrupted power supply, the electricity board has decided to invite tenders for the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (RAPDRP).

The board has completed the tendering procedures, which include replacing the existing overhead transmission lines with underground cables and augmenting the 11 KV networks, and is expected to float the tenders by next week.

The Rs 210-crore project is expected to bring down transmission loss as well as ensure uninterrupted power supply.

The ring main project, one of the components of RAPDRP, has been designed in such a fashion that a nearby transformer will take care of the power supply in case one transformer becomes defunct.

"Once the ring main unit becomes functional, power disruption will be a thing of the past. All the transformers will be connected to the ring main unit, and whenever there is power failure due to technical snarls in one of the transformers, it will automatically be isolated and another ring will take care of the supply for the time being," said V Sathyarajan, chief engineer, distribution, KSEB. Earlier, RAPDRP had got entangled in legal hooks forcing the government to put the project on hold. Last month, the high court gave it the go ahead.

Opposition from PWD and NHAI was another hurdle before the project. These two departments were reluctant to give KSEB the sanction to dig up roads for laying UG cables for the project.

Interestingly, the state government has still not secured permission from these agencies for digging up various roads. A 33 KV sub-station will be set up in the Steel Industries of India Limited (SILK) land at Kadavanthra. SILK owes KSEB a handsome amount, and the plan is to handover the land to the board in lieu of the money.

Insulated Aerial Benched Cables in areas overcrowded with trees is another component in RAPDRP. There are also plans to cover faucets of the transformers and fence them.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/13549120.cms

[DileepKS]

Toldja!! We are going to have a cluster of six or seven "corporations" here soon!! Vyapari/Vyavasayi zindabad!!

[Malayaali]

Saudi Arabia to recruit nurses from Kochi

The Saudi Arabian health ministry is on a recruitment spree for nurses in Kerala. A 13-member team of officials, including interviewers and admin staff, headed by the director-general of Saudi health ministry, will recruit in Kochi from June 7 to 10.

The Saudi Arabian team is headed by Delhi-based Saudi medical recruitment attache Mohammed Saeed Al Ham Hum. The group will also have recruiting sessions at Delhi and Hyderabad prior to that of Kochi. "We have invited roughly 3,000 nurses for a written test and those who qualify will be interviewed at the venue. After selection, they will get the salary contracts, and within 35 days they will be able to start working in Saudi Arabia," said G L Muraleedharan, managing director the Overseas Development and Employment Promotion Council, the recruitment agency under the Kerala labour ministry, which helps conduct recruitments in the country along with a few other agencies.

"The Saudi health ministry is looking for ICU-paediatrics nurses, ER nurses, CCU nurses, OT nurses, nephrology nurses and general nurses with BSc degree and an experience of two years.

[Malayaali]

Kochi police to quicken response time

The city police will soon initiate various measures to quicken their response time to a crime or law and order incident within city limits.

Efforts will be made to attain a response time of five minutes from the current response time of 15 to 20 minutes, usually taken by the police to reach a crime spot.

The decision was taken after evaluating the time taken by the police at present to reach the crime scene after it gets information about an incident. "We will be striving to attain a response time which will be less than ten minutes. A set of measures will be initiated to achieve this response time," a senior police official said.

As part of implementing the project, the city police will go for major augmentation of its communication system and draft an action plan wherein the positions of the control room vehicles will be changed to ensure that they can reach any spot in the city within the stipulated time.

City control room assistant commissioner T Joseph said the control room used to record the time taken by the vehicle patrolling team to reach a crime scene on receipt of distress call, at the control room. At present, there are 15 control room vehicles in the city which go around covering areas coming under 23 police stations in the city limits including two traffic police stations. When a call is received in the control room, the telephone operator records the information and passes it on to the control room vehicle which is closest to the spot. Simultaneously, the information is also passed on to the nearest police station.

Police are also contemplating to train a batch of personnel at each police station to quickly react in the wake of an incident.

[Malayaali]

Anonymous calls for ‘Occupy movement' in several Indian cities

We have read about the ‘Occupy protests' taking place across the world. Now several cities in India, including Hyderabad, are likely to witness Occupy protests, albeit on a smaller scale, on June 9 where protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks will assemble at a place. They will register their opposition to the moves of the Centre to curtail Internet freedom and oppose blocking of websites or social media accounts. The protests are called by Anonymous, a group of ‘hacktivists'.

Facebook, twitter and other social media sites were abuzz with activity on Monday, with the Anonymous calling for occupy protests in Hyderabad and several other cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh, Indore, Kolkata, Bangalore, Kochi and Calicut on June 9. Tweets by Anonymous India (@AnonDDos) and Operation India (@opindia_back) have been eliciting a good response from tweeple from these cities, who pledged their support to the protests.

EVENTS PAGE

While asking Tweeple to use hashtag ‘#opIndia' to express their opinions and support, the group started an events page on Facebook apart from a webpage to explain why the opIndia movement was being launched. The group alleged that the Department of Telecommunications was laying down stringent rules to curb internet freedom. “…we are protesting against the government's rampant behaviour. We will not tolerate this,” the group declared on its website.

The recent activity of disabling of websites of government, corporate and political parties was to protest against the blocking of several websites, blogs and social media accounts, it explained.

The group has also listed certain directives for organising the protests. The protesters should wear Guy Fawkes masks, and the protest must be non-violent and in no circumstances should they confront the police. Those indulging in any violent act must be handed over to the police.

[psanthosh]

KOCHI: The willingness of Kochiites to pay huge amounts to acquire fancy numbers for their vehicles is becoming a major source of revenue for the Ernakulam Regional Transport Office. In the first five months this year, registration of fancy numbers has fetched the department about Rs 69.57 lakh.

It is more than half the total amount of Rs 110.89 lakh collected last year.

Officials in the department said it was only in the last couple of years that such an increase in revenue was noticed. "One of the reasons for this trend is that most vehicle owners consider it a status symbol. It make their vehicles stand apart in the crowd. There are some applicants who choose fancy numbers as they believe in numerology," said an official in-charge of fancy number registration.

Regional Transport Officer ( RTO) T J Thomas said the revenue collected from this had been going up over the last four years. "In 2009, the department earned Rs 71.07 lakh; the figure went up to Rs 1.10 crore in 2011. In the last five months, we have collected Rs 69.57 lakh from fancy number registration alone, and expect the figure to go above Rs 1.50 crore by year end," he said.

Thomas also said the increase in revenue was being noticed after making the rules to register fancy numbers stricter. "Earlier, there were many mediators, including vehicle dealers and agents, who used to register fancy numbers in advance. From 2010, we changed the rule, and now for someone to get a fancy number, he has to come in person and register paying the registration amount," Thomas said.

"If there is more than one contestant for a number, it will be allotted to the highest bidder in the auction," he added.

The most sought after numbers are the ones like 1, 9, 7, 77, 555 and 7777.

Officials also said that along with these numbers, people also demand sequences like 1234, 7117 or 7171. To get the digit '1' as vehicle registration number, a vehicle owner will have to shell out a minimum of Rs 1 lakh, and for numbers like 777 and 7777, one has to spend a minimum of Rs 50,000.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/13623127.cms

[Malayaali]

Asia/Pacific’s Leading Travel Metasearch Site Launches Wego.co.in in India

Wego, the region’s leading travel metasearch site has today announced the official launch of Wego India (www.wego.co.in), promising to revolutionise the way Indians travel.

The site enables Indians travelling both domestically and overseas to compare the price and availability of flights and hotels across hundreds of different travel sites simultaneously, so they save time and pay less. It ranks hotels in order of their popularity with users locally and provides aggregate reviews, making it easy to choose from the 350,000 accommodation options on offer. India’s favourite resorts are all included. Wego.co.in also compares over 600 full service and low cost carriers and illustrates graphically the cheapest days to fly on the most important routes.

Ensuring the site is accessible to everyone, Wego has integrated multiple language options, including Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil and Bengali. It is part of a strategy to localise content and its delivery, resulting in some remarkable growth. Wego India is already generating around US$17 million [Rupees 95 crore] a month in the total value of booking leads passed to travel partners.

“Wego has seen very strong growth in the last year as India’s travellers have looked for better hotel rates and airfares online, particulary for their domestic travel. This has helped us to secure the widest range of travel partners needed to deliver intensely competitive search results. The conditions all favour the launch of this dedicated travel comparison site,” explained Jackson Fernandez, Wego India General Manager.

His team has secured all the major online travel agencies and many other travel sites including those less familiar to travellers, but with interesting inventory and exceptional deals.

Recent observations of trends from Wego.co.in include:

-Robust growth with flight clicks quadrupling year-on-year on domestic routes and growing at 58 per cent on international.

-Most popular domestic destinations are Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Bagdogra, Goa, Pune, Srinagar and Kochi.

-Most popular international destinations are Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Bali, Hong Kong, London, Phuket, Dubai, Sydney and Manila.

Fernandez added: “This is a significant and timely development for India as it gives travellers their own platform to compare all the available travel options. Wego.co.in is where everyone should start planning their business and leisure trips. They will save time and importantly, money.”

Wego India is based in Bangalore and the company headquartered in Singapore. For more information, visit: www.wego.co.in.