I am usually the most vocal of critics when it comes to the government and their efforts to improve something.
Which is why, either the government has either devised a way to brainwash me remotely, or they have actually done good. I think it is the latter.

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In one of the posts of Vinod Subramanian “Zyng – been there yet ?”, there was a comment by Michelle Binkley  

Hi Vinod, (more…)

A few weekends back I went for a turtle walk after a  long time. Well a really long time one can say, it was my first walk after 3 seasons, or in other words 3 years. In these three years a lot had changed, first being the direction of the walk. Earlier we walked from Besant Nagar beach to Neelankarai, now the its been reversed. The hatchery which was earlier located in Neelankarai is now located near Adyar Estuary. The distance is now a roughly 30 percent more.

Apart from this, the biggest change would have to be the crowds. Regular walkers inform me that on weekends, the average crowd is 30-40 people. That’s a phenomenal number compared to the earlier crowds, which averaged around 15 people. There of course were the days when 40 people turned up, but that was a rarity rather than being the norm.  The larger crowd obviously meant that it has become a joy walk, actually it always is that for everyone except the scouts who go ahead looking for tracks, or those who have to carry the turtle nests back incase any are found.

The stretch now is more lit up, it’s brighter than it earlier was. Over the years the area somehow has lost its charm. During my first walks in the late 1990s, beyond Thiruvanmayur was the brigest stretch, Valmiki Nagar had a few lights, otherwise there was hardly any noticeable lighting in the area.

The distressing fact about this season is the number of nests found. With the season almost over, only 60 odd nests have been found, it’s a marked drop from past seasons when twice that number of nests would be found. It’s partly due to development of t he coastal front which has lead to the few turtles nesting, while trawling also has contributed to a significant number of turtles being caught in them.

In all, very soon, in a decade or so, they just might not be enough turtles nesting on the Madras coastline to make it worthwhile for people to walk.

I find that I’ve been lax in answering/awarding points to answers for questions I’ve asked before. Apologies, and Amologies too.

Anyway,  here’re the pending answers.

The right answer to this question (where in Madras would you find that particular milestone) was of course Mount Road at Teynampet, just where it meets the Anna Flyover. The reason I posted the picture was the milestone seems to be facing the wrong way – for those who need the distance to Madras will not see it (are on the other side of the road) and those who do see milestone, see the distance to Dindigul (380 kms)

And so, we go to the next question.
The right answer to the q (how many horses on Mount road) is 4. The first horse is that of Sir Thomas Munro. The second and third are the two horses (and horseman/men) flanking the Anna Flyover and the fourth is that of Dheeran Chennimalai/Chinnamalai in Guindy, next to the Intellectual Property council/court building. Interesting info – the horse and horseman on either side of the flyover is said to be modelled after Vallavarayar vanthiyathevar (of Ponniyin Selvan fame).

Right then, to the winners.
Question #1 – Most of you got the right answer, BLN was the first on the Metblog. But the first was Navneet – he posted his answer in Flickr. But the credit for the second part of the answer (why?) goes to Nilu.

Question 2: Not many got the answer (or should I say not many answered) but Chenthil got the right number, and so did GVB. But it was GVB who correctly identified all the four horses. So credit to him

On that note, let me throw the gear backwards and throw an open challenge.
In the comments to this post, ask me any question about Madras – any thing at all – History, trivia, geography, culture, music, whatever*. I shall try to answer it (time permitting) without consulting the all-knowing Google. 10 points to the best question that I can answer, 5 to all good questions, and 30 to the question I don’t answer. We’ll keep this game going for as long as it can, and each new week, a new challenge. At the end of the month, I will buy coffee and a walnut brownie to the one with the most points. Game? Who goes first?

*My weekpoint is celebrity related stuff. But I shall give it a shot too.

Welcome! You aren’t in any place new. Only the looks have changed. And I hope you will agree that it has changed for the better. There are at least a couple of new feature including the polls and blog ranking system. These are simple to use, and if you can’t figure out how to use them intutively just hold on. I will be posting about them shortly.

The new design has motivated us (I am trying to get the authors to like the design!) to write better. Over the next few days, you should see evidence of our renewed efforts to blog better.

In the meantime, if you are facing any technical hitches (I haven’t come up with any) like dead links and so on, please let us know via a comment on this post.

Thanks, and do come back. We should be adding more posts in a day or two.

The useless Union Budgeting exercising has once again placated M Karunanidhi’s ego. Once again it has shown tokenism towards Chennai. Yes Chennai has been allocated Rs 300 crores towards a desalination plant.
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Dinamani, the tamil newspaper, from the Express Group carried a report on The Chennai Photowalk.

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During the Third Chennai Photowalk, we came across the residence where MGR lived with his mother and brother during his early days when he was a small time actor.

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The Azaadi Express (a mobile exhibition covering India’s history from 1857 to present day) is here. Today, the central station was crowded with a different kind of population. A whole lot of people without baggage, one their way from office, long queues of school children. The Azaadi Express exhibition seems to be drawing crowds. The exhibition includes original vintage photographs, pictures, exhibits etc from India’s history. The idea has been conceived by the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to mark the 150th anniversary of the ‘First War of Independence’.
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Mylapore Festival, an annual event in Chennai in the month of January is sponsored by Sundaram Finance and organised by Mr Vincent D’Souza of Mylapore Times. This year the festival was celebrated from January 3rd to 6th, 2008
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