Chennai Times

The new tamil year came in with a large promotion of an 'integrated city' coming up in the neighbourhood...news papers carried special advertisement features, a popular filmstar was on television through the day promoting the same, there are hoarding all over the chennai city promoting an 'integrated city' in chennai. This new 'city' promotes walking!!! The ad.s read, 'walk to work', 'walk for entertainment', 'walk to the club', 'walk to school',...and it promised a lot of greenery all around. It also claimed to be the first integrated city around the chennai city! Strange suckers we are! A city that was to begin with had much walk ways (foot paths, platforms, whatever you call them), destroyed them systematically (and the cycle ways too in the process) to ensure that citizens were discouraged to walk, they were further discouraged to cross the roads through the building of large boulders for road medians with the authorities yet ...

The old Gandhian of Chennai often fighting the mighty single handedly, Sri. P.N. Srinivasan is planning a meeting to celebrate the centenary of Satyagraha at the Marina Beach at the Thilagar Thidal (this place is located behind the current subway near Kannagi Statue, a small cement platform where Bal Gangadhara Tilak had once addressed a public gathering - recognition and restoration is one of the causes that PNS fights for) on the 10th of April 2007 evening between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. If you are interested to meet some old (and a few not so old) Gandhians of Chennai please do make it. I also wanted to mention two other events of Gandhian institutions in Chennai that I am aware of (and have tried to participate at some point): 1. The weekly book review that is held at the Gandhi Study Centre - this happens every wednesday evening between 6 - 8 p.m. Gandhi Study Centre is the one institution everyone knows thanks to the dynamic leadership of Sri. Annamalai and Smt. Prema Annamalai. All ki...