Chennai Times

If the following news is true and without any flip-flop Chennai may be seen as never before in living memory!!! You will actually see the trees (whatever remains of them) that line up Cathedral Road, you may get to see the greenery of Theosophical Society as you cross the Adyar bridge, you will see the facade of many buildings in Mount Road for the first time, the government estate greenery will be a pleasant sight for all those passing by mount road from the island side, people may even get to see that there is an island ground in chennai, there will be surprise sights around Central station, many parts of Chennai will become safer for pedestrians again...and if the rule extends to political hoardings also, you will for once get to see the front side of Arivalayam at Mount Road too. But, will we see the bold side of the occupant of the Arivalayam on this issue? Many such earlier ventures have only resulted in review of orders after representations from advertisers and partial permiss...

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 ...