Good morning, Chennai!
☀️ Today’s weather: High: 41 ℃ | Low: 29 ℃ | Sunny and humid for the day.
🧐 Did you know? By 1947, Chennai had 173 schools managed by the Corporation. The Chennai Corporation currently run 419 schools.
🚘 Collecting car miniatures
A group of car scale model collectors meet to discuss their love of the hobby.
What’s it about? The recent Scale Model Collective Madras’ meet-up at Cafe Gobbelin in Adyar saw collectors, hobbyists, and newcomers gather to celebrate their love of intricately detailed car scale models.
- The event saw a diverse range, from finely detailed 1:100 scale models to the Red Line Club range from Hot Wheels to Premium collections.
- A recent Cars & Coffee gathering saw good feedback and prompted its founding member Mukundan to organise the event. For many, the hobby goes back to their childhoods. It does have its challenges of customisation and scalpers.
Only the beginning: The organisers have plans to host such events every month. While the focus is currently on Chennai, they hope to expand and collaborate with similar groups from other cities.
🐕🦺 Caring for pets policy
Chennaiites believe Swiggy’s Paw-ternity policy is a step in the right direction.
What’s it about? Being a pet parent is not something that companies and others take into consideration. But being a pet parent comes with its share of responsibilities. It’s why many residents lauded Swiggy’s Paw-ternity policy for full-time employees.
- Something like pet adoption requires understanding from employees and policies like Swiggy’s can help pet parents. Given the high number of stray dogs, adoption should be encouraged.
- Kirthana Raamsukaesh, the founder of Hope for Critters, said pets should be treated like family, making their well-being just as important.
A first step: For many Chennaiites, a pet policy would go a long way in helping owners balance taking care of their pets and work obligations. Just like companies have maternity, paternity, and period leaves, a pet policy would be a welcome move.
✈️ Travel to Mauritius
Following the launch of flights from Chennai, Mauritius’s tourism department hosted a roadshow to woo tourists.
What’s it about? Air Mauritius recently launched daily direct flights from Chennai to Mauritius to attract more leisure travellers from the city. The Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA) also conducted a roadshow to woo more tourists.
- Mauritius is targeting 80,000 tourists this year, and that could increase with more airlines looking to operate flights on the route.
- About 32,000 travellers from Mauritius visited India last year, and many came to Chennai for medical treatment.
Ideal destination: For seasoned travellers, Mauritius is being positioned as an alternate luxury destination to Singapore and Maldives, which have high airfares.
🚗 Curbing wrong side driving
The Chennai Police will use smart barricades equipped with cameras to book wrong-side drivers.
What’s it about? The Chennai Police wants to curb the menace of wrong-side drivers who pose a risk to other motorists and pedestrians. These smart barricades will have Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras to generate challans once a violation is recorded.
- The police are currently working to buy 20 such barricades. The challans will be sent to the driver’s address.
- Six junctions have been identified for the first phase based on the number of cases in the past. Initially, specially trained teams will be deployed to monitor traffic.
Much needed: Last year, the police booked over 60,000 wrong-side driving cases and seized over 1,600 vehicles. The police have also installed tripod-mounted cameras at several junctions to capture vehicular movements from different directions.
✨ Things to do…
Here are some fun and interesting things to do in the city over the weekend!
- Popular super singers assemble for an Ilaiyaraaja tribute concert this Saturday.
- Maya S Krishnan fans can experience a unique meet & greet this Saturday.
- Football fans, catch a live screening of the Champions League Finals this Saturday.
- Vinyl record enthusiasts, head on over to the TRC #Recordwala this Saturday.
- Indie music lovers, catch the OG of Tamil Indie music Kaber Vasuki In Oorvalam this Saturday.
🛋️ Local Lounge
Yesterday’s Poll Results:
- I use the DigiLocker app: 60.0% 🏆
- I don’t use the DigiLocker app: 40.0%
That’s it for today. Have a great weekend!