Good morning, Chennai!
☀️ Today’s weather: High: 34 ℃ | Low: 23 ℃ | Clear and sunny skies for today.
🧐 Did you know? Madras University introduced music as a part of the Bachelor of Arts information course for the first time in India in 1930.
🗣️ Talking tales
Puppeteer Shreedevi Sunil brings her talking turtle and an adaption of the Panchatantra.
What’s it about? Shreedevi is the founder and chief storyteller at Talking Turtles Storytellers. She uses storytelling and puppetry in education, corporate skill-building, and children’s theatre. The show is currently travelling across the country and can be seen in Chennai on March 9 at DAM – The Art & Cultural Space.
- Why a turtle? They symbolise wisdom and knowledge since they’re often compared to old things. The puppets tell stories of myths, legends, and fairytales.
- Shreedevi was able to adapt the Talkative Turtle from the Panchatantra. In this rendition, the turtle falls down since he opened his mouth to talk and finds himself in a garden.
Big success: Over the past decade, she has performed over 500 shows. Since 2019, she has performed over 250 online shows and conducted over 50 workshops. One notable performance was a musical rendition of The Gruffalo in front of an audience of over 700 in Mumbai.
🏠 In the market for a home?
CREDAI’s property and real estate expo will showcase a range of homes at different price points.
What’s it about? The Chennai chapter of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (CREDAI) will have the 16th edition of its property and real estate exhibition, FAIRPRO, this weekend at the Chennai Trade Centre. The title sponsor of the expo is SBI Bank.
- This year’s expo will showcase homes ranging from ₹15 lakh to ₹15 crore from over 75 CREDAI developers. There will also be eight banks participating to offer home loans.
- The exhibition will see over 200 projects being showcased, covering 32.5 million square feet of apartment space, 0.25 million square feet of commercial spaces, and 325 acres of plots.
Chennai’s market: CREDAI Chennai has over 82% market share in the residential market in terms of units sold. There’s good demand from allied sectors like consumer goods and construction.
🖥️ Boosting semiconductor research
IIT Madras will soon have a semiconductor research centre.
What’s it about? Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, said IIT Madras will have a Bharat Semiconductor Research Centre to help propel independent semiconductor research.
- Top universities and colleges will work together on research in several areas, ranging from materials to physics to packaging.
- The Centre will help in design innovation for chips and devices. There’s increasing demand from the automobile, telecom, and other sectors.
All India Summit: The announcement was made at the All India Research Scholars Summit 2024 to pave the way for better and stronger research collaborations.
🚇 Metro’s ballasted tracks
The Chennai Metro will use ballasted tracks at the Poonamallee maintenance depot to help cut costs.
What’s it about? The metro decided to use ballasted tracks since it could incur higher costs for treating clayey soil for ballastless tracks. Ballasted tracks have already been used in phase 1 and at the Koyambedu depot.
- Laying ballastless tracks on clayey soil will lead to cracks since the concrete needs a strong base. The soil might need to be treated by removing some and replacing it after treatment. It was done in Koyambedu but was time-consuming and expensive.
- The ballasted tracks need to be maintained. 3-4 years after installation, the ballast could puncture and get buried in the soil. Cost-cutting measures like this have reduced the project costs from ₹89,000 crore to ₹61,834 crore.
Poonamallee depot details: The depot will be spread over 15 hectares. It’ll have 24 lines of tracks for stabling and parking three and six-car trains.
📊 Today’s Poll
(Only subscribers can participate in the polls)
Do you prefer North Indian or South Indian food?
- I prefer North Indian food.
- I prefer South Indian food.
❓ Today’s Question
(Only subscribers can submit their answers)
What animal would you have as a sidekick?
Reply to this email with your answers.
🗞️ In other news…
- SIPCOT Biz Buddy meeting was organised to address the grievances of companies and contractors.
- Two tunnel boring machines operating near Marina Beach will reach the lighthouse soon as part of the first leg of tunnels to Thirumayilai.
- Residents from several regions in the city have demanded an extension of the metro network.
- As summer approaches, residents are unhappy with the state of many public parks.
- The ‘Her Health’ menstrual health camp was inaugurated by the Mayor to increase awareness of menstruation.
🛋️ Local Lounge
Yesterday’s Poll:
- I have tried going on a diet: 30.0%
- I haven’t tried going on a diet: 70.0% 🏆
Answers to Yesterday’s Question:
What’s one item you would take to your own private island?
Shiva: “Tennis ball”
That’s it for today. Have a great day!