State award in Kalam’s name
Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa has instituted an award to honour late President APJ Abdul Kalam that would be given to achievers in science, humanities and student welfare.
The award covering eight grams of gold, Rs500,000 and a citation would be gifted on Independence Day every year effective from the current year said a government communiqué.
The press note added that Kalam’s birthday on October 15 would be observed as Youth Awakening Day.

Electronic toll tag launched
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has launched an electronic toll collection tag that will automatically deduct toll amounts when vehicles cross the toll plazas along the 325km Chennai-Bangalore highway.
Titled Fastag, the card can be purchased at any toll booth along this route and bank officers would collect their ID details. Heavy vehicle owners welcomed the move as it would expedite collection at plazas.

Wax museum at Kanyakumari
A wax museum with life-size statues of various personalities has been opened at the central railway station in Kanyakumari town in southern-most tip of Tamil Nadu.
The 4,000sq ft Wonderwax Museum has statues of Mahatma Gandhi, A P J Abdul Kalam, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein, Barrack Obama, Pope John Paul II, Manmohan Singh and Rabindranath Tagore.
The realistic images are placed in small cubicles and museum authorities are planning to put sound and light shows soon.

Forest officers trap leopard

Forest personnel and villagers trapped a two-year-old leopard that had strayed into a village in Adhiyamankottai in Dharmapuri district in an eight-hour operation last week.
The leopard reportedly injured five persons before forest personnel managed to trap it in a cage. They later released it into the Mallahalli reserve forest.
Meanwhile a group of entrepreneurs have formed an organisation to raise funds for tiger conservation on the occasion of World Tiger Day on July 29 in Coimbatore.
They plan to work with existing animal networks and experts to protect the big cats in Wayanad and Sathyamangalam forest reserves.