The fourth annual hot air balloon festival started in Pollachi, about 56km from Coimbatore city, on January 10.
The festival organised by the Tamil Nadu Tourism Board, with ten sports companies has nearly 40 hot air balloons powered by helium. The balloons are tethered to SUV vehicles. Over 2,000 visitors ascend these balloons daily which give a short trip on air while moored to the vehicles. The flights are held only during daylight hours.
Badru Toufiq, a regular visitor said: “The longer un-tethered balloon flights cover nearly 20km covering aerial radii of Pollachi, Anamalai, Valparai and Kerala. These can be chartered for Rs15,000 per passenger. This year the festival began at Chennai’s Loyola College and came by road here. January is a preferred month to attract public who visit hometowns for Pongal harvest festival.”
This year ten balloons have come from the UK, US, Germany, France and Netherlands.
First designed in 1914 by French engineer Albert Caquot, tethered balloons were used for barrage and watchtower work during the two World Wars. Later its spherical shape was modified into elliptical for commercial purposes and its fuel was changed from hydrogen to helium.
Tamil Nadu is fast becoming a popular destination for adventure sports.
Police search for man in marriage scam
Police are on the lookout for 57 year-old Purushotaman who duped eight women into marrying him and amassed millions of rupees.
Purushotaman, a widower with a teenage daughter from Coimbatore, allegedly colluded with a couple running a marriage bureau service. The couple chose wealthy widows and divorcees for Purushotaman.
He charmed his ‘wives’ with romantic talk and glamorous credentials. He managed to dupe Indira Gandhi, a Chennai-based college lecturer of Rs10.45mn from sale of her ancestral house. Similarly he convinced Kumudavalli in Coimbatore to sell her farmland for Rs30mn to finance a ‘civil suit’ that he claimed would bring in Rs170mn. He played similar tricks on three other women and has now gone underground.
Police have arrested the marriage bureau owners and begun a search for Purushotaman.
In a separate case, Coimbatore police are searching for Shruthi, 21, who allegedly duped four foreign grooms of millions of rupees over four years. She and her parents and brother posed as film personalities and lured the grooms into getting engaged to her.
Bus strike ends after high court appoints arbitrator
A state-wide government bus strike for wage hike that went on for eight days was called off on January 11, after the Madras High Court ordered a court official to arbitrate between the trade unions and the government.
Former judge E Padmanabhan was appointed as arbitrator.
A Soundarajan, a leader of the Centre of Trade Unions (CITU) said, “We are ready to accept the current wage revision of 2.44%, but we do want our demand for 2.57 % to be fulfilled in the future.”
Meanwhile the state government had released Rs7.5bn towards pension benefits, wage arrears and bonuses of these unions. The bus strike crippled the state’s economy as passenger and daily parcel services were affected.
The end of the strike was a major relief for the public ahead of the harvest festival of Pongal and long weekend.
Tamil
