Karate queens in driver’s seat
The mob molestation on New Year’s eve may have burst the city’s safe bubble, but ladies can still travel at night in peace. Thanks to the Gold Taxis of Fulora Foundation, which are hiring women drivers trained in judo and karate.
“We decided to launch this service after seeing the incidents happening with women these days. All our female drivers have been trained in martial arts,” Arun Sabnis, the managing trustee of Fulora, said.
That’s not all. The drivers will be polite, too. “They have been groomed in etiquette,” Sabnis said.
The service is likely to start in the first week of January, he added.
The job offer had women from all walks of life queuing up. Rajshree Rane, 19, is among the 50 college girls who sent in applications. And she is raring to flex her muscles at mischief-makers.
“This job promises to be very exciting. Now, I can fight anyone who tries to mess with me,” she said.
Booze flows, coffers overflow
The Andhra government has hit upon a heady mix to keep its revenues high.
The government has uncorked a liberal liquor policy, allowing more retail shops, offering sops to bars and dangling promotions before excise officials to meet revenue targets.
In big cities and towns, the government has allowed drinking in parks so that liquor sales will pick up. Some have stretched the liberty to include kerbsides.
When Chandrababu Naidu was in power, drinking in public was a no-no, largely because the government did not want to run afoul of women’s groups that were campaigning for prohibition.
The Congress government, however, has decided to permit 10 liquor shops and two bars in every panchayat of 10 villages with a population of over 10,000. The bars will be given cash incentives if sales go up. Excise officials have been offered double promotions if they meet collection targets.
But all for a worthy cause, according to officials. The government is peddling the poison with the noble intention of stepping up revenue so that welfare schemes can be bankrolled.
Super rich? Get a yacht
When you’ve got it, flaunt it, crores that is. Indian tycoons are doing just that, and how. Flying machines are passe. For the multi-millionaires of today, luxury yachts are shopping faves.
Vinod Mittal, the managing director of Ispat Group, is the latest to buy one. Called Ferretti 550, the yacht is 55 metres long and carries a price tag of Rs 15 crore.
Not surprising since his elder brother is a certain Laxmi Mittal. For the record, Mittal senior already owns a super luxury yacht, Amevi, which is 80 metres long.
Liquor baron Vijay Mallya, of course, has gone far ahead of everyone else. He has in his kitty two sailing machines, including one of the world’s largest super luxury yachts, Indian Empress.
Vinod Mittal brought the Ferretti 550 to Mumbai last week. The brand’s dealers in the city say the yacht can travel from Mumbai to Goa in four hours flat. Lesser mortals would take 12 hours to cover the distance by road.
Going digital
Daggubati Purandeshwari has had a double New Year bash — first in Mumbai and then in London .
The junior education minister flew to the British capital to address ministers from 59 countries on India’s achievements in bridging the digital divide.
The minister, who looks after school education, is expected to a make a 20-minute presentation at the Kensington Olympia Exhibition Centre on January 9.
Titled “Moving Young Minds”, the conference will focus on information and communication technologies in education, the sources said.
mumbai: Watch out for the Parsi bikers as they criss-cross through the city on January 6 for peace. Organised by the Parsi Resource Group, the rally will begin from the Dadar Parsi Gymkhana. The registration fee is Rs 200 and includes lunch, T-shirt and cap.
