Christianity came to the Indian shores due to the missionary activities of the Europeans. Many decades down the line, now India sees itself on the other side of the table and is sending the largest contingent of Catholic nuns and priests to the West to carry out missionary activities there.

India, which has been traditionally considered as a country which received missionaries from the West, is now sending the largest number of missionaries abroad,” said Fr Mani Mekkunnel of CRI.This interesting information came up at the recently held National Consultation on Indian missionaries to other countries, which was organised by Catholic Bishops Council of India  and Conference of Religious India.

At present Indian clergy is active in around 166 nations  as the rest of the world copes with a severe shortage of missionaries. There are over  6,543 religious sisters,  226 diocesan priests, 1,940 religious priests and 159 religious brothers from different parts of the country including Kerala working in various foreign countries. Apart from missionary activities, they serve as priests in local churches while others run charitable institutions and hospitals.

Kerala is well poised to get India’s first high-speed railway corridor project, which will extend all through the length of the State linking the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram in the south to Kasargode in the North extending right up to Mangalore in the neighbouring state of Karnataka.

The proposed project is being taken up with the Central government financial aid with Japanese funding. The high speed rail corridor spanning a distance of 580 km will reduce the running time by over 3 hours. The proposed project that is expected to cost Rs. One lakh crore will be a boon for tourists and business travelers by being a convenient interstate transit option.

The green signal to this ambitious high speed rail project that has come soon after the Metro rail has indeed brought cheers to the State of Kerala as it will have  a positive impact in the state economy and infrastructure .

The Kerala state capital of Thiruvananathapuram is  all set to be one of the most prestigious addresses in Indian defense sector in the days ahead, when it becomes the home for  India’s supersonic-stealth cruise missile, BrahMos.  The BrahMos Aerospace Thiruvananthapuram Ltd (BATL) in Chakkai, near Thiruvananthapuram International Airport will roll out BrahMos, one of the fastest cruise missiles in the world, which can be launched from submarines, ships, aircraft or land.   The name BrahMos is derived from the names of two rivers in India and Russia – the Brahmaputra and the Moskva respectively. The missile that travels at speeds of Mach 2.8 to 3.0 is three times faster than the USA’s subsonic Harpoon cruise missile and Tomahawk missile.  An Air launched missile is also expected to come out in 2012, which will make India the only country with supersonic missiles in all the defence forces.

BATL is a  joint venture between Republic of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russian Federation’s NPO Mashinostroeyenia.  This much anticipated project will give an impetus in the space research programmes in Kerala and will make it a focus  for many defense projects in the near future.

A low key   bhoomi puja was conducted last week, which was attended by many key officials of BATL including the  BrahMos Aerospace CEO, A Sivathanu Pillai.  BATL has acquired the Air Force Complex land for this massive project and Vishal Infrastructure Ltd that has carried out many mega projects including Thiruvananthapuram airport will be carrying out the work. The basic infrastructure of the Missile Integration Complex (MIC) will be ready in one year and the project, which will have a total outlay of 20,000 sq ft area, will be completed in  BATL Phase-II expansion plans.

Image source: MSN News

The Kochi International Airport is going to be one of the four airports in India that would have the Visa-on-Arrival facility working in a year’s time.

The decision to extend the Visa-on-Arrival facility, provided to tourists from some countries, like Japan, Singapore, Finland, Luxemburg, New Zealand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines etc, to four airports has been taken by the Government of India. That the Kochi airport is one among these is a matter of happiness for the people of Kerala, especially since people not just from European countries, but from places like Japan and Singapore too visit India, especially Kerala. This could prove a boost for the tourism sector and do good to Kerala.

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The poojapura central jail in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, which houses some of the hard core criminals convicted in various criminal offenses is grabbing headlines for all the good reasons these days. The commercial chappathi making unit in the jail premises, which started functioning recently has already become a huge hit and a profitable venture.

The prison inmates of Poojapural jail are engaged in making soft and tasty chappathis in hygienic conditions, which are sold through the outlets at the Poojappura central jail premises and Attakulangara jail premises. Priced only at Rs. 2 per piece Poojappura Chappathi is sold out  in no time as there is a huge  demand for these tasty chappathis that are delivered fresh off the pan at unbeatable prices.  At present over hundred inmates are involved in chappathi making and they are overwhelmed by the positive response from the customers.

Chappathi making is turning out to be  a profitable venture like its gardening and horticulture activities, which had been tried out successfully in the jail premises earlier. Everyday about 16,000 chappathis are made daily and they have already made a profit of three lakh in a  span of  only a few months.Encouraged by the tremendous response for the chappathis, the prison authorities are planning to launch vegetable curries too in the market. By directing the prisoner’s time and effort in a constructive manner, the jail has become a trend setter in tapping the tremendous man power potential.

Everyone is born good; villains emerge due to  the environmental influences and their upbringing and it is never too late for them to come back to goodness as this success story of Poojapura jail inmates would prove!

The name of Hamsa koya and Indian football go hand in hand. He is not an yesteryear  player nor a referee  but  he holds the rare distinction of being the maker of goal post nets for over 20 years! Hailing from Malapuram, in North Kerala  where football continues to be the passion of the local populace even today, Koya has been making high quality nets to the envy of many international brands.

His goal post nets have been used  in many international football tournaments including the SAF cup and the Nehru Cup apart from countless  league matches that are held every year in the country including the I-League championships, which are currently on. The special twines made from  nylon and rope, traditionally used for making the fishing nets make the nets sturdy and he claims that these last for over a decade.

Koya keeps on his pursuit for excellence though the same level of enthusiasm seems to be to lacking for the Indian football team that has been in the news for its appalling levels of performance!

Meet this avid traveller fromKerala , Vijayan who has already travelled to seven countries, ,made pilgrimage trips to most of the destinations in India and who has plans  to  visit all the seven continents by 2015! If you thought he is a well heeled businessman or someone born with a sliver spoon in his mouth you would be in for a surprise. He runs a small, ramshackle tea shop in Kochi   for a living and lives with his wife and two daughters.

In the 61 years of his life, he has lived his life to follow the passion of travelling and often he chooses places that he comes across in novels and travelogues.  He makes sure to enjoy every moment of his life and feels that gold or wads of currency notes cannot give him the happiness that he derives from touring some of the most beautiful places on earth. This year he and his wife are planning a European tour and a tour company is even making arrangements to take them to Vatican to meet Pope Benedict XVI! They will set out on a 12-day tour to Europe on April 23 at a cost of  Rs 2.90 lakh.

A wanderlust in the making, he has visited the hill shrine of Tirupathi over 100 times;  and travelled to Chennai  just to have  a feel  of the new AC bus ! A man of different tastes, he also makes sure to catch up all the films on the first day itself.  Often people ask him why a small time tea stall owner would dream big to travel all over the world for which he replies with a smile that the money he make by breaking his back from dawn to dusk including Sundays in his tea shop is best spent to pursue his dreams. He has a debt of over 5 lakhs already and is trying to take  another Rs 1 lakh as a bank loan, to fund his foreign trips and every month he pays over Rs 10,000 for  repaying the loans taken from the KSFE, Cooperative Bank and Society.

When he is not busy globe trotting, Vijayan, reads novels and travelogues . He also plans to write a travelogue on his travel experiences that he has gained through these world tours, which will be published by one of the leading Malayalam news dailies. Don’t worry ; be happy seems to be the motto of this happy go lucky man , who tries to keep aside his worries and look at  the brighter side of life!

Twitter was abuzz with the trending topic of Malayalis, on Monday, which set off a series of similar topics like “being Indian”, “being Kannadiga” and more! The  hashtags like #mallus, #gelf, and #beingmallu became the top trends of the country outsmarting many of the current issues in Indian social and political field.

While the local folks in Kerala  took to active tweeting about their concepts and outlook of being a ‘Mallu’, tweeples from the rest of the country and abroad followed it with frenzy with their retweet, driving up the topic all day through the online medium of twitter.

While most of them took a look at the lighter side of the Malayali way of life, others pondered deep to their typical mind sets that keep the malayalees apart from the rest of the world. Though being mallu was started in  response to #beinggujju, it soon overtook being gujju, which died down to a whimper in no time.

Some of the interesting tweets that went viral include the following

Being Mallu means your uncle is in “gelf”; Being Mallu is having a drink and worrying about the situation in Uganda, Cuba, and Poland; Being Mallu means you will mock at a non-Mallu at least once a day, and at fellow Mallus half the day.

Although most of the tweets  had a dramatic element in them,which made them funny and interesting  the bottom line reads that they were bang on target in exposing the lesser known habits and idiosyncrasies of  being a mallu!

Gone are the days when people used to stand in serpentine lines to remit  the payments of their phone or electricity bills. Many a time, customers  find it difficult to reach their  work places on time after these errands as the staff in the counters fail to turn up at the dot of time! Now the users can pay their bills, get the bill details and payment date details through their mobile phones as the  M-governance is being extended to more services like Kerala Water Authority, Kerala State Electricity Board and Kerala State Financial Corporation. Already, the motor vehicles department is using this mobile alert based information service where the users can access the details of the vehicle if the registration number is known.

However, the role of M-governance will not replace the existing system but will act as a supplement to e-governance  to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban areas. In addition, a range of facilities including the complaint registration system at Kerala Women’s Commission, helpline and information system for Sabarimala pilgrims bus timings of KSRTC, mobile ticket reservation at Kerala State Film Development Corporation theatres and timber auction alerts at Forest Department  have also been introduced. As Kerala moves a step closer to paperless transactions with these smart services, booking your movie ticket or paying the electricity bills have become as simple as a few clicks! Well, that is what we all call smart living!

The biggest bane of Kerala is the appalling conditions of its roads that remain in a non motorable state all round the year. Pot holes appear as soon as the tarring is completed leaving the users badly grounded. However, there seems to be some hope for this nagging problem in the form of cotton nets that can be used for reinforcing the roads. The water logged areas of Kuttanad  have already made use of this product in strengthening its  roads and bunds. The project, successfully implemented in association with the Kerala Industrial and Technical Consultancy Organisation in different wards of Edathua last year is  primarily  aimed at preventing soil erosion.

Soil erosion is rampant in Kuttanad region where floods occur twice a year, which wash off the roads and bunds. The new techniques is expected to strengthen the roads by keeping the soil on both sides of the road tightly wrapped. Recently a stretch of road from Edathua to Puvakkad  was constructed using the technique and it is expected to stay in good condition for a minimum of four years.

The cotton nets are first spread on the embankments of the road , which are vulnerable to soil erosion. The nets are then fixed to the soil using bamboo and grass and tree saplings are planted, which keep the net tightly fixed. The need of the hour is to ensure high quality roads, which  has a vital role in the economic development of Kerala. These indigenous methods would indeed go a long way in offering cost effective solutions for making the roads stable and long lasting.