Many may not know that to the west of Bhubaneswar lies the Chandaka widlife sanctuary with varieties of flora and fauna. This sanctuary is considered as the lungs of Bhubaneswar. Today’s New Indian Express has an article about this. Following are some excerpts.
The sanctuary is perhaps among the few in the country which boasts of a treasure trove of flora and fauna excepting the royal Bengal tiger. The coastal range of sal forests also end here with an intimate mix of evergreen and deciduous elements.
According to divisional forest officer (DFO) Akshaya Kumar Pattanaik, though elephant is the flagship species, two types of monkeys, three deer species and three other herbivores, nine types of carnivores including the panther, two types of civets, tree shrew and pangolins are spotted.
Also the sanctuary is home to 21 types of snakes, 16 lizards, one species of turtle and marsh crocodile. The avian types include 174 with 10 species of water fowl and waders, seven ground nesters, seven raptors and 17 song birds.
The elephant population (65 in 2006 census) is seen in group sizes of 18, 13, 8, 7, 5 and 4. Even joining of three or four family groups were also observed aggregating to a herd size of 38 at Bharatpur in the past.
Orissa tourism has a nice page on Chandaka. Following is a map of Chandaka from that site.
Tathya reports that ICICI Bank will sign an MOU with Orissa government to set up a call center and back office operation for banking and insurance. This center to be located in Infocity will eventually hire 15,000 graduates from normal colleges. In terms of the number of people they will hire, this is a big deal; much bigger than the overhyped POSCO or Mittal deals. ICICI Bank will not use our mines; will not pollute our atmosphere; will not displace people; and will only need 12 acres and yet will hire 15,000 people. Orissa should be going after more such companies and less of the metal and mining kind.
Notes:
From http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=28142
PRAFUL PATEL ANNOUNCES NAME MASCOT, HEADQUARTERS, LOGO & LIVERY OF MERGED AIRLINE
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| The Minister of Civil Aviation, Shri Praful Patel today officially announced that after the merger of Air India and Indian, the new entity will be known as ‘Air India’. While the new company will have its registered office in New Delhi, its corporate office will be in Mumbai and its office for domestic operations as well as the Strategic Business Units will be mostly based in Delhi. The Mascot of the merged airline will be the Maharaja. The new livery and logo of the merged airline were also unveiled by the Minister today.As ‘Air India’ is a globally and nationally recognized brand name, as well as the designated airline in international bilaterals – the ‘AI’ code being available only to the existing name, it has been decided that the merged entity would continue with the same name. The design components of the new logo and livery have been drawn after merging some of the current features of both Air India and Indian Airlines.
The logo of the new airline is a Flying Swan with the Konark Chakra placed inside it. The Flying Swan has been morphed from Air India’s characteristic logo, ‘The Centaur’ whereas the ‘Konark Chakra’ is reminiscent of Indian’s logo.
The new logo will feature prominently on the tail of the aircrafts. Individually the Konark Chakra will also feature on all the engines of the aircrafts. The choice of colours namely red for “Flying Swan” and orange for “Konark Chakra” are meant to signify vigour and advancement. Further the colours also have a strong association with two carriers thereby retaining the earlier imagery of traditional hospitality and service.
While the aircraft will be ivory in colour, the base will retain the red streak of Air India. Running parallel to each other will be the Orange and Red speed lines from front door to the rear door, subtly signifying the individual identities merged into one. The brand name ‘Air India’ will run across the tail of the aircraft.
The images of the new livery and logo is available at www.pib.nic.in.
MC/GK
  
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