Ensemble of royal cuisines
Showcasing the best of royal cuisine, the Royal Cuisines Food Festival teed off at Bhopal’s Minto Hall on Thursday. Members of royal clans — from Sarwaniya, Jaora, Sailana, Holkar to Jhabua, Garha, Kurwai, Narsinghgarh, Bhopal and Rewa — are showcasing and sharing their age-old royal culinary recipes (mainly non-vegetarian) at the festival, which will culminates on Sunday.
Inaugurating the festival, Chief Minister Kamal Nath said that we should organise such events not only in the state but also in big cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Amritsar. This will pave the way for a separate identity for Madhya Pradesh. The CM said the royal houses have these traditions and by using them, the state can realise and further its tourism potential.
Women power to attract women tourists
Aiming to attract solo woman travellers to its tourist destinations through the involvement of increased women workforce at these hotspots, the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (MPTDC) has submitted a ‘Safe tourism destination for women of Madhya Pradesh’ proposal to the central government.
The proposal, if okayed, is to be implemented under the Nirbhaya scheme at a cost of around rS 28 crore. The state government will bear 40% of the cost, while the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), will provide technical support. Around 5,000 women are tipped to be placed in different job roles to make women travellers feel safe while touring the state.
Wizards stun grandmasters at chess meet
Emerging players from Madhya Pradesh put up a stellar show on the chess boards at the Bhopal International Grand Masters Chess Championship. Young lad Shivansh Tiwari, with 1770 rating points, stunned Russian Grand Master Maxim, while Devansh Singh forced Uzbekistan’s AGM Madjdov Jasur to a draw. 13-year-old Prakhar Bajaj, seeded 6779th, forced Slovakian Grand Master Manik Mikulus to a draw after 44 moves. Others, too, scripted similar feats.
Bhopal set to get vertical gardens
The Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC), along with the Bhopal Smart City Development Corporation Limited (BSCDCL), is planning to install vertical gardens to check air pollution. In the first phase, structures around intersections with high volume of traffic would go green. The use of hydroponics (process of growing plants in sand, gravel, or liquid, with added nutrients but without soil), too, is being considered by the BMC.
With vertical gardens installation being a costly affair, local varieties of plants and shrubs will be used to make the installation last long even with little use of water. Once installed, the long-term cost of vertical gardens will be less than what the civic body spends on maintaining the central verges on city roads.
Anurag Singh
Our correspondent in Madhya Pradesh
singhanuraag.jaurno@gmail.com