It was a turbulent start for the helicopter service between Girnar hill and Junagadh city, which began on Wednesday. The chopper facility will ferry people between Zafar Maidan and Ambaji, the highest peak of the Girnar hill.
Shree Dwarkadhis Enterprise Private Limited, New Delhi and Deccan Aviation Co. have been permitted to commence helicopter service here. A Pavan Hans helicopter belonging to Dwarkadhis Enterprise began operations on Wednesday. Tickets for the 10-minute journey have been priced at Rs 7,000.

Junagadh District Collector Ashwini Kumar said that this facility was an important step towards tourism development of Junagadh city and district. He said it would boost tourism activity here and put the city on the country’s civil aviation map. However, the resumption of helicopter service has given fresh ammunition for those who allege it is part of a conspiracy to stall a ropeway project.

The newly formed Girnar Development and Protection Committee has written to the Urban Development Minister stating that the fare was too steep and beyond the reach of the people of Junagadh. The letter alleged that this was a clear-cut conspiracy to divert people’s attention from the ambitious ropeway project.

For the last one decade, the demand for a ropeway has been been falling on deaf years, says the panel,. Despite the State Government making several announcements for the same, the Forest Department allotting land for it, a survey conducted by a Kolkata-based company to start work and even a foundation-laying ceremony taking place, nothing has been done,, the letter alleges.

At the heart of the matter is Girnar hill, where temples and shrines belonging to Hindu and Jain communities share space. While the Hindu temple bodies favour a ropeway project, the Jain community fears Girnar’s sanctity will be at stake if the ropeway project commences. The Hindu bodies believe that the Jain lobby has succeeded in delaying the project using pressure,and this has irked them.

“The State Government is playing a carrot-and-stick game, and instead of ropeway, helicopter service has been given to people,” the panel wrote. The committee has also sought clarification in the eventuality of accidents occurring at the site and whether the Junagadh civic body is adequately prepared for fire-fighting measures.

Meanwhile government sources says all necessary arrangements like helipad and related infrastructure facility for the service have been completed and legal permission from director general of civil aviation has been already obtained.

Source: Expressindia.com

The world’s largest software vendor Microsoft, which employs over 4,000 professionals in India, said on Wednesday it was scaling up presence in the country but finds hiring just out-of-college IT engineers a problem. However, the Redmond-based company suggested that imparting practical training could help overcome the dearth of availability of trained manpower.

"There is certainly a worldwide need for IT engineers and there are two issues. The first issue being — Is the world able to apply the talent that is graduating from the Indian universities each year? Twentyfive to 30 per cent of the worldwide engineers graduate from India", Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft said.

"The other situation is to ensure that when somebody comes out of the university, (whether) they are immediately employable by the companies seriously doing IT works... (as) sometimes that requires a little bit of training which people don’t get in universities. The fact that I highlighted this (is) because we see that an issue in India", he said. Ballmer said Microsoft is doing its bit to remove this problem through training that would make engineers employable.

Microsoft, which has the largest R&D centre in India outside Redmond, has continuously grown its presence here. But Ballmer did not give any specific headcount figures that is up for increase.

"We are scaling up our team in India. Our R&D, global support, customer service team are growing dramatically in India. India deserves a lot of my attention as I see the growth with economy, vitality, mobility, PC market all are growing", he said.