CHRISTOPH SCHNELLMANN, CEO, Noida International Airport, told Senior Assistant Editor K. Sunil Thomas that once the airport is operational, the Taj Mahal would be a day trip from anywhere in India. Uttar Pradesh Industries Minister Nand Gopal Gupta makes a bigger promise: “Noida Airport will transform UP.” Hence, this week’s cover on what is going to be India’s largest airport.
And, it is not just the airport, writes Sunil. There are plans for a vast logistics hub; Air India-SATS is already building a cargo hub. Then there are plans for north India’s first film city, an electronics park, a medical-devices hub, FinTech and apparel parks, and an aircraft ‘maintenance, repair and overhaul’ facility. The Roseate Group will open the first hotel opposite the terminal next year, and the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority is dreaming of a belt like Delhi’s Aerocity. Watch this space for more.
Coming to international news, our Ukraine coverage continues through the insights of our contributor Mridula Ghosh and a detailed article by Ambassador Oleksandr Polishchuk.
This issue also brings you a few interviews. There is a short one with Goa Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte by Principal Correspondent Abhinav Singh. Our contributor from the US, Lavina Melwani, speaks to Anantha P. Chandrakasan, the first Indian-origin provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Senior Subeditor Bechu S. speaks to R. Praggnanandhaa, who says that India will be favourites for the next five chess Olympiads.
In @leisure, Anjuly Mathai speaks to writer Manu Joseph about his latest book, Why The Poor Don’t Kill Us. The book’s cover has a guillotine on it, if you’re wondering. Joseph says that the chaos that surrounds us is one reason the poor do not bump off the rich. When a locality is flooded, for example, the floodwaters do not distinguish between mansions and hovels. If the millionaire is flooded out of his home, like oneself, isn’t it better to let him suffer than kill him and put him out of his misery?
My dear friend KC brings in a blast of humour about flag hoistings in Otherwise Cracked. This Independence Day, in Kochi, a CPI(M) branch committee raised a flag and saluted it, before realising that it was the Congress party’s—charkha and all. They then promptly hauled it down and hoisted the national flag.
A couple of years back, a state minister here hoisted the flag upside down. And, in 2021, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met then Japanese premier Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit, the tricolour on stage was upside down. The minimalist Japanese flag would never have that issue, see.
Circumnavigator Commander Abhilash Tomy once told me how someone spotted the Pakistani flag above the Golden Globe Race office and wondered why it was there. The flag was to honour Palestinian-American sailor Nabil Amra. The supplier got Palestine and Pakistan mixed up. I am now convinced that flag hoisting ceremonies come with their share of situational comedy.