TAMILNADU

Chief minister M K Stalin unveiled a slew of initiatives aimed at heralding inclusive growth in startups covering a cross section of streams including green tech, rural impact and women-led startups.

The special package assistance has been launched to ensure an innovation-driven economy in the state as it targets to become a $1 trillion economy by 2030.

A key element of the special package for the startups in these select categories is 50% increase in grant to 15 lakh from the present 10 lakh through StartupTNs flagship grant initiative Tamil Nadu Startup Seed Grant Fund (TANSEED), Tamil Nadu government said in its order. The grant will be disbursed in three equal instalments of 5 lakh each, with 25% of total TANSEED assistance earmarked for women-led startups and 10% for rural impact startups, a state government release said.

The rain that lashed delta districts in the last two days has flattened and damaged harvest-ready sambapaddycrop on thousands of acres in Thanjavur, according to farmers and agricultureofficials.

Besides this, 50,000 tonnes of paddy that was procured and stacked in an open stockyard ofTamil NaduCivil Supplies Corporation (TNCSC) at Sannapram near Kumbakonam got drenched in the rain.
Farmers said about 1,000 acres of samba paddy crop ripe for harvest has been submerged in Orathanadu, Pattukottai, Peravurani and Thanjavur taluks.

It was installed by theDravidar Kazhagamin 1975 to fulfill the dream of party founder E V Ramasamy (Periyar) at the junction ofGeneral Patters Roadand Anna Salai in Chennai. It was unveiled by religious leader Kundrakudi Adigal.

Data available with the state’s real estate regulatory authority’s portal states that a total of 461 housing projects have been registered till July 28, 2021. During the corresponding period of last year, 377 projects were registered with TNRERA.

This year, 135 new housing projects came under the ambit of the state’s real estate regulator from May 7 to July 28. Around 100 projects that were registered in the past three months between May and July are coming up in Chennai, Chengalpet,KancheepuramandTiruvallurdistricts.

As per the rules of Tamil Nadu Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Rules, 2017, all ongoing housing projects with a minimum of eight units meant for sale and housing plots should be registered with the TNRERA.

GuidanceTamil Nadu signed six MoUs with Japanese companies and their Indian joint venture partners to cumulatively attract investments of close to Rs 820 crore.

These MoUs were signed in the presence of chief minister M K Stalin, at the end of an investors conclave, organised by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) in Tokyo.

Three of the six MoUs were signed by Guidance Tamil Nadu along with Chennai-based 2,800 crore Polyhose group with its three Japanese joint venture companies Kohyei, Sato-Shoji Metal Works and Tofle for expanding their existing operations near Chennai and manufacturing additional products.

These three MoUs would together facilitate investment of 550 crore and pave way for manufacturing polycarbonate sheets, roofs and extrusion lines for electronic components for use in the construction industry, high-end steel parts to be used in aerospace and defense industries and stainless steel specialised flexible hoses.

Guidance Tamil Nadu also entered into an MoU with Kyokuto Satrac for setting up a factory for manufacturing spare parts of trucks in Sipcot, Mambakkam in Kancheepuram district on 13 acres of land.
Stalin appealed to the Japanese business houses to diversify their investments in Tamil Nadu.

The state government has initiated preliminary measures to construct aTidelpark inTrichywith senior bureaucrats inspecting potential sites in the city along with officials of Trichy corporation and district administration. Tidel is a joint venture ofTamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation(Tidco) and Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot).

The park will give an infrastructure boost to generate employment opportunities in IT andInformation Technology Enabled Services(ITES) sectors.

Chief minister M K Stalin launched whole-day annadanam (free food to devotees) in three more temples attached to the Hindu religious and charitable endowments (HR & CE) department in Rameswaram, Madurai and Tiruvannamalai.

He launched the scheme through video conferencing at Ramanathaswamy temple in Rameswaram, Meenakshi Amman temple in Madurai and Arunachaleswarar temple in Tiruvannamalai. Food will be served from 8 am to 10 pm and it is expected to benefit about 8,000 devotees on a daily basis.

Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana emerged as the top three states in terms of overall performance according to theNiti Aayogs health index, while Uttar Pradesh topped the table on incremental performance despite being at the bottom.

For the fourth consecutive round, Kerala emerged as the best performer in terms of overall performance. Among the smaller states,Mizoramemerged as the best performer in overall performance as well as incremental outcome.

Among Union territories (UTs), Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir ranked at the bottom in terms of overall performance but emerged as the leading performer in terms of incremental performance. Pollbound UP showed a marked improvement in its performance in most indicators. Among the larger states, UP registered the highest incremental change of 5.5 points from the base year (2018-19) to reference year (2019-20).

In a first for any Indian state,Tamil Nadunow has its own Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated NFT (non-fungible token) representing the state.

Titled Netru, Indru, Nalai (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow), the NFT showcases TN’s past, present and future, and was launched by the state IT ministerMano Thangarajhere on Wednesday at the TechNext 2022 Web3 conference organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The NFT is set to be auctioned, and the proceeds will be used to set up a Web 3 Centre of Excellence (CoE) in the state, the state officials said. NFTs are digital assets on a blockchain with unique identification codes, and serve as digital collectibles that cannot be amended.

Tamil Nadus iTNT hub will be live in the next 2-3 months, and will function as the largest deep tech incubator in the country.

The minister also released a CII report titled ‘Metaverse and Web 3.0 opportunities in India – Nurturing Tamil Nadus growth ambitions through nextgen technologies’ in association with KPMG. The report notes that Tamil Nadu and Chennai in specific is emerging as a technology hub with a broad spectrum of new age technologies includingmetaverse, web 3.0, blockchain and others.

As demand forjaggeryspikes with the arrival of winter, the state food safety department has askedmanufacturersto installCCTV camerasin their units to checkadulteration.

A state-level monitoring committee held meetings with the stakeholders earlier this year. All manufacturers, particularly small-scale units located near agricultural fields, have been instructed to installCCTVcameras covering all operations from arrival of raw material to dispatch of final products. They have been told to submit the footage to food safety officers during inspection.

Jaggery sales usually increase during this time of the year for two reasons. First, it is used more to prepare traditional winter foods.