Latest news with #Arunachaleswara
The Hindu
a day ago
- The Hindu
Re-laying of roads with concrete on Mada Streets to be completed by July
The final phase of work to convert the potholed Mada Streets around Arunachaleswara temple in Tiruvannamalai into concrete stretches will be completed by July. Officials of the State Highways, which executes the ₹15-crore work, said that laying concrete on the roads, including the Theradi Veethi and Thiruvoodal street, will provide a much-needed relief to devotees. 'The new concrete stretches will provide safe walking spaces for pilgrims. Road digging will be minimal as separate ducts are being laid for utility cables,' S. Selva Balaji, Commissioner, Tiruvannamalai Corporation, told The Hindu. Forming a part of the 14-km-long girivalam path, 1.7 km-long Mada Streets witness 20,000 visitors on an average every day. During weekends and holidays, the footfall doubles in the temple town. These stretches connect the temple with the rest of the town. As part of celebrations during the Karthigai Deepam festival, the temple car is pulled through these stretches. Funded under the Chief Minister Road Development Project (CMRDP) 2024-25, the streets are being widened from the existing seven metres to 12 metres to utilise the unused road space. The work has been done in coordination with the civic body, police and Tangedco. The existing narrow storm water drain on the stretches is being widened to discharge excess rainwater and prevent inundation during the monsoon. Each drain is three feet wide and four feet deep. Tiled footpaths will be laid over the widened drain for pedestrians who otherwise has to walk on the carriageway. Also, a separate space of 50-cm width, between the drain and the carriageway is being laid with pavement blocks for utility works such as electrical lines and internet cables. This will prevent unnecessary road cutting to attend to any fault in these lines. Officials said that the reason behind the re-laying of the streets into concrete stretches was for its long lifespan as concrete roads can stay undamaged for at least two decades as against three years for bitumen roads. Earlier, the Mada streets were re-laid with bitumen every year during the festival.
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The Independent
20-03-2025
- The Independent
French tourist sexually assaulted by India tour guide during pilgrimage, police say
A French woman on pilgrimage in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu was allegedly sexually assaulted by a local tourist guide who took her to a secluded spot for meditation. According to the police, a 42-year-old man named Venkatesan from Tiruvannamalai town was arrested near the Arunachaleswara temple after an investigation. The man is accused of taking the woman, believed to be in her 40s, to a secluded and restricted area on the Arunachala Hills in Tiruvannamalai under the pretext of meditation and then sexually assaulting her. Tiruvannamalai, a historic town in Tamil Nadu, about 190km southwest of capital Chennai, is renowned for the Arunachaleswara temple, dedicated to the Hindu deity Lord Shiva and the sacred Arunachala Hill. Police reported that the woman, who arrived in Tiruvannamalai in January this year and was staying at a private lodge, encountered Venkatesan while exploring different ashrams and pilgrimage spots. On Monday, he allegedly led her to a restricted section of the hill overseen by the state forest department, falsely presenting it as a perfect meditation spot. It was there that the assault reportedly took place. The woman raised an alarm, drawing the attention of devotees and passersby on the Girivalam path, a popular circumambulatory route around the sacred hill, according to The Indian Express. The victim's name has not been revealed to the public to protect her privacy. Tiruvannamalai superintendent of police, M Sudhakar, said: 'We formed special teams to identify the suspect. There were multiple witnesses who reported seeing the victim climbing the hills with a local man. 'We narrowed down the probe to five individuals who usually work as tourist guides, including the accused. The victim identified him as Venkatesan when he was paraded before her.' He added: 'Venkatesan is in police custody and we are probing if he engaged in similar crimes in the past.' The woman has since been admitted to a district hospital for medical checkups and a police probe is underway. In 2018, a 21-year-old Russian tourist was drugged and gang-raped in a service apartment in the temple town of Tiruvannamalai. The French woman's sexual assault comes just weeks after a 36-year-old British tourist was allegedly raped and molested at a hotel in Delhi's Mahipalpur area. Police arrested two people, one who reportedly befriended the woman on Instagram and was accused of rape, and another, a hotel staff member charged with molestation. The alleged assault on the British tourist occurred just days after a 27-year-old Israeli traveller and her Indian homestay operator were gang-raped near a Unesco World Heritage site in Karnataka.
