Interesting facts about Chennai

• Chennai shares the second position as the largest employment generator in India, along with Bombay. The first position is Bangalore.

• Chennai generates around 35,000 jobs annually.
• Chennai has the highest two-wheeler population in India.
• Chennai has the lowest pollution among major cities of India in spite of having over 20 lakh vehicles.
• The city is now called the Detroit of India due to its automobile industry producing over 40% of the country's auto parts and vehicles.
• Chennai is India’s fourth largest city and ranks among the fifty most populous cities in the world (#35).
• Chennai as ranked First in India in Health facilities by Outlook in 2003.
• Chennai was ranked First in India in Education facilities by Outlook in 2003.
• Chennai was ranked the second best city to live in by Outlook in 2003.
• The Mofussil bus stand at Koyambedu, Chennai is the largest in South Asia.

• The only state seen many Chief Ministers from Film Industry or People associated to Film industry. (M.G.R, Jayalalitha, V.N.Janaki, Annadurai, & Karunanidhi. The first three people acted in films, the later two were associated with film industry by story & dialogue writing.)

• Chennai is the best place of cinema post-production work in the country according to leading cine industry experts. Because of its cheapness and all modernized technologies, several post-production works for the movies from the Eastern India and also from North-East India are now being done in Chennai.
  
• Madras (Chennai) old facts........... Gateway of South India . Cultural capital of India .
• Marina Beach is the second longest beach in the world, after Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro.
• Has one of oldest engineering and medical colleges in the world.
• Has the second largest cine industry in the country, next only to Bombay.
• Chennai is the home of South Indian cinema. There were times when all the post production work in the entire South Indian cine industry was done only at Chennai.
• The Vandalur Zoo in Chennai is the First Zoo (1855) in India and one of the largest in South Asia.
• The Cancer institute (1920) in Chennai is one of the Oldest in India

• The Cooum River running across Chennai was being used for water transportation in its earlier days.

• Chennai’s Mount Road or Anna Salai’s original name is GST Road (Grand South Trunk Road)

Sant Singh Chatwal(Padma Bhushan Awardee) Controversial

In 2000, Chatwal was charged with bank fraud in India, but was later dropped from the case, after he disappeared, posting a bail bond after his arrest. In September 2000, Chatwal co-hosted a $500,000 fund raiser in New York for Hillary Clinton's first Senate campaign, and in April 2007, he formed `Indian Americans for Hillary 2008'. 
The Clinton administration was keen that Chatwal should be included in the PM's official lunch for the visiting US president. Despite several requests from the US side, the Vajpayee government refused to let Chatwal be part of that exclusive banquet.

It was a statement of how unimpressed the Indian establishment was about Chatwal despite his being part of Clinton's trail. But times have changed and Manmohan Singh's PMO has gone ahead and given the controversial hotelier a place in the Padma order, a Padma Bhushan no less.

Chatwal has been lobbying hard for a Padma award with the government and, sources said, would have been perfectly happy with a much lesser Padma Shri. Instead, the Manmohan Singh PMO decided not to stint for a friend, gifting him with a Padma Bhushan for a job that was done better by many other leaders of the Indian American community. But despite the government's staunch defence of the man, questions about his award are refusing to die down, including timing of the award as it becomes clear that there was opposition to his inclusion a couple of years ago as well. The government has gone by the plea that there are no outstanding cases against him, though the mandatory IB inquiry was bound to have detailed his controversial past.

Awards of 2010

Padma Awardees

Padma Vibhushan

Sl.No.	Name	Discipline	State / Domicile
1.	Shri Ebrahim Alkazi	Art	Delhi
2.	Shri Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman	Art	Tamil Nadu
3.	Smt. Zohra Segal	Art	Delhi
4.	Dr. Yaga Venugopal Reddy	Public Affairs	Andhra Pradesh
5.	Dr. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan	Science and Engineering	UK *
6.	Dr. Prathap Chandra Reddy	Trade and Industry	Tamil Nadu

Padma Bhushan

Sl.No.	Name	Discipline	State / Domicile
1.	Shri Ilaiyaraaja	Art	Tamil Nadu
2.	Shri Aamir Khan	Art	Maharashtra
3.	Shri Akbar Padamsee	Art	Maharashtra
4.	Shri Allah Rakha Rahman	Art	Tamil Nadu

Padma Shri

Sl.No.	Name	Discipline	State / Domicile
1	Shri Gulam Mohammed Mir	Public Service	Jammu and Kashmir
2	Ms. Rekha	Art	Maharashtra
3	Shri Resul Pokutty	Art	Kerala
4	Shri Saif Ali Khan	Art	Maharashtra
5	Shri Ignace Tirkey	Sports	Orissa
6	Kumar Ram Narain Karthikey	Sports	Tamil Nadu
7	Shri Ramakant Vithal Achrekar	Sports	Maharashtra
8	Ms. Saina Nehwal	Sports	Andhra Pradesh
9	Shri Vijender Singh	Sports	Haryana
10	Shri Virendra Sehwag	Sports	Delhi
11	Dr. Alluri Venkata Satyanarayana Raju	Trade and Industry	Andhra Pradesh
12	Shri Venu Srinivasan	Trade and Industry	Tamil Nadu

Note:The above list contains the famous personalities who have received awards on republic day(2010).