Uttar Pradesh to get new hotels, better stations
Uttar Pradesh will soon have many 4 and 5-star hotels coming up in different important cities. Besides, the railway stations will have modern amenities with information centres for tourists. Stations like Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar and Balrampur will soon have better waiting rooms and other facilities. New airstrips will also be made operational soon in the state.

New look for 35 regional airports
It's not just Delhi and Mumbai airports that are being given a facelift. The Airport Authority of India [AAI] is putting surplus land in 35 non-metro airports under its control to good use by developing them. The AAI will construct hotels, shopping areas, eateries, convention centres, cargo complexes, parking lots and health centres as part of infrastructure development on the city side.

Basic designs of airports in Srinagar, Varanasi, Dibrugarh, Ranchi, Surat, Udaipur, Khajuraho, Amritsar, Visakhapatnam, Thiruvananthapuram, Jaipur, Calicut, Trichy and Ahmedabad have been approved. The designs of the rest, including Bhubaneshwar, Patna, Bhopal, Dehradun, Pune and Chandigarh are being finalised. The designs would be modular and include structured steel, toughened glass glazing, vertical air-conditioning systems, aero-bridges with glass walls and walkways.

Pondicherry is now Puducherry
The Rajya Sabha on 21st August passed a Bill to rename Pondicherry to Puducherry. Replying to a brief discussion on the Pondicherry [Alteration of Name] Bill, 2006, MoS for home affairs S Regupathy said the new name reflected sentiments of the people of the Union Territory, as they had been demanding it for long. The Pondicherry assembly passed a resolution in October 1980, requesting for a name change.