Bengaluru's much talked about air taxi grabs attention at Invest Karnataka-2025 summit
Bengaluru, Feb 13 (PTI): Sarla Aviation's futuristic looking air taxi may have been drowned in a sea of aircraft at the Aero Show, but at Invest Karnataka-2025 summit, the prototype 'Shunya' clearly is the star, with people milling around it for more information and selfies.
Not even halfway through day two of the much-awaited event of Bengaluru, Dinesh, one of the founders of Sarla Aviation, was nursing a sore throat after answering a barrage of questions from curious onlookers.
"I ran out of cards too," Dinesh told PTI.
Incidentally, when the news of the air taxi hit the town in October last year, it became the subject of 'Peak Bengaluru' memes as it was announced that a trip to airport from Electronic City will only take 19 minutes and Rs 900. By road, on a good day, it would take about two hours. The pricing too sounded unbelievable to many Bengalureans who had to shell out at least Rs 1,000 for a trip to airport by cab.
Dinesh said the company is yet to get clearance from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
"Once that is done, we could commission the two aircraft in our fleet immediately," he said.
He estimated that it would require about 18 months to get the clearances in place.
The unmanned aircraft is expected to ferry six passengers at a time, said Dinesh, adding that it can carry a maximum load of 680 kg with speeds reaching up to 250 km/hour. It requires only a cleared area of 2000 sq ft to land or take off, he said.
According to him, the company is looking to add four more aircraft by this year. "It will be optimised for short trips of 20-30 km aimed to reduce travel times across congested urban areas," said Dinesh.
At Invest Karnataka-2025 summit, on till February 14 at Bangalore Palace, air taxi is a static display while in Aero India 2025, also on till February 14 at Yelahanka Air Force base, it is being flown to show people how it works.
The three day event that was inaugurated by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will conclude on Friday.
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Screenwriter Salim Khan on ventilator support and stable, say doctors
Mumbai (PTI): Veteran screenwriter Salim Khan suffered a brain haemorrhage which has been tackled, is on ventilator support as a safeguard and stable, doctors treating him said on Wednesday, a day after he was admitted to the Lilavati Hospital here.
The 90-year-old, one half of the celebrated Salim-Javed duo which scripted films such as "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don" with Javed Akhtar, is in the ICU and recovery might take some time given his age.
"His blood pressure was high for which we treated him and we had to put him on a ventilator because we wanted to do certain investigations. Now the ventilator was put as a safeguard so that his situation doesn't get worse. So it is not that he is critical," Dr Jalil Parkar told reporters.
"We did the investigations that were required and today we have done a small procedure on him, I will not go into the details. The procedure done is called DSA (digital subtraction angiography). The procedure has been accomplished, he is fine and stable and shifted back to ICU. By tomorrow, we hope to get him off the ventilator. All in all, he is doing quite well," he added.
Asked whether he suffered a brain haemorrhage, the doctor said, "Unko thoda haemorrhage hua tha, which we’ve tackled. No surgery is required.
As concern over Khan's health mounted, his children, including superstar Salman Khan and Arbaaz Khan, daughter Alvira, and sons-in-law Atul Agnihotri and Aayush Sharma, have been seen outside the hospital along with other well-wishers. His long-time partner Akhtar was also seen coming out of the hospital.
Khan, a household name in the 70s and 80s, turned 90 on November 24 last year. It was the day Dharmendra, the star of many of his films, including "Sholay", "Seeta aur Geeta" and "Yaadon Ki Baraat", passed away.
Hailing from an affluent family in Indore, Khan arrived in Mumbai in his 20s with dreams of stardom. He was good looking and confident he would make a mark in the industry as an actor. But that did not happen. And then, after struggling for close to a decade and getting confined to small roles in films, he changed lanes.
He worked as an assistant to Abrar Alvi and soon met Akhtar to form one of Hindi cinema's most formidable writing partnerships. They worked together on two dozen movies with most of them achieving blockbuster status.
Other than "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don", Khan and Akhtar also penned "Trishul", "Zanjeer", "Seeta Aur Geeta", "Haathi Mere Saathi", "Yaadon Ki Baarat" and "Mr India".
