China wants to revive silk route with high speed rail link between Kolkata and Kunming

#BCIM #silkroute #kunming #kolkata #lookeastpolicy China wants to revive the ancient silk route and to do this, it wants to set up high speed rail link between Kunming and Kolkata – the ancient silk route used to traverse through Myanmar and Bangladesh.
This has been reported in zeenews.com dated 18 June 2015.

This nearly 2800-Km rail route could be a critical component for the BCIM corridor that seeks cross border trade and flow of people. BCIM is the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar multi-model corridor project which has been initiated by China.
In the opinion of China, such a high speed corridor would help the economies of Myanmar and Bangladesh and there ae possibilities of getting funding from multilateral bodies like the Asian Development Bank.
China has pledged USD 40 billion for the silk route which is expected to have a trade potential of USD 132 billion. At present Kunming, the capital of Southwest China's Yunnan province, is connected to Kolkata and efforts are on to strengthen connectivity by starting flights between Kunming and New Delhi from next month. The service would be started by Shandong Airlines.
China has been impressed by the ‘look east policy’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and expects "active participation" from India to take ahead the BCIM and China-India peninsula corridor projects.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Story of a stranded six-year-old girl and a forgetful Chinese grandfather

#kunming #bathhouse #siyao #footmassage A six-year-old Chinese girl has been stranded in a Chinese bath house for the last one month because of her forgetful grandfather as reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 5 February 2015. The girl named Siyao had come to the bath house with her grandfather and was left back there as a security deposit because the old man had left his wallet at home.
He wanted to go home and return with the wallet to pay the bill and had left the girl as a deposit – unfortunately, the girl as well as the bath house have been waiting for him for the last one month.
As reported, the girl had arrived at the facility in the city of Kunming in south western China's Yunnan province because her grandfather wanted to have a good wash in a warm bath and a relaxing massage afterwards. But, when the turn came for him to pay for the services, he discovered that he had forgotten his money and would have to go home to collect it.
The staff of the bath house are now caring for the six year old and, when the center is closed, they keep a TV switched on so she doesn't feel lonely or scared. The staff also feeds her and have given her clothes - she uses the facilities at the bath house to wash and keep herself clean.
Her story was also published in the local media with an appeal for her grandfather to come forward to collect her and he has yet to turn up.
Incidentally, bath houses are popular in Chinese cities – these are used by people who do not have central heating or running water at home. In these facilities, people come to take a bath, get clean, relax and enjoy a foot or body massage.