First Woman, Vice-Admiral, Indian Navy – Punita Arora

Surgeon Vice-Admiral Punita Arora, PVSM, SM, VSM

Also concurrently holds the First for –

First Woman in India to hold the 2nd highest rank in the Indian Army – Lieutenant-General Punita Arora.

Awarded : Param Vishish Seva (PVSM), Sena Medal and Vishist Seva Medal (VSM)

World’s First fully Solar Powered Airport – Cochin International Aiport (CIAL)

Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), Kochi, Kerala

Runs on 100% solar energy . Has about 46,000 solar panels.

Installed by Bosch. Commissioned in 2015

World’s biggest/largest Cricket Stadium – Motera Stadium

Motera Stadium (aka) Sardar Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad, Gujarat has a seating capacity of over 1,10,000.

Inaugrated by U.S. President Donald Trump on his first official visit to India on February 24th,m2020

With this it superceded the ‘Melbourne Cricket Ground (Australia) which held the record earlier.

Constructed by Larsen and Toubro (L &T), India . Designed by the Australian Company – Populous

India’s first fully fledged fighter aircraft base in South India . May 2013.

The first ever fighter base in the Southern Peninsula was inaugrated in Thanjavur (Tamil Nadu), by Defence Minister A.K. Anthony on Monday, May 27th, 2013.

The Indian Air Force (IAF)under the control of the Southern Air Command is stationing its most lethal Sukhoi Su-30MK1 super manoueverable combat aircraft. The full Sukhoi squadron (16 to 18 jets) will be deployed at the base by 2017. So far India has inducted over 170 of the 272 Sukhoi 30 MKI’s contracted from Russia.

The Indian Air Force(IAF) will keep deploying its regular fighter and transport detachments here since the runaway and other facilites are in place now.

This will strengthen India’s capabilities to protect its vast interests in yet another strategically important Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and Peninsular region.

The airbase has been modernised in the recent past and the infrastructure development includes ‘construction of a new runaway, parallel taxi track and other operational maintenance and adminstrative infrastructure’ to support air operations.

Past: The airbase was first contructed in 1940 by the Royal Air Force (RAF). During the period 1942-45 the RAF operated Hudson, Wellington 1C, Hurricane and Thunderbolt aircraft from this airfield.

The old runaway had served as a civil airport two decades ago. Thanjavur(Tanjore) was connected with Chennai(Madras)by Vayadoot in the early 1990’s.

India’s first arbitration centre . November 2009 .

India’s first arbitration centre – Delhi International Arbitration Centre (DAC)was launched in the capital on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 by Hon’ble Justice K G Balakrishnan, Chief Justice of India in Delhi High Court.

The Centre will work under the aegis of the Delhi High Court and operate from within its premises. Its objective and goal was the speedy disposal of cases.

India’s first all-women post office for women . March 2013 .

The first all-women’s post office in New Delhi was on March 08th, 2013 – Friday  coinciding with the International Women’s Day.

The inaugration of the post office at Shashtri Bhawan, Central Delhi was done by Kapil Sibal ,Union Minister, Communication and Information Technology.

The post office called ‘Project Arrow Office’ has 3 counters – two multi-purpose services like speed post, registration, sale of IPO’s, booking of money orders and the third counter for sale of stamps. The entire post office to be manned exclusively by women.

India’s first commercial passenger train journey. April 1853 .

On April 16th 1853 – Tuesday, the first passenger locomotive at 3.30pm chugged from Bori Bunder (South Bombay) to Thane.

The first railyway train ran 21 miles from Bombay (now Mumbai) to Thane in 3 steam locomotives Sahib, Singh and Sultan. It carried about 400 invited guests in 14 railway carriages amidst gaiety, loud applause and the salute of 21 guns.