3rd February

After spending an excellent evening on the 2^nd, with my new host Vijay and his family, the 3^rd started at around 9 am, when I joined up with Raj, from Sth Africa for the next round of our vocational visits. We were taken to meet the Deputy Assistant Commissioner responsible for traffic policing.  A lady, who had only been in the Force for 10 years, she gave a fascinating account of traffic policing in this chaotic city.  We all agreed that the only way that it can operate is for there to be blatant disregard of enforcing the traffic laws, so that vehicles are able keep on moving, even if it is on the wrong side of the road on the dual carriageway!  We next visited the Traffic Control Center.  Not exactly state of the art, non the less, it did provide an CCTV overview of some key locations and enabled for a very small number of offenders to be reported for traffic violations. 

The next call was on the Assistant Commissioner Shakeel Akhter, who was in overall command.  After a  brief meet and greet in his office, he took us to a hotel for lunch.  We traveled through the City with an armed escort, one way to avoid the congestion.

During the morning I had been informed that the UK Deputy High Commissioner, responsible for Sth India and based in Chennai, after seeing the previous media coverage of our visit to the White Collar Crime Unit, would be very pleased to meet with me.  At 4.15 pm Vijay and I duly presented our selves at the High Commission and after negotiating security, we met with Mike Nithavrianakis, ‘our man in Chennai’ in the very impressive main reception area of the Residency. Mike gave an overview of his role, especially with regard to reinforcing UK links with the Tamil Nadu Police, by facilitating a greater interchange of knowledge and skills.  I was able to explain the purpose of my visit and as the GSE Team Leader, to stress the importance of local Rotary connections.  At the conclusion of our visit, it was agreed that Mike would have an informal meeting with the DG.