Marina Beach is a natural urban beach in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, along the Bay of Bengal. The beach runs from near Fort St. George in the north to Foreshore Estate in the south, a distance of 6.0 km, making it the longest natural urban beach in the country. The Marina is sandy, unlike the short, rocky formations that make up the Juhu Beach in Mumbai; the average width of the beach is 300 m and the width at the widest stretch is 437 m. Bathing and swimming at the Marina Beach are prohibited because of the dangers, as the undercurrent is turbulent, it is one of the most crowded beaches in the country and attracts about 30,000 visitors a day during weekdays and 50,000 visitors a day during the weekends and on holidays. During summer months, about 15,000 to 20,000 people visit the beach daily. Before the 16th century, there were frequent incident of inundation of land near the coast due to rise in sea level; when the sea withdrew, several ridges and lagoons were left behind. On the southern side of Fort St. George, one such sand ridge ran from the mouth of the Cooum to the present site of the Presidency College.
On the rear side of the ridge was a huge depression on which the college grounds were developed. The ridge is the site of the present-day beach; when Fort St. George was built in 1640, the sea was too close to the fort; the building of the harbour near the fort resulted in sand accretion to the south of the fort and the harbour and the sea, washing the ramparts of the fort, moved afar at about 2.5 km away from the fort creating a wide beach between the land and the sea. Before the Madras harbour was built, the beach was just a strip of mud; the beach washed up close to the present day road for a long time until the harbour was built in 1881. Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, the governor of Madras from 1881 to 1886, captivated by the beach on an earlier visit to the city in the late 1870s, conceived and built the promenade along the beach in 1884 by extensively modifying and layering with soft sand, he gave it the name Madras Marina in the same year. Since the early 19th century, a number of public buildings were constructed fronting the beach.
Since the harbour was built, the area south of the port has accreted forming the present day's beach due to the presence of wave breakers laid for the construction of the harbour, although the coast in the northern region has undergone severe erosion. The north-drifting current widened the beach to its present extent; the beach was formed as a result of arresting the littoral drift by the port's breakwater. The area of the beach is increasing 40 sq m every year due to progradation. Since the creation of the promenade in 1884, there were several additions along the stretch; the country's first aquarium was established as one of the first additions in 1909. Shortly after the Independence, the Triumph of Labour statue and the Gandhi statue in'march to Dandi' stride, duplicated on the lawns of the Parliament House, were erected on the beach. In 1968, a number of statues of icons of Tamil literature was erected to mark the first World Tamil Conference, including Avvaiyar, Kambar, Subramania Bharathiyar and the Europeans Bishop Caldwell, G.
U. Pope and Veeramunivar. Anna memorial was built in 1970 and the MGR memorial in 1988, shortening the stretch at its northern end. Addition was a statue for Kamaraj. In December 2016 CM J. Jayalalithaa was laid to rest here, inside the M. G. R. Memorial campus and a foundation stone for construction of a memorial for her there has been laid. On 8 August 2018, former CM M. Karunanidhi was laid to rest beside his mentor Annadurai at the Marina Beach; the Marina beach was famed for its pristine beauty, jolly ambiance, rich ecosystems. However, since the middle of the 20th century, the beach and water have become polluted. Proliferation of plastic bags, human waste, other pollutants have rendered many parts of the beach unusable. In recent years, many voluntary organisations have taken up the task of cleaning up the Marina and protecting the ecosystem. Particular efforts include protection of olive ridley turtle nests along the Neelankarai section of the beach. Marina Beach lies on the stretch of coast where olive ridley sea turtles, a species classified as Schedule 1 of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, nest during mating season, chiefly between late October and April peaking from mid-January to mid-February.
The Ennore–Mamallapuram zone, on which the beach lies, is one of the three major nesting grounds on the Indian coast. However, with the expansion of the shrimp trawling fishery in the eastern coast of India in the mid-1970s, several individuals of the species are washed ashore dead every year; the eggs laid by the females along the beach are sold in the local market by the fishermen and traders. In 1977, a recovery programme was started by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute. Many volunteer organisations in the city, such as the Students' Sea Turtle Conservation Network and the Sea Turtle Protection Force of the TREE Foundation, get involved in conservation of the species along the coast. Meiofaunal composition at the Marina Beach chiefly includes turbellarians, polychaetes and harpacticoids. Species of gastrotrichs are found in the region. Common fishes found along the beach include mullets, silver bellies, ribbon fish, whitebait, Jew fish, horse mackerel, seer, pomfret, lactarius, flying fish, sardines, sabre fish, hilsa, tunny fish, Indian salmon, leather jackets, breams, snappers, bon
Noé Acosta Rivera is a Spanish professional footballer who plays for Indian club Jamshedpur FC as a left midfielder. Safe for one year in Romania with Universitatea Cluj, he spent his entire professional career in Greece with PAS Giannina. Acosta was born in Guadalajara, Castile-La Mancha. In his country, the Real Madrid youth graduate played in the lower leagues. Acosta started in 2002 with CD Colonia Moscardó, going on to represent Atlético Madrid C, Real Murcia Imperial, RSD Alcalá – his only Segunda División B experience, suffering team relegation at the end of the 2005–06 season – UD Almería B and Motril CF. Acosta moved abroad in January 2010, he helped contributing with 14 games and two goals to the feat. In his second year, Acosta appeared in ten matches as his team finished in eighth position, two points ahead of neighbouring CFR Cluj; this marked his first top flight experience, at the age of 26. Again in the January transfer window, free agent Acosta moved to Greece in 2011, starting with Olympiacos Volou 1937 FC.
He still competed in the 2011–12 UEFA Europa League with the side, scoring in a 3–0 away win against FC Differdange 03 for the third qualifying round, but moved in September to fellow Superleague club Aris Thessaloniki FC. Acosta competed in both major levels in the following years, representing Levadiakos FC, Olympiakos Volou and PAS Giannina FC. On 25 August 2015 he renewed his contract with the latter for an undisclosed fee. On 21 June 2017, 33-year-old Acosta moved to newly promoted PAS Lamia 1964. For the following campaign, he joined Athlitiki Enosi Larissa F. C. in the top tier on a one-year deal. On 4 June 2019, Acosta signed a one-year contract with Indian Super League club Jamshedpur FC. Noé Acosta at BDFutbol Noé Acosta at Soccerway
The China National Opera House or China Central Opera is a State-run opera company based in Beijing and under the Chinese Ministry of Culture. CNOH consists of an opera troupe, a choir, a symphony orchestra and a stagecraft and scenery departments, it is affiliated, through common direction under the Ministry of Culture, with the Shanghai Opera House company and other geju companies around China. The China Central Opera was preceded in Yan'an in 1942 with the performance of the Yangko drama Brothers and Sisters Opening up the Wasteland, the White-Haired Girl; the opera troupe relocated to Beijing in 1952 and was established in 1952 as the national opera company directly under the Ministry of Culture. The administrative offices, practice rooms and a rehearsal theatre referred to as the "Central National Opera House," are located at Chaoyangmen Outer Street Dongzhong-jie 115, south-east of Dongsi Shitiao Station in West Beijing, however since the opening of the National Centre for the Performing Arts at Tiananmen Square East, performances at the permanent theatre of the Opera company are rare.
The company instead performs in larger theatres around China, including the Shanghai Oriental Art Centre, supplies opera singers to television stations and for concert performances, tours abroad. CNOH staged La Boheme in Beijing in 1986 with Luciano Pavarotti and Turandot in the Forbidden City. In June 2001 came the successful Three Tenors Forbidden City Concert. In 2009, CNOH staged Turandot with Zhang Yimou in the "Bird's Nest" Beijing National Stadium, again in the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium in Taiwan. CNOH has toured abroad since its conception, first in socialist countries in the west. In 1988 CNOH was guest company at the Savonlinna Opera Festival performing Carmen, Madam Butterfly, Verdi's Requiem as well as Chinese-language opera. In 2008 CNOH toured America with 10 performances of the original creation Farewell My Concubine. In the same year CNOH performed Puccini’s Turandot in Cairo Opera House; the repertoire of the company has now expanded to "Madame Butterfly, Eugene Onegin, Carmen, La Traviata, Gianni Schicchi, Aida, La Boheme, The Marriage of Figaro, Otello Cavalleria Rusticana, The Barber of Seville Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Le Roi d'Ys, as well as Chinese-language western-style operas, such as Liu Hulan, Song of the Grasslands, The Hundredth Bride, Marco Polo, Du Shiniang, Farewell My Concubine, Countryside Girl Teacher, The Love Story of Rawap 2009 and Revolution in 1911 2011, staged in Macau.
Presidents of CNOH include Li Bozhao, Zhou Weizhi, Lu Su, Zhao Feng, composer Ma Ke, Li Ling, Liu Lianchi, Wang Shiguang, Chen Xieyang and Liu Xijin. Conductor Yu Feng is the current president. Notable singers of the company and present include Yuan Chenye, baritone. China National Opera House website