Hotel Indonesia 41 years young
JAKARTA: Hotel Indonesia will celebrate its 41st anniversary on Tuesday by staging a modest ceremony in the evening.
The hotel's public relations manager, Meriam Roy, said on Monday that the ceremony would kick off at 4 p.m. and all guests would be invited to participate.
"Our guests will have the chance to enjoy traditional cuisine including kerak telor (pancake made of glutinous rice with fried coconut) and mie tek tek (noodles cooked with vegetables)," she said.
Besides the special menu, Hotel Indonesia would also present a tumpeng (cone-shaped steamed rice with various dishes) and a documentary on Betawi Tempo Doeloe (Old Jakarta), which would also highlight the history of the hotel.
Hotel Indonesia was inaugurated on Aug. 5, 1962 by then president Sukarno. The hotel was built to host the athletes participating in the fourth Asian Games. Initially, the hotel only had 421 rooms in two wings, the Ramayana and Ganesha wings.
In 1974, then president Soeharto inaugurated an additional wing, the Bali wing, which increased the number of rooms to 570.
Meriam said that for Tuesday's event, the hotel management would present awards to loyal clients and put on an entertainment program featuring local artists. -- JP
;JP; ANPAj..r.. Greater-aid-fire Central Jakarta prepares for fires JP/8/fire
Central Jakarta prepares for fires
JAKARTA: The social welfare office in the Central Jakarta mayoralty has stocked up on seven tons of rice and 100 boxes of instant noodles to help future fire victims in the area.
Office head Suroto Purnomo told beritajakarta.com on Monday anticipatory steps were being taken because of the prolonged dry season.
"Nobody expects a fire but they happen quite often during the dry season. Therefore our office needs to prepare food. Should there be a fire, we will already have the food to help the victims," he said.
Suroto said his office has also prepared cooking equipment and would cooperate with the Indonesian Red Cross to provide tents for victims.
The office will distribute the items to fire victims through a coordinator appointed by locals. Officials from the district office will only supervise the distribution.
"We hope by having such a system we can monitor the distribution," Purnomo said. -- JP
;JP;JUN; ANPAj..r.. Greater-education Rp 54b to be used to restore schools JP/8/fund
Rp 54b to be used to restore schools
BEKASI: The City Council urged on Monday that the Rp 54 billion (US$6.3 million) fund allocated in the 2003 city budget for schools should be used to repair decrepit schools.
"The fund should be used to restore those schools that are at a point of collapse," chairman of Council Commission E for education and social welfare Saaduddin said. He did not name those schools in dire need of repair.
He said many state-run elementary, junior- and senior high schools were ready to collapse and needed a complete overhaul.
Data from the Bekasi Education Agency for this year shows that 76,233 children have not had basic education and 277,900 children had dropped out from elementary school. Bekasi has a population of 1.7 million.
The data, however, did not provide the same information for last year. -- Antara