AI plane hits turbulence, three injured

Saurabh.Sinha@timesgroup.com 22.04.2018

New Delhi: An Air India aircraft flying from Amritsar to Delhi on Thursday (April 19) ran into such severe turbulence that three passengers suffered injuries, the inside part of a window panel came off and some overhead oxygen masks got deployed. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner (VT-ANI) had a turbulent flight for 10 to 15 minutes, something which has puzzled authorities with the airline and aviation agencies probing the same.

“The turbulence on AI 462 was such that the head of a seated passenger, who possibly did not have his seat belt fastened, hit the overhead cabin because of a bump. The person suffered injuries. Two more had minor injuries. The inside of a window panel (18-A) came off. The outside window did not break and there was no de-pressursation. Passengers were naturally terrified,” said sources.

Some oxygen masks also dropped during the severe turbulent phase of the flight. The overhead panel cover of seat 12-U got cracks. “This was a freak high level turbulence. AI and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is probing it,” said a senior AI official.

On landing in Delhi, the three passengers taken to hospital. “Our emergency response and angels took care of the three injured passengers who were taken to a hospital on landing in Delhi. The passenger whose head hit the overhead panel got stitches. Two passengers suffered minor injuries. They are all fine and took their connecting flights after getting the first aid. The passenger who got stitches said he felt ok and the doctors said he could travel. Our angels were with him throughout,” said the official.

DGCA has started probing this freak turbulence and also informed the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB).

AI did not comment on this issue till the time of going to press.

The parallel being drawn by investigators is with a similar situation faced by a Singapore Airlines flight in October, 2014, when it was descending to land in Mumbai. The Airbus A-380 was hit by a sudden turbulence on descent, injuring 22 passengers and crew. Eight passengers and 14 crew members, who had sustained injuries, got first aid on arrival in Mumbai. Of the 14 crew members, 10 had required hospitalisation and were discharged soon afterwards. 


Some oxygen masks also dropped during the severe turbulent phase of the flight

In letter to PM, 637 academics express anger over rape cases
They’re Irked By PM’s Prolonged Silence After Kathua, Unnao Cases

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 
 
22.04.2018
New Delhi: A group of 637 academics from India and abroad have come out in solidarity with the 49 retired civil servants who recently expressed their outrage at the Kathua and Unnao rape incidents blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi for belatedly speaking up on the issue and claiming his dispensation wasn’t doing enough to stop the “pattern of repeated targeted attacks on minority religious communities, dalits, tribals andwomen”.

In an open letter to Modi, academics like Noam Chomsky and writers like Amit Chaudhuri, said they were expressing their “deep anger and anguish” over the events in Kathua and Unnao and the aftermath of these events including the PM’s “own prolonged (and by now familiar) silence that was broken only recently with wholly inadequate, platitudinous, and nonspecific assurances of justice for the victims.”

Last week, PM Modi, had condemned the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua and the alleged rape of a teenager by a BJP MLA in Unnao, and said the culprits will be brought to justice. Thereafter, during his recent visit to London, he insisted that rapesshould notbe politicised.

Citing several examples of mob attacks andlynchings,the letter said, “Many of these events have occurred in states withBJP governments, and all of them after the BJP assumed power attheCentre.Thisis not to associate violenceexclusively with your party and with state governments presided over by your party. But there is an undeniable association withthe ruling dispensation”.

It ends by saying, “We send you this letter because it is our duty to do so; so that we are not guilty of silence; and so that callousness and cowardice might finally draw the line at the broken body of a little girl and the rape of a young woman.”


OPEN ATTACK: The academics said they were expressing their “deep anger and anguish” over the events in Kathua and Unnao and the aftermath of these events including the PM’s “own prolonged silence that was broken only recently with wholly inadequate, platitudinous, and non-specific assurances of justice for the victims”

Trees along Girivalam path ‘injected with acid’ 

Activists Blame State Highways Dept

Shanmughasundaram.J@timesgroup.com  22.04.2018

Tiruvannamalai: At least 70 trees along the 14-km Girivalam path around Annamalai hills in Tiruvannamalai district are suspected to have been injected with acid. While several trees have been uprooted discreetly, many withered trees stand testimony to the assault on the green cover, alleged activists. The Sri Arunachaleswarar Temple is located in the foothills.

In the two-km stretch between Thiruneer Annamalai and Adi Annamalai, and from Nithyanandha Ashram-Kanchi Road several trees have dried up and are on the verge of death in a short span of time.

Collector K S Kandasamy told TOI, “I have directed highways department officials to collect samples from six withered trees along the Girivalam path for scientific analysis to find out the cause of death.” Stern action would be taken against anyone found to be destroying trees intentionally, he said.

Officials of the state highways department have been carrying out the ₹65 crore Girivalam path widening project. While activists blamed highways officials, the latter in turn accused the local shopkeepers of killing the trees that blocked the view of their establishments.

Categorically denying the allegations, a senior official in highways department said that the withered trees were found along Hill Road and that the department had nothing to do with any activity on that stretch. “We have also assured the Green Tribunal that no tree will be cut down for the road widening projects in Girivalam path. We will stick to it,” said the official.

The tribunal had earlier passed an order against felling of even a single tree for the widening of the Girivalam path. “I spotted a huge tamarind tree near Varuna Lingam withering away in January. The tree was healthy until a few weeks prior to that date. I also saw a huge tree uprooted at Adi Annamalai. A few weeks later, I saw many more trees withering and on the verge of death,” said Arun, a native of Tiruvannamalai, who works in a IT firm in Chennai.

Arun, along with a few of his friends, visited nearby areas and farmlands along the Girivalam path and found the trees were healthy. “I don’t understand why the trees along Girivalam path started to wilt in a cluster in a certain pattern. On a particular stretch of the Girivalam path, four out of 10 trees have withered since February,” he said.

S Krishnakumar, national general secretary of Youth Exnora, said they would file a case in this regard with the tribunal. “We have been collecting evidence to prove that the trees were killed intentionally by certain people,” he said.

IN COLD BLOOD

Devanga college scandal: Panel meets registrar of MKU

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   22.04.2018

Madurai: The commission inquiring into the Madurai Kamaraj University scandal, in which assistant professor Nirmala Devi had allegedly lured students of her college to indulge in sex for educational prospects, has concluded the first phase of its enquiry with a sitting at the university.

Retired IAS officer R Santhanam and two members of the commission had a meeting with Registrar of the Madurai Kamaraj University Dr K Chinnaiah for more than two hours at the university. Later in the evening, around 4 pm, fourteen persons including the faculty members and two people from Aruppukottai submitted petitions to the commission. Santhanam said that they would be back for enquiry on April 25 and may question Nirmala Devi the next day after her custody period is over.

Sources said that documents regarding Nirmala Devi’s presence in the university on Feb 13, Feb 14 and Feb 15, when she had reportedly come to the university in connection with paper correction work, were handed over to the commission. Higher officials of the university also appeared before the commission.

Meanwhile, the CB-CID, which is investigating into the case, has conducted a search at the house of Nirmala Devi in Aruppukottai. Nirmala Devi underwent a health check-up on Saturday.

The CB-CID personnel also made enquiries in various departments of the university and visited some of them at Palkalai Nagar. The investigating team is said to be looking for people who Nirmala Devi had mentioned during the course of enquiry. Attendance registers were also being inspected to see if anyone had gone on leave or was absent after the scandal came to light.

HC: Pregnant docs entitled to incentive marks in PG courses 
 

times of india 22.04.2018

Chennai: A division bench of the Madras high court has ruled that doctors, who availed maternity leave while working in remote and difficult areas, are entitled to obtain incentive marks for their post graduate courses. A division bench comprising of Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh and Justice M Dhandapani said, “The intention of the government to give incentive marks to in-service candidates for their services rendered in remote/hilly/difficult areas, taking note of the personal risk they would undergo in such areas, is a noble one.”

A group of in-service candidates filed a petition stating that they are entitled to avail maternity leave and related benefits and the leave period would be counted as service while pursuing PG courses. They claimed that the same yardstick should be applied for grant of incentive marks.

Opposing this, additional advocate general S T S Murthy said their absence during maternal leave would have an impact on the healthcare of poor people in these areas. Justice N Kirubakaran earlier said maternity leave should be treated as service period. Justice S Vaidyanathan in another case accepted Kirubakaran’s contention. TNN

INSURANCE FIRM TO PAY VICTIM

HC enhances ₹20L relief to ₹45L for bilateral amputee

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   22.04.2018

Chennai: The Madras high court recently enhanced the compensation awarded to a bilateral amputee from ₹20 lakhsto₹45lakhs, ashehasto depend on another person even for day-today tasks such as to attend nature’s call.

R Nagaraj, 32, who was a cleaner-cum-load man for a mini lorry, sustained severe injuries in a road accident involving a Karanataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus and a two-wheeler in 2009.

The accident was reported on Hosur-Bengaluru Highways. Both his legs had to be amputated in the subsequent surgical procedures during treatment.

Three years later, the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Chennai awarded a compensation of ₹20.9 lakh to the accident victim.

Following this, the insurance firm, New India Assurances Company Limited which was to bear the costs, filed a civil miscellaneous appeal with the Madras high court against the tribunal’s order.

Hearing this petition last week, the division bench comprising Justices N Kirubakaran and R Pongiappan enhanced the compensation to ₹45 lakhs, as he would not bein a position to moveon his own and has to depend on attendants even for nature’s calls for the rest of his life.

Referring to a Supreme Court judgement, the bench said that the enhanced amount includes ₹10 lakhs towards attendant charges and nursing expenses, and another ₹5 lakhs to Nagaraj’s wife for loss of material pleasure.

The high court bench asked the insurance firm to deposit the entire amount or due amount (if a compensation has been paid already), along withinterest,tothe victim’s bank account within four weeks from the date of receipt of the order copy.

Cancel bail for Subbiah murder suspect: Plea 

TIMES OF INDIA 22.04.2018

Chennai: A police inspector, investigating the sensational Dr Subbiah murder case, filed a petition in the Madras high court on Saturday, seeking to cancel the bail granted to one of accused in the case.

Subbiah was murdered in broad daylight by hired goons near Billroth Hospital at R A Puram in 2013. A case filed against 10 persons, including advocate B William, is under trial. Abhiramapuram inspector P Raja claimed in his plea that William tried to threaten and coerce a witness, Bensam, by offering him ₹10 lakhs for turning hostile, and warnedof direconsequenceif he deposed against them. TNN