NEET: mock test held 

Staff Reporter 
 
COIMBATORE, May 02, 2018 00:00 IST


S. Krishnan releasing a compact disc containing question bank for NEET in Coimbatore on Tuesday.M. Periasamy
Organised by The Hindu Edge, and Motion Kota Rajasthan

Candidates who had applied for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2018 got an opportunity on Sunday when the took the free mock test The Hindu EDGE had organised in association with Motion Kota Rajasthan with Sri Ramakrishna Institutions as the venue partner.

B. Pavitra who took the test said it had helped her assess her preparation and improve upon it. “The mock NEET test was as good as the entrance examination in that it helped me assess how many of the 180 questions I can attempt, how many I cant get right and why I found a few questions tough.”

She had come all the way from Ettimadai to take the test.

A.D. Sangireeth had come all the way from Coonoor to take the test because he said he wanted to plan his preparation. The student said that he had attempted 100 of the 180 questions and found several questions tough, particularly that were from physics and chemistry.

P. Ranganathan, director, Coimbatore branch, Motion Kota Rajasthan, said 220 candidates had taken the test and of those around 170 had applied for NEET this year. His organisation had prepared the mock test question paper based on questions asked to candidates in the past seven years in the All India Pre Medical Test and last three years in NEET.

The organisation would upload the answers in a day or two to help the students assess where they had gone wrong. It would also send them the results.

Mr. Ranganathan told students that it was important for them to practice time management while taking the test and avoid questions they were unsure of answering correctly, for NEET carried negative marks for wrong answers.

Ramya Ranganathan, Coimbatore branch in-charge, Motion Kota Rajasthan, said with only four days left for the NEET examinations, candidates would do well to revise what they had studied than attempt to study chapters that they had skipped thus far.

S. Krishnan, Head of Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, College of Pharmacy, Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Paramedical Sciences, spoke on various courses available in the paramedical field.

HC backs official’s demand for change in date of birth 

Special Correspondent   THE HINDU
 
CHENNAI, May 02, 2018 00:00 IST


‘Genuine request backed by valid proof should be entertained’

When a public servant demands correction of date of birth in service register neither at the fag end of his/her career nor in anticipation of any promotion and if the claim is supported by impeccable public documents, courts must be inclined to consider the request favourably, the Madras High Court has said.

Justice S. Vimala made the observation while allowing a writ petition filed by IPS officer M.T. Ganesamoorthy. The petition had been filed in 2014 seeking a direction to the Home Secretary and the Director General of Police to alter his date of birth from October 20, 1961 to October 10, 1962 in the service records on the basis of his birth certificate.

In 2007, a civil suit filed by him was dismissed by a lower court prompting him to file the present writ petition. Allowing the writ, Justice Vimala said the civil court decree should be considered as void and non-existent since the issue raised by the petitioner ought to have been considered only by an administrative tribunal.

In so far as the reasons adduced by the Home Secretary for rejecting the petitioner’s plea was concerned, the judge said the rejection based on the provisions of All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules of 1958 was not correct since those rules would not be applicable to the petitioner who had been recruited by the TNPSC.

Though the government had stated that the petitioner’s father was a Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies and such a learned person could not have given a wrong date of birth while admitting his son in school, the judge said the officials had failed to take note that it was his illiterate mother who had reportedly given the wrong date of birth.

Taj Mahal turning brown and green, says worried SC 

Legal Correspondent 
 
NEW DELHI, May 02, 2018 00:00 IST


In distress:Environmental lawyer M.C. Mehta said the upkeep of the UNESCO World Heritage site was in a shambles.PTIPTI
Asks govt. whether it has expertise to conserve monument

The Taj Mahal was yellow and now turning brown and green, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta found from photographs handed over to them by noted environmental lawyer M.C. Mehta in open court on Tuesday.

Mr. Mehta said the upkeep of the UNESCO World Heritage site was in a shambles. River Yamuna, which used to flow nearby, has dried up. Encroachments and industries have cropped up in the neighbourhood of the white marble mausoleum. CCTVs hardly work. The government merely views the Taj as a money-making venture.

“Perhaps you do not care,” Justice Lokur addressed Additional Solicitor General A.N.S. Nadkarni.

‘Seek help’

Looking at the photographs repeatedly, Justice Lokur wondered whether the Taj Mahal in its present discoloured form would end being the “eighth wonder of the world.” Justice Lokur asked the government whether it has or not the expertise to conserve the 17th century monument.

“Even if you have the expertise, you are not utilising it,” the court observed. It urged the government to get help from international conservation experts, if required, to restore the monument to its pristine glory.

Foreign dignitaries

The court observed that foreign dignitaries are still given a tour of the Taj Mahal. This would surely mean that the government is interested in its preservation.

Mr. Nadkarni submitted that the maintenance is done by the Archaeological Survey of India. He said there were also expert bodies like the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), which has worked to preserve an ancient fort in Goa.

“These photographs show a lack of will... when was the last time you visited the Taj?” Justice Lokur asked the government lawyers. When they replied that it has been over a decade, Justice Lokur replied, saying “well, you better go and take a look again.” ASG Mehta, appearing for Uttar Pradesh, said the State could assure the court that steps to protect and preserve the monument would be accelerated.

( With PTI inputs)

Facial-recognition tech to spot ‘lost’ flyers at airports

Singapore: 02.05.2018 TIMES OF INDIA
Have you ever been delayed on a flight because of straggling fellow passengers?

That might be an annoyance of the past at Singapore’s Changi airport which is testing facial recognition systems that could, in future, help locate lost travellers or those spending a little too much time in the duty-free shops. Changi Airport is looking at how it can use the latest technologies to solve many problems — from cutting taxiing time on the runway to quicker predictions of flight arrivals.

Steve Lee, Changi Airport Group’s chief information officer, said that the airport’s experiments are not from a “big brother” perspective but solve real problems. “We have lots of reports of lost passengers...so one possible use case we can think of is, we need to detect and find people who are on the flight. Of course, with permission from the airlines,” said Lee.

Facial recognition technology typically allows users to match the faces of people picked up on cameras with those in databases.

Lee said they have tested technology that could allow for this, and are working with businesses that should have some capability to do this in a year’s time.

Changi’s newest terminal, T4, already uses facial recognition technology to offer self-service options at check-in, bag drop, immigration and boarding. This means there are fewer queues. Luggage is dropped at unmanned booths that take your photo and match it with your passport. You are snapped again at an automated security gate at immigration to verify your identity at the boarding gate.

“Today you take passport, you show your face and you show your boarding pass,” said Lee, adding it may, however, be possible to use biometrics instead.

“Then actually in future, you just take your face. You don’t need your passport,” he said. REUTERS 


Facial recognition technology allows users to match the faces of people picked up on cameras with those in databases

NUT CASE

Emirates crew told PIO siblings with nut allergies to sit in loo

London: 02.05.2018 TOI

Two Indian-origin siblings, with a severe nut allergy, were allegedly told by Emirates cabin crew to ‘sit in the loo’ while cashews were being served on the flight, media reports said.

Shannen Sahota, 24, and Sundeep Sahota, 33, say they warned the airline three times about their allergies and were shocked when the fried nuts were served 40 minutes into the flight, leaving them “panic stricken”, Daily Express reported.

They claim that one staff member told them that they might feel more comfortable if they moved into a toilet with cushions and pillows, the report added.

They refused and spent the next seven hours sitting at the back of the plane with blankets covering their heads and nostrils. “We felt so degraded and embarrassed,” said Shannen, an analyst from Wolverhampton.

The airline, however, claims the booking records do not reflect any mention of an allergy. “We are sorry to hear about Ms Sahota’s complaint. Emirates tries to cater to all passengers specific needs by offering a number of special meals that cover as many medical, dietary and religious requirements as possible. However, Emirates cannot guarantee completely nutfree flights,” the airline said in a statement. PTI

A housewife too is busy, can’t deny her airfare: HC

Vasantha.Kumar@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru: 02.05.2018
Observing that husbands who think homemakers have a lot of free time don’t quite understand their work, the Karnataka high court rejected a Bengaluru man’s petition challenging a family court order directing him to pay his estranged wife’s travel expenses. The court said a “housewife is as busy as a professional”.

Gaurav Raj Jain had said she was a homemaker and had free time to travel by train instead of taking a flight to attend hearings of their divorce case at a Bengaluru family court. The high court ordered him to bear the flight expenses.

Stating that his contention is “misplaced and even shows a lack of gender justice”, the high court said a husband cannot decide the mode of transportation his wife takes to attend hearings. “If the wife decided to travel by air and not by train, the husband cannot escape his liability to pay the requisite expenses,” Justice Raghvendra S Chauhan observed.

Gaurav had challenged a February 1, 2018 order of a family court directing him to pay ₹32,114 as travelling expenses to his wife Shweta Jain, who lives in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, towards travel expenses for attending the hearing on November 3, 2017 and February 1, 2018.

Gaurav’s counsel claimed since Shweta was a housemaker, she was free to travel by train but travelled by air and this doesn’t fit into “requisite expenditure” as mentioned by the Supreme Court.

The court said: “A large number of people continue to carry a misnomer that a housewife is ‘free’. Needless to say, a housewife is as busy as a professional person. After all, she is responsible for looking after members of family and for running the house. To look after the members of family and to run the house is not an easy task,” Justice Chauhan observed in his order passed on April 26.

Gaurav and Shweta married in Meerut on June 30, 2009. In March 2016, Shweta filed a complaint against her husband and in-laws and later a petition seeking divorce. In the meantime, Gaurav filed a divorce petition under Section 13B of the Hindu Marriages Act against Shweta on grounds of cruelty and desertion.

Since Gaurav filed the divorce petition in Bengaluru and she lived in Muzaffarnagar, Shweta moved the Supreme Court with a transfer application. On July 10, 2017, the apex court dismissed her application but observed that she can claim “requisite expenditure” when she has to travel to Bengaluru for hearings.

Shweta filed an application before the family court and placed documents claiming ₹32,114 as travel expenses for attending the court on two days (in November 2017 and February 2018). The family court allowed her application and directed Gaurav to pay the travel expenses. The high court also noted that the apex court “has not limited the requisite expenditure merely to train travel.” 

You could soon be online while flying, but at a cost
Connectivity Will Be Allowed After Plane Is Above 3,000 Metres

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: 02.05.2018

In just a few months, you can browse the internet – or make calls – while flying in Indian skies. The government on Tuesday gave a goahead to the much-awaited proposal that will allow inflight connectivity and enable fliers to use their mobile phones while in the air.

Connectivity, however, will not come in soon, but over the next few months as airline companies, telecom operators and other intermediaries now have to come together to work out solutions and customer package.

Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said that the matter has been cleared by the inter-ministerial telecom commission. Earlier, regulator Trai had also given a go-ahead to the proposal.

In-flight connectivity will be allowed only after the aircraft soars above 3,000 metres. Industry officials, however, said that the tariffs may not be as cheap as they are on the ground. “A lot of connectivity will be provided through satellite links, and even airline companies need to make changes to their aircraft. These investments will mean that tariffs will be high when you compare to the dirt-cheap plans that customers are used to,” an official with one of the country’s leading telecom companies said, though requesting anonymity.

Currently, a number of international carriers offer inflight connectivity, but only after they move out of the Indian skies. These include airlines such as Etihad, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, and Lufthansa.

“With the government now opening the Indian skies to connectivity, these airlines may soon start offering them on our skies as well,” an industry official said.

Aviation Secretary R N Choubey welcomed the move. “A new category of inflight connectivity service provider has been created. The norms for that will be set by the telecom and aviation ministries very soon. By the end of May, applications will be invited by telecom authorities for this category.”

The matter of connectivity in the air, however, is surely a lucrative affair not only for the airlines but also for telecom companies. Indians are one of the biggest consumer of data globally and are also very strong in terms of voice calling.

Top mobile company Bharti Airtel has already been preparing for this move, and has signed up pacts to work out solutions for airline companies. In February this year, the company joined the ‘Seamless Alliance’ — which enables mobile operators to extend their services into airline cabins through satellite technology. Other members of this alliance include OneWeb, Airbus, Delta and Sprint.

Sundararajan said that the Telecom Commission has largely agreed to Trai’s recommendations on in-flight connectivity, with an exception to an aspect pertaining to foreign satellites and gateways.

“Trai had said that foreign satellites and foreign gateways should also be permitted... but there had been an earlier Committee of Secretaries meeting which decided that it should be an Indian satellite or Department of Space approved satellite and the gateway should be in India. So, the proposal is cleared subject to this... all the other recommendations of Trai have been accepted,” Sundararajan, who also chairs the Telecom Commission, said.

Civil aviation minister Suresh Prabhu welcomed the Telecom Commission’s decision. “Exciting times ahead in Indian skies as Telecom Commission approved data and voice services in flights over Indian airspace.”